January 24, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
Keep Your Donors: The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships
by Tom Ahern and Simone Joyaux
Tom Ahern and Simone Joyaux, who are nonprofit consultants, offer advice on building strong and lasting relationships with contributors, and discuss how stories, donor newsletters, Web sites, annual reports, and other communications materials can help nurture those relationships. They suggest ways to evaluate the effectiveness of such materials.
Many groups ignore donors’ interests, tell trustees to ask rich friends for money, or treat giving as a financial transaction, the authors write in a chapter on bad fund-raising tactics.
“This disrespect — in the name of philanthropy and the good works of charitable organizations — runs counter to genuine relationships and good business sense.”
A chapter on conducting conversations suggests various topics and questions fund raisers can discuss with donors and volunteers to discover their giving habits, their values and beliefs, and their feelings about the organization.
“Don’t spend your time raising money. Don’t look for new solicitation tactics,” write Mr. Ahern and Ms. Joyaux. “Instead, nurture relationships. Effective fund development starts and ends there.”
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 111 River Street, Fourth Floor, Hoboken, N.J. 07030; (201) 748-6000; fax (201) 748-6088; http://www.wiley.com; 453 pages; $50; ISBN 978-0-470-08039-9.
