More isn’t always more: a thought on mid-value fundraising

Since coming back from mat leave, I’ve been doing quite a bit of work in mid-value fundraising.

It’s a part of fundraising I’ve always enjoyed, and getting back into it has given me a few things to think about especially when we talk about the need to ‘treat donors differently’.

I recently hosted a mid-value showcase/webinar on mid-value fundraising, and some of the questions I got from fundraisers afterwards were really interesting.

Things like:

• Should regular givers count as mid-value if their annual giving puts them in the segment?

• Does a mid-value appeal need a personalised note?

• Should the ask be different?

• What does ‘special treatment’ actually look like?

They’re all practical questions, but I think they point to a bigger one: what are we actually trying to make different for a mid-value donor?

 

Special treatment isn’t necessarily about more.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot through a recent mid-value project I’ve been working on. There can be a tendency to think that treating mid-value donors differently means adding more.

More information. More lifts. More premiums. More ways to demonstrate impact. More reasons to give.

Treating donors differently isn’t necessarily about giving them more. It’s about making what you give them more meaningful.

When you know you’re speaking to a smaller group of donors with a stronger relationship with the organisation, you have an opportunity to be much more considered about what you put in front of them.

Instead of throwing a bunch of things at the DM pack, what is the one thing we really want them to know? What is the one thing we want them to feel? What is the one action we want them to take?

That can be harder than it sounds.

I think there’s sometimes a temptation to make a mid-value piece feel ‘special’ by making it bigger, fancier or more elaborate.

But special can mean more relevant, more personal or more meaningful to that particular donor. And sometimes that actually looks like scaling something back, rather than adding more to it. 

It could be as simple as having a much higher degree of considered personalisation and a clear personal touch. Things like including the donor’s name lasered on to the response mechanism or similar proposal. 

It’s not more for the sake of more—it’s more for the sake of meaning and purpose that these supporters get.

 

We’re very good at putting donors into boxes…

Another question I got in the webinar was about regular givers.

‘If someone gives $100 a month, for example, their annual giving is $1,200. So should they be treated as mid-value?’

My answer is yes, if we’re looking at total donor value.

But I think the more interesting question is why we would treat that donor differently in the first place.

We’re very good at categorising people. Regular giver. Cash donor. Mid-value donor. Major donor. Those categories are useful for us as fundraisers because of course we need them to build programs and manage audiences.

Such categories suit us—but donors don’t think about themselves in this way at all. 

So when I’m thinking about a donor who has moved into a mid-value segment, I’m interested in more than just their annual giving. For example, questions like, What life stage are they at? What’s happening in their world? Why do they support this organisation? How long have they been giving? What has their relationship with the cause looked like over time?

The donor relationship comes first—the fundraising category comes a distant second.

 

Does a mid-value appeal need to look completely different?

Another question was whether mid-value appeals need things like personalised notes, special inserts or different treatment from standard appeals.

My answer is: sometimes.

But I don’t think the goal should be to make everything different just because the donor is in a different segment.

The difference should have a reason. 

Maybe the donor has a stronger relationship with the organisation, so we can acknowledge that. Maybe they’ve been giving for ten years, so we can recognise that. 

Maybe they care deeply about a particular area of the work, so we can make the proposition more relevant to them. Maybe they’re giving significantly more than they used to, and the experience should reflect that.

Personalisation for the sake of personalisation doesn’t necessarily make something feel more personal.

Relevance does.

 

And then what happens after the gift?

A few questions from the webinar were about what happens once someone makes a larger gift.

Do you change their future asks? What happens if they make a multi-year commitment? Do you keep asking them through the year? How do you follow up?

I think these questions get to something we sometimes overlook: mid-value isn’t just about getting the next gift. It’s about what happens between gifts, too.

If someone has made a significant gift, that’s an opportunity to think differently about how we retain and steward them. They might need to hear from you differently, be recognised for their support, or have a better sense of the difference their giving is making.

That doesn’t necessarily mean taking them out of every other fundraising activity or wrapping them in a completely separate communications program. 

It means being intentional about the relationship and making sure the experience between asks gives them reasons to stay connected.

 

What are we actually building?

I think that’s probably what I like about mid-value. 

There isn’t one magic formula. The right threshold will be different. The right proposition will be different. And the way you build the relationship will depend on the organisation, the donor and what you’re ultimately trying to achieve.

For me, the interesting question isn’t just how do we get more from these donors, it’s what kind of relationship do we want to build with them. Because if we can answer that, a lot of the practical decisions, what we ask, what we send, how we recognise them and what happens next become a little easier to work out.

If you’re working on mid-value at the moment and have a question you’re grappling with, send it my way. I’d genuinely love to hear it!