Responsive Fundraising

The Donor-Centric Framework Helping Today's Leading Nonprofits Grow Giving

By: Gabe Cooper, Mckenna Bailey

Narrated by: Scott Richards

Responsive Fundraising: The Donor-Centric Framework Helping Today’s Leading Nonprofits Grow Giving provides a three-step solution for nonprofit fundraisers looking to overcome the growing generosity crisis.

Since the 1950s, nonprofits have relied on impersonal outreach to inspire generosity from their donors. They leveraged direct mail, mass marketing, and event fundraising to drive donations. In the early 2000s, with the introduction of social media, smartphones, and a hyper-connected world, everything changed. The new normal for everyone became transparency, personalization, and a feeling of ever-present engagement.

In addition, donors also had new levels of access to information to the causes they cared about. They could read curated news about issues they cared about, research program results, and even collect information about nonprofit employees.

Unfortunately, as expectations evolved, nonprofit fundraisers failed to keep up. The number of donors-to-nonprofits is falling year after year. Institutional trust is at an all time low. And burnout from fundraisers continues to climb. If nonprofits don’t make a fundamental shift right now, they risk their own future, plus the future of their beneficiaries.

Responsive Fundraising outlines the simple solution for nonprofit fundraisers everywhere. Using real-world examples from leading nonprofits, Responsive Fundraising explains how to take the personalized, donor-centric, connection-building practices most fundraisers reserve for major donors and scale them to work for all donors using The Responsive Framework.

The Responsive Framework is an ever-evolving cycle where fundraisers listen, connect, and suggest giving options to each individual donor based on what they care about most.

Throughout Responsive Fundraising, listeners will learn what the data tells us about the modern donor and their generosity habits. They will receive step-by-step responsive fundraising plays they can implement right away to improve their current fundraising tactics. Plus, they’ll get a look into how responsive nonprofits are shifting their internal teams to create a more collaborative, successful organization.

The time for change is now. Donors deserve it. Nonprofits want it. And beneficiaries need it. Responsive Fundraising: The Donor-Centric Framework Helping Today’s Leading Nonprofits Grow Giving will give your nonprofit the best path forward.

©2020 Gabe Cooper and Mckenna Bailey (P)2020 Brisance Books

10 Principles of a Responsive Nonprofit

Really helpful book if you use Virtuous CRM. I actually turned Gabe's chapter on "10 Principles of a Responsive Nonprofit" into a poster on my development office wall.

1. Relationships Matter
2. Test and Learn
3. Earn Trust
4. Social Generosity
5. Break Down Silos
6. Adapt Continuously
7. Say "thanks" 3x
8. The Why
9. Generosity is a gift
10. Amount does not equal passion

There's a new book out that I'm looking forward to reading as well.

A must read for the modern fundraiser

This lays the foundation for the way nonprofits should fundraise. It highlights the ways nonprofits should communicate with and more importantly listen to donors and connected individual that could become donors. In a series of stories Gabe lays out the ways that modern nonprofits are losing ground to for profits that offer social good benefits to consumers, primarily because of the hyper focus through which for profit companies pay attention to and communicate with their clients online. Gabe lays the plan out for determining the personas of your constituents and how to think about communicating with them. The time of most constituents and donors getting a virtually identical letter at the same time is gone, nonprofits that adapt to the responsive process will thrive, others will struggle to continue receiving similar levels of contributed revenue.

Awful narration

Cannot get through a chapter of this voice. It’s so mind numbing. Such a waste of a credit.

Content is worthwhile, but Audio is robotic

The content is worth your $15 & 6 hours for sure. But maybe it's better to buy this as a hard copy. I can't quite grasp why they thought this reader was a good fit. It was sooo robotic in nature that it was difficult to pay attention for extended periods to the content without zoning out.