Campaign Communications: A Seasoned Pro's Candid Advice

Jesuit Advancement Administrators 2008 National Conference
Kristin V. Rehder, Principal, Kristin V. Rehder & Associates
June 10, 2008
Marquette University

Notes from Session

Let's see what two critical choices are as you think about campaign communications:

The first choice is very direct. Are you going to be centered first and foremost in the institution:

• Its values
• Its vision
• Its history
• Its future

Or are you going to be centered first and foremost in the donor:

• The donor's values
• The donor's need for impact
• The donor's concerns in the world
• The donor's past and future

I have a clear bias here, and it's going to be toward the donor.

The decision you make will determine at least five things and many more:

1. It will determine how you write and speak—the voice your take. Will you talk about things from the point of view of we, the institution, or will you talk about things from the point of view of you, the donor.
2. It will determine whether and how much you invest in testing messages and materials before launching your communications. If you care about what the donor thinks and perceives, and how the donor is going to respond, you will test. Message delivered is not message received, as my good friend David Gibson says.
3. It will determine how much emphasis you put on building the strongest possible donor relations program.
4. It will determine how you structure even basic giving programs, such as the annual fund, or choose certain priorities for giving, or the schedule on which you roll out priorities. Donors want to have impact on the causes that mean the most to them, not to you.
5. It will determine how much effort you put into on-demand and personalized materials and events that are crafted directly for your individual donors.

The beauty of taking a donor-centered approach in communications is that, as you recognize and engage the donor, the donor connects back to the institution and takes on the institution as a partner. The WE now becomes not just the institution, but we together—donor and place.

The second choice is this:

Is your campaign communications program going to be about strategy or service?

Service-based communications are about producing one product after another, usually a communication that someone asks you for or that is something your institution has perennially produced. At the end of the year, you say how many projects you completeld, not how much money you helped to raise.

I think raising money should be the goal of all campaign communications, and if you agree, then you will take a strategic approach.

There are three dynamics that guide strategic communications.

1. Campaigns are won or lost in pure $ at the top of a pyramid.
2. Campaigns evolve in phases.
3. Campaigns are successful when they:
   • Exceed their dollar goal
   • Raise money toward the stated priorities
   • Increase the pipeline of donors

Each of the above success measures has distinct implications for how you will shape your communications efforts.

If you want to exceed your dollar goal, you must target your efforts to those who can give the most and those who will be soliciting them, helping to prepare the solicitors with the best strategic, personalized communications possible. Take a look at a standard gift table and register how few people it takes to raise 50-85 percent of total goal. In a $400 million campaign, 100 gifts from 300 prospects at $250,000 and above can make up almost 85% of the goal.

If you want to raise money toward priorities, you must form teams and work strategically and with discipline to reach those sub-goals.

If you want to move people up in the pipeline of giving, you must pay attention to engaging a broader base of supporters, and not with newsletters, mass appeals, or honor rolls of donors.

(Note: At this point in the presentation, we practiced working together as a team to determine our initial strategies for raising a hypothetical goal of $100 million for scholarship support.)

Finally, I would like to give you three pointers for campaign communications:

1. We are all overwriting to our audiences. Follow the advice from Bruce Ross-Larson in Writing for the Information Age by keeping your writing "light, layered, and linked."
2. Tell stories but not long ones in print. Use new media.
3. Learn to help others make their case for support face-to-face by developing quick methods of training them rather than giving them a written case to learn. I developed an easy way to teach others how to make a case. It's called the PRICeY model. Something I really like about this model and how you can develop it is that you can turn it toward the donor/listener in our new "emphasis-on-you" model. Here's how it works:
   • There are things we are PRoud of about our institution and its progress right now that I am sure you are proud of too, and they are… (give two or three quick examples).
   • As a person close to the organization, you understand the Impact of what we do… (again, give two or three quick examples).
   • Given your knowledge of what's going on in the world around us, I am sure you realize and experience in your own sphere many of the things that Challenge us most. Here are three challenges at the top of the list… (give examples).
   • You share our values, and therefore you would be a superb partner in helping us take our mission forward. Are you willing to explore that with me now?

The information contained here may not be reproduced without credit to Kristin V. Rehder and/or permission to copy.
Kristin V. Rehder, June 24, 2008