Ministry At Scale

During this talk given at the Digital Ministry Conference in 2022, Aly Hammond & Chip Johnston from Virtuous provide 8 responsive mindsets that ministries and organizations can utilize to solve some of the big problems that many non profits are facing today.

Personal For All

How do we treat all donors the way we treat major donors? This doesn’t mean you’ll have the capacity to take all your donors to dinner, but it does mean you can send every donor a personal thank you email, call and text. If you have hundreds of thousands of people in your database of donors, you can followup with all your donors in a highly personalized way based on what they’ve done.

Innovate, Experiment and Embrace Failure

It’s important to try new things and get really comfortable with failing.

Focus on Trust

Relationships thrive on trust and accountability. Donors have rightful expectations that whoever they’re donating to will do what they say they will do. Jennifer McCrea from the Generosity Network puts it like this:

“Resources will tend to flow naturally towards you when you focus on the most important aspect of the fundraising process: creating human connections”. Donors tend to continue giving when they feel connected with and have confidence in the organization they are involved with.

Value Motivational Insights Over Behavior

It’s incredibly important to understand somebody’s intent. What’s their connection? Why are they giving? What’s their motivation for giving? The first thing to find out is “why”. Listen so you can understand the intentions of your donors so you can serve them in the most effective way possible.

Breaking Down Silos

Combining your people, platforms and processes to work in harmony together will help build deep, authentic donor relationships at scale.

Be Abundantly Thankful

Generosity breeds generosity. Don’t lose sight of the sacrifice that your donors are making with their time and money. Rather than treating donors like an ATM, lead with gratitude and provide highly personal and meaningful experiences.

Design Plans, Adapt, Stay Curious

Write out your plans in pencil. Be willing to fail and learn from your failures. “Some organizations will thrive from this increased chaos, some will be unprepared and some will merely fight it and lose.” as Seth Godin put it.

View Generosity Beyond the Transaction

There are often so many transactions, it’s hard to see beyond it. Ask questions like:

What was the mindset behind that donation?

Why did it take place?

Take steps to focus on personalization in order to best serve donors based on who they are as a whole.

To listen to the entire talk, listen to episode #74 of the Ministry at Scale Podcast.