WHEN IT BECOMES HARDER TO raise funds and the notion of success is coming up with just 90 percent of last year’s revenues, fundraisers must get smarter—by better understanding their donors and the different tools and approaches to connecting with them. Colleges and universities of all sizes now have the opportunity to influence and motivate a new generation of donors and get them in the “habit of giving,” but it’s an uphill climb. The competition for every second of attention and each dollar is frenetic.
We’re far enough into the confluence of changes to begin to make sense of what’s happening. New paradigms are emerging from the disruptions in our economy, our lifestyles, and the ways we communicate with and relate to one another. Better knowledge of what’s possible, what’s expected, what works and what doesn’t, is helping us form a working theory of the next archetypal university supporter, whom we’ll call Donor 3.0.
Who is Donor 3.0?
In the beginning ... there was Philanthropy, the domain of the wealthy and well-connected Donor 1.0, and Charity, which was what the rest of us supported. The last two decades saw broader engagement between institutions and their constituents (mostly alumni), with connections motivated by rising costs and fueled by growing personal wealth. Philanthropy reached the middle class Donor 2.0 (representing, for many, more strategic “investment opportunities” than charities). Donors in these first two eras had options and self-determination, but for the most part, gifts represented votes of support for institutions’ top-down priorities.
Five Steps to Meeting, and Persuading, Donor 3.0
It's too early to prescribe a tried-and-true methodology for meeting Donor 3.0 actively. There's still much change and experimentation happening, and each college or university will have to tailor its strategy to the peculiarities of that community. But laying a strategic groundwork will help cut through the hype, navigate among options, and recognize (even create) new, less obvious opportunities.
Donor 3.0, however, will have a much more essential role in defining those priorities. Who is this new partner in shaping and realizing your institutional vision?
Donor 3.0 is the prospect of the next decade—more informed than ever and less dependent on any institution for information. He is connected to more people and organizations, but these connections further stretch his finite attention and resources. He understands that his role in ever-expanding campaigns and movements is small, but nonetheless, he expects to have a more direct impact.
Donor 3.0’s attention is, at best, dynamic and multidimensional, and, at worst, fragmented. Like everyone, these donors are expected to accomplish more with the same (or diminished) resources. They are bombarded with commercial, political, philanthropic, and personal messages, and the lines between work and home, local and global, and private and social are hard to draw clearly. In this context, they’re challenged to make meaning out of too many options and to prioritize, inevitably excluding many worthy causes.
These new donors have changing expectations of engagement. Some organizations have become so sophisticated in their message and outreach methods that impersonal or poorly aimed communications from other organizations are just not acceptable to donors.
This sophistication has created almost a sense of entitlement among donors: You had better know exactly what they’re looking for or your organization won’t make the first cut. This doesn’t refer to mind-reading, but rather the importance of honing a few clear messages that resonate.
As many of our choices self-consciously reflect our “personal brands”—the images of ourselves we build for others in our increasingly “social” world—Donor 3.0’s objects of philanthropy are selected, at least in part, for their role in the donor’s personal brand story. If that’s part of a widely shared vision, so much the better. As last year’s presidential campaign showed, personal identification with a message—in small units but on a massive scale—is possible and capable of making a critical difference.
Our new donors are immersed in a mixed media, mixed channel sea, where economic, personal, and charitable interests are co-mingled. They have more encounters with support appeals in their everyday experiences and opportunities to mix philanthropic business with personal pleasure.
When it comes to actual giving, here too, Donor 3.0 has unprecedented options and informational resources. From low-threshold, low- but sustained-intensity opportunities like Facebook Causes, Twitter fundraising, and blog/badge challenges, to pools of “venture philanthropy” in online giving markets, through the high-touch, tailored services of independent philanthropic advisory firms, Donor 3.0 has more than enough ways to discover and act upon philanthropic impulses. These instruments for connection and influence (including your university) allow donors to customize and fine-tune philanthropic activity. More to the point, they define their own philanthropic strategies, and don’t have to see themselves in someone else’s priorities.
