The demands of modern fundraising are greater than any fundraiser can keep up with. Whether you’re a solo fundraiser or you have a team of 20+, the scale your organization needs you to operate at for growth is more than you have the resources for.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe you have all the skills!
But you don’t have time.
You don’t have the people.
You don’t have the budget.
You don’t have the capacity.
There are too many segments. Too many channels. Too much copy, creative, list building, data, analytics and more that are required for effective fundraising.
And let’s be honest.
The technology we need to be successful has not kept up with the pace of how donor and consumer expectations have changed.
The way that donors interact with our organizations has radically changed.
I unpacked all of this in a live webinar. You can watch the full recording below, or keep reading.
Let’s take a look.
The Donor Funnel is Broken
A long time ago in a marketing galaxy far, far away, someone came up with the “marketing funnel” analogy. Surely you’re familiar with it if you’ve worked in communications of any sort for any length of time.
The idea is helpful. But it’s also broken.
In concept, the marketing funnel helps us conceptualize the different stages of the buying journey. In our case, the primary decision is a donation.
But few people show up for the first time ready to give.
We have to create content and campaigns that generate awareness of the cause and our organization. That’s the Top-of-Funnel stage (TOFU).
Then, we need to work to help these new found prospects dig deeper. We want them to learn more about the cause. We want them to identify with the need. We need them to consider taking a next step. This is the Middle-of-Funnel stage (MOFU).
Finally, we need to help them make a decision and take action. We need intentional campaigns that prompt people to say yes to giving, volunteering, attending an event, etc. This is the Bottom-of-Funnel stage (BOFU).
The problem with the donor funnel
Every analogy breaks down at some point.
The funnel is helpful for thinking through these various stages of the donor journey. But it distorts our view of how donors actually engage with us.
A for-profit marketing agency called Meclabs popularized the idea of flipping the funnel.
For a funnel to work, it needs gravity to pull something down through it. But there is no natural, organic force that is pulling donors through our funnel—forcing them to make a decision.
Flipping the funnel upside down shows us that it’s a lot of work for the donor to move through these various stages of the decision process. It gives us more empathy in our communications.
Alternatives to the Donor Funnel
There are many other analogies out there that challenge the traditional donor funnel. They all have different strengths and weaknesses.
Let’s explore a couple alternatives.
The Donor Mountain
I spent a good portion of my career teaching on an alternative approach to the funnel called “The Donor Mountain.”
The donor mountain builds upon the “upside down funnel” concept.
When you flip a funnel on its head, it looks more like a mountain. And it’s a lot of hard work to climb a mountain.
You have to keep choosing to go forward at every switch back along the trail. And it’s always easier to say “no”, and turn back around.
This is a great analogy to help us consider ways to test and optimize our way towards better results within a given donor “funnel” or donor journey.
But it still doesn’t accurately map how most donors interact with us.
The Fundraising Flywheel
The flywheel concept is an analogy from my friends at BuildGood. They use the flywheel to map out the cyclical nature of donor engagement.
They can explain it far better than I can (and do so in this podcast on the Fundraising Flywheel). But in short, donor engagement is a constant cycle that includes:
- Celebrating the donor
- Reporting back on their impact
- Listening to their voice and input
- Engaging them with content & cultivation
- Asking them to give again or upgrade
When you get to the end, you circle back around and start over again.
This is a super helpful visual and model to build your fundraising and donor engagement strategies around. But it still doesn’t unpack how donors truly engage with organizations today.
Modern Fundraising is More Like a Transit System
My friend Ben Smithee teaches on a concept he calls “Dynamic Path Advertising.” A more catchy session title he has used is “How Gen Z Broke Your Funnel.”
In his analogy, he compares consumer engagement to the New York subway system.
It’s a series of trains and stations where people ride part of their journey on one line, get off, hop on another line, and so on.
It’s certainly not a clear, linear pathway of engagement.
Personally, I’d suggest that it’s not just Gen Z that doesn’t conform to a funnel. It’s all of modern day donor and consumer behavior that has changed.
Now, I grew up in Illinois and spent a number of years in Chicago. So I like to compare it to the Chicago CTA system.
Every train on the “L” (or the “elevated” train system) in Chicago starts at some point near the outside of the city and runs all the way to the “Loop.”
Anyone riding a train to get to another part of the city can hop off at a station, walk to another line, and then ride it out to whichever part of the city is their end destination.
I believe donor engagement looks a lot more like this transit system than it looks like a funnel.
Donor engagement today is a series of touch points (or trains) where donors engage for a while, disengage, and then show up again in another channel that might take them to the end goal of donating.
They may have trains (or channels) that they ride most often. But every touch point along the way is a critical part of the journey.
A Story of Each Donor Engagement Approach
Let’s map this out and see how these different approaches play out in reality.
I’d like to introduce you to a woman named Sarah. She’s entirely fictional, but here is what she looks like according to ChatGPT.
Example 1: A Donor Funnel Story
Here’s a quick synopsis of how a donor funnel makes us think Sarah engages with a nonprofit organization:
- Sarah has never heard of your organization.
- Sarah sees a Facebook ad about an eBook from your organization.
- She clicks, reads more on the landing page, and fills out a form to get it.
- Sarah lands on an “instant donation page” and gives right away.
There is a clear line of engagement.
She becomes aware of you and your cause via a Facebook ad (Top of Funnel). She moves into the consideration stage when she clicks to read more and download the eBook (Middle of Funnel).
Then Sarah makes a clear decision to give on the instant donation page (Bottom of Funnel).
Now, it may surprise some to learn that this funnel approach is actually a fairly sustainable way to acquire new donors online.
However, for most donors, there is often a lot more going on behind the scenes that leads them to make a decision to give.
Let’s take a look at a different story and see if it sounds more accurate to human behavior.
Example 2: A Donor Transit System Story
In this story, Sarah takes a very different path to becoming a donor.
It’s longer and it has more channels and touch points. But it feels closer to reality.
See what you think as you read:
- Sarah signed an online petition from you about global childhood education that her friend Emily had shared on LinkedIn.
- Later, Sarah sees a video ad on Instagram from you about a Kenyan child named Amina who now attends school thanks to donor support.
- A few days later, Sarah receives an email appeal from you. She clicks to learn more, but does not give.
- While reading an article the next day, Sarah sees another retargeting ad from your organization with another prompt to give. She clicks again, but does not give.
- The following week, Sarah gets a direct mail piece in her mailbox with a photo and letter from Amina. She keeps it on her kitchen counter for a few days.
- Three days later, Sarah’s friend Emily shares a fundraising campaign from your organization on LinkedIn. Bolstered by her trust in Emily, Sarah donates.
Which story feels more accurate to you?
The one where Sarah comes out of nowhere and donates right away? Or the one where her trust is slowly built over a series of engagements?
Donor Engagement is Complicated in Modern Fundraising
Modern fundraising is messy.
There are so many channels, touch points, and segments needed whenever you create a new campaign.
In fact, in Sarah’s story above, she needed 6 unique touch points across 5 different channels before she was ready to donate.
It’s worth nothing that every touch point along the way could have taken her all the way to the donation.
When we build campaigns today, we have to create this interconnected web of touch points that all have a clear path towards the final destination.
We must understand that not every channel is going to be high converting. But they all have their place in the donor journey.
Modern Fundraising Requires More to Be Done For You
If this new world of modern fundraising requires all these various channels and touch points, it also requires a lot more time, resources, and energy to keep up.
In fact, a simple high urgency campaign with 3 unique audience segments might take you a full week just to get the basic creative put together.
And that doesn’t account for the additional time required for:
- Creating your audience segmentation
- Cleaning, deduplicating, and uploading lists to each channel
- Re-syncing targeting and suppression lists as the campaign progresses
- Generating creative for a/b tests to optimize each channel
- Analyzing results and pivoting directions to keep up with performance
The amount of time that modern fundraising takes is more than you have capacity for.
Even a large organization with a team of 20+ doesn’t have the resources and budget they’d like to have for the scale they need to operate at.
To keep up, you need more of your work to be done for you.
This requires an AI assist.
Using AI Tools to Assist Your Fundraising
AI tools can help you with nearly every task on your plate today.
Tools like ChatGPT and Claude can help you with all the copywriting these campaigns require.
Tools like Gemini can help you speed up your processes as you crunch numbers and clean lists in Google Sheets.
And if you’ve struggled to get ChatGPT to write quality copy for you, I have a quick guide to help. Sometimes all it needs is the right training to get it to write in your voice and use effective strategies.
How to Train ChatGPT to Write Better Fundraising Appeals
A free, step-by-step guide for fundraisers who want to use ChatGPT effectively—without losing your voice or sending bland, generic appeals.
What’s inside:
– A plug-and-play prompt template for training ChatGPT on your brand voice
– Step-by-step instructions for crafting better appeals in less time
– Practical guidance to avoid robotic language and create copy that converts
AI Widgets Are Not the Solution
All these AI tools are just band-aids on a much deeper problem.
Nonprofits have been left behind when it comes to technology and software for too long.
Our tools don’t communicate. Our data is in chaos.
As a result, we get stuck in short term thinking. And our day-to-day work lacks efficiency.
Fundraisers need an intelligent system to run their fundraising program on.
We call that system Avid. It gives you all the power of AI tools, but in a cohesive system built by fundraisers.
It connects all your tools and data together.
It gives you fundraising intelligence instantly.
It creates and syncs your segmentation to each channel automatically.
And it builds your campaigns for you!
That way you can focus on the more important things:
- Relationships
- Strategic thinking
- Organizational health & sustainability
- Getting a good night’s rest so you don’t burn out!
If you want to take a look at Avid for yourself, you can read more and book a time to see the platform here »
Modern fundraising requires more than any one of us can handle on our own. Avid can be your trusted companion to help you not just keep up—but grow and scale the impact of your organization.
