Donor Power

I’ve recently discovered the Donor Power Blog, written by Jeff Brooks of Merkle|Domain, a company dedicated to helping nonprofits strengthen their relationships with their donors. Jeff talks a lot about empowering your donors - treating them as real people who want to make a difference, not as ATMs; by giving them the ability to see and choose where their donations are going, you can give them a personal connection with what your company is doing, and how they helped make it happen.

That idea really strikes a chord with me - I’ve been striving to get as many people as I can involved in the Drama Farm, because I really believe that the most exciting ideas come from collaboration (after all, that’s part of what the program is about!) So, why not include the donors in that collaboration? Encourage them to contribute ideas, to be involved in the lives of the students and what we’re doing with their generous donations. Make them a part of the Farm!

Adopt-a-Chicken!

So, how’s this for an idea? We figure out how much it will cost to operate the program for one student for one semester - materials, facilities, housing costs, etc. - and then we ask potential donors to give enough endowment funding to sponsor one chicken’s (er, student’s…) stay at the Drama Farm each year. We could even attribute specific rooms in the dorms to specific donors, and give the donors updates on the student that they’ve sponsored for that semester - who they are, what they’re doing - even get them in touch with each other. It could be a great networking possibility for the student, and it would give the donor a form of direct involvement in the program. It might even result in some lasting relationships that could benefit both student and donor in the future…

Standing Out

I’ve also been reading a bit about how to make your organization stand out - how to make it remarkable and memorable - and it seems to me that active donor empowerment is a good way to achieve that. We don’t want to be the same as every other group that’s asking these people for money - something needs to make them sit up, take notice, and get involved. This might be one way to go with that.

Any other ideas?