CEO Insights: What Is Return on Donation?

A grid of shapes, a portrait photo of Justin Wheeler, and the words "CEO Chat".
January 15, 2020
3 min
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Justin is Funraise's CEO, a co-founder, and a bad-ass, experienced nonprofit fundraiser. Like a true fundraiser-turned-founder, he breaks down the concepts behind Funraise's mission everywhere he can make nonprofits' voices heard.

As a nonprofit, your donors need to feel the impact of their giving. But how can you achieve that and enable your donors to feel emotionally tied to your mission? Let me put it simply... make your donors' contributions feel meaningful and impactful.

Are you driving a return for your donors?

Yes, they're giving voluntarily to your organization, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have expectations. A smart donor wants to see the value created as a result of their contribution.

So, how can you create value?

Get them on board with your audacious vision and help them understand the future gains for humanity when you achieve that vision. When I buy shoes from Nike I’m told I can be an Olympian. When I buy products from Apple I’m told that I’m a creator. When I donate to your organization, what am I told? If your donors aren’t experiencing the return they're wired to expect, they'll move on.

Can't listen to the video? Scroll down to read the transcript.

Video Transcript
The more nonprofits can give their donor base that experience of the impact that's being made on the ground level... there's nothing else you have to give someone, right? Because we're just as individuals like we give out of emotion. Right? Like that's one of the number one drivers of why we get it. It's because it feels good or we know that it's helping somebody. And, you know, that's important to a lot of human beings. And so I think that charity: water has just really done a remarkable job at showing the return on the donation. Right? Where that money is going, how it's actually driving impact and not just like it through these quarterly reports or whatever, but actually very visually everywhere. Right? Whether it's email, whether it's social media, it's in many ways you guys have found where donors are and you're speaking to them through the, through those channels.
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