Love in the Time of Corona
Howard Lake | 14 March 2020 | Blogs
Sad to say, we are all suffering in one way or another, but looking on the positive side we are also faced with several opportunities. Let’s use this time to be closer to our donors and not just shut down events and meetings creating an ever widening distance between us. Your donors will still love you and you should still love them, show this by keeping in touch and being responsive.
- Putting your digital strategy at the forefront
This crisis may even help us to fully implement our digital strategy and to open-up new lines of communication with our donors and prospective donors. The virus gives us a reason to call, email, zoom and use social media to communicate not just to put off meetings but to seal those deals. I have found that if you postpone a planned and budgeted piece of fundraising it is very hard to recover that lost income and often impossible. Maybe this is the right time to move into DRTV. See here for Wikipedia on DRTV if you haven’t already considered it.
- Helping our donors with legacy planning
As Boris Johnson said recently, sadly we will lose some of our loved ones. Right now, many people will be thinking about and planning for something they thought to put off for a long time – that is making out their Wills. Let’s help them and as ever with legacy fundraising we should chose our words and actions thoughtfully. I have done it and even added a codicil as things changed over the years. See how we can help here
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- Moving events online
Many events can simply be moved online and with goodwill may be even more effective as the potential audience is much wider than any you are likely to fit in a hall. Though the excitement of performers connecting with a live audience is palpable it is perfectly possible to run concerts, poetry readings, book readings, auctions, Facebook challenges etc online.
Time to aggressively push your social media marketing to bring on board thousands of new supporters. Spending money on Facebook etc is a far faster way of building a community than hoping for a post to go viral.
We can help develop your digital strategy here
- Helping our local communities
Let’s think how we can reach out to help people and institutions around us and perhaps to set up schemes that may evolve to tackle loneliness at the same time. See the Campaign to End Loneliness here
- Setting up a local Recovery Fund
Our US Director Laurence Pagnoni writes:
“Define Your Recovery Fund: In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, New York foundations (Ford, New York Community Trust, and the United Way) mobilized with national funders (Kresge, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Prudential, and U.S. Trust) to set up the New York Recovery Fund. The fund, run by Nonprofit Finance Fund, channeled crucial grants to affected nonprofits, with a rapid turnaround and quick assessment to determine what losses resulted directly from service disruptions after the terrorist attack. The Robin Hood Foundation had their own impressive initiative. Many nonprofits were able to bounce back only because of this support.”
His advice on what to do next is set out on his full blog: Click here to read the full blog post.
Our donors still love us and want to help – let’s show them we love them too!
John Baguley
Chair
International Fundraising Consultancy
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.