If we want our donors to understand us, we must first understand them. The question is how you do that?

The more actively we listen to our donors the more we will be able to understand what makes them tick. The knowledge and information that we gather from actively listening to our supporters enhance our ability to be better able to engage, motivate, encourage, and inspire them to get involved and support our cause.

By listening to your donors, I do not just mean in person or via a phone call but also in any emails they may send, comments on social media, letters they may write or surveys that they fill in. Being an effective listener, enables you to understand your donors’ views, and their unique needs and fears related to any giving decision that they make. You gain a fuller understanding of their motivations to support your cause.  This leads to being able to make the correct ask (for money, time, their skills etc), in the right way, at the right time. 

If you don’t listen  you do not understand their reason for giving so are unable to tailor approaches to them and there increasing the chance of losing their support.
 
Active listening also enables you to ask the right questions to help you know as much possible about our supporters which supplements any information about your donors that you may have got via their engagement with your emails, events social media etc.

Charities need to show their supporters that they are paying attention to what they are d listening to what is not being said.

Many years ago, I worked for the NSPCC, and I kept my notes from the in-house training. We were taught that a fundraiser needs to have great writing skills and to be able to speak to potential and current donors so that we inspire and motivate them to build strong relationships. It was very similar to sales training that I had received after graduating and beginning in my first job as a telesales executive.  Nowadays fundraisers in training are also told that they also need to build ‘strong relationships’ with supporters by listening to them ‘actively’ and ‘empathetically’. 

Taking the information from listening on board when you are looking at what project to ask this supporter to donate to is extremely important. Effective communication is a two-way conversation and active listening is one of the most powerful tools to connect with donors.

 Active listening encourages donors to express what they think and feel about the work your charity does and how they see their philanthropic interests aligned with your cause

Why is it natural that we have greater rapport and trust with those who actually listen to us? The answer is because it makes us feel safe and confident with people who are really listening to us.
Michael P. Nichols, in The Lost Art of Listening   says that “being heard means we are taking people seriously and it satisfies their need for self-expression and their need to feel connected to others.’’ 

We feel respected and valued, when someone really pays attention to us and listens to what we may have to say, whether that is in person, via email or in a social media message. 

Actively listening to our donors not only helps to have a great conversation with our donors but also helps to build great deal of rapport and to gain the trust of our donors. Ultimately it helps convert these into long term relationships for your charity.