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What a Worn Out Copier Taught Me About Our Donors
WARNING - The following column is about donor relations. If you do not deal with donors insert the word clients or customers wherever you find the word donor. Thank you
The copier machine in our office has seen better days. She is old, (over ten years) and worn out. She is tired and scratched and often cranky. We have tried gently coaxing her to perform, we've given her time off and called in help, all to no avail. Lately, short of just hauling off and kicking her in the paper drawer, we can't get any work out of her. It is way past time for retirement.
Why have we kept this finicky, hard to deal with, piece of equipment employed for this long. For-profit businesses might have canned her years ago, trading her in for the hot, new, shiny, super fast model. But we are a non-profit and we use what we have, not wanting to waste donor money just for our convenience. So we held on to her. We kept her working. We even believed she was worth it, that the contract that was signed 10 years ago still applied.Foolish us!
Here are the reasons we kept her around and what I learned when we finally decided to give up.
#1. We kept her around because no one asked us not to.
Sounds silly now, but we never, ever heard from the company who sold her to us... that is - unless we called them for repairs.Even then only the tech came but they never passed the word along that we were ready for a change.
Do we do this to our donors? Contact them when the schedule tells us to but if we don't hear from them assume everything is all right and forget them? Donors need to be treated better than copier customers, and I need to make sure I am asking them what their needs are throughout the year, not just at campaign time.
#2. For the last 18 months we have been receiving calls from a second copy machine company asking for a chance at our business. We avoided the calls and appointments because we were "happy" (really?) with our current company. When we finally had enough of the disgruntled attitude of our copier we allowed them in. Wow, did they have things to teach us! Faster, smarter and better didn't have to cost more and they WANTED to work with us .
I guarantee you that others are out there right now, calling our donors with the same perseverance as this company. How long are those donors going to remain loyal if they never hear from us and don't know what wonderful things they are making happen in their communities?
#3. We mistakenly believed that our contract was in tact and the pricing hadn't changed. The bills came but there was no pricing information on them so we just trusted and paid. Big mistake! Big! Huge! (Julie Roberts in Pretty Woman). When we finally did investigate we found our rate had crept up and above the rates that others were offering..
Are we sneaking things by our donors? We have to be the first to share the good news and the bad. If we aren't - we stand to lose so much more than funds. We lose trust, then those relationships we've established. Donors need to have faith that we are doing the best we can and when we make a mistake, that we learn from it and move forward. No one wants to be the last to know, and those who have been
faithful supporters certainly deserve to be the first to hear any news.
In the end, before she spits out her last copy and uses up that final drop of toner, our copy machine and loyal office mate shows she still has something to teach me. Now I just have to slow down and listen.
Maureen Nelson
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