Analysing Cancelation Reasons

A couple of posts ago I looked at donor’s pathway to cancelling. The next stage to look at the reasons they give us for cancelling and what that tells us about our program.   One issue with this is that people don’t always tell you the real reason why they cancel.  We know this because we never get told that they’re cancelling because I’ve never seen the cancellation reason “Thinking about it for a while because I doesn’t really feel that inspired, then got out of bed on the wrong side and opened an electricity bill.” People tell us what they feel ok with telling us. Its not often that they feel ok with telling us that they don’t really care anymore.

But although they may feel bad about telling us the whole truth, we should never judge them for the reasons they stop giving.  People do not cancel because they have suddenly turned evil. There are influences that have lead to this cancellation which are within your control (change these), and there influences that are outside of your control (don’t sweat about these). Never get upset with ex donors. Its not their fault

Anyway, here’s an interpretation of cancellation reasons and what they might be saying about your program.

“My financial circumstances have changed” – 90% of the time their financial circumstances have not changed, the donor is just trying to let you down gently.  It’s the RG version of “its not you, its me”, in that it’s very definitely you, they just don’t want to break your heart by telling you you’re boring or your breath smells.  What that generally equates to in charity terms is that they don’t think you’re worth the money their giving you.  If your getting a large number of people cancelling early for this reasons tends to mean that they didn’t really want to give to you in the first place and you should look at your recruitment channels. Maybe F2F fundraisers are not engaging people enough or worse, signing up people who don’t really want to give. If people are still dropping off in big numbers after the first few months it means that you’re not communicating with them well enough.  You need to tell them how great they are, how much of a difference they are making and do it more frequently.  Incidentally this accounts for a large percentage of most cancellations files across most charities I’ve seen.  It’s terrifying to know that we are loosing people because of reasons which are relatively easily fixed.

“I’m a Student/Pensioner” – A more specific reason, and likely to be true, but not necessarily telling you what you need to know. It’s easy to make the leap to thinking that they shouldn’t have been recruited, but that’s not quite the case.  It means that they were being recruited in a way which didn’t make them feel the program was right for them.  It could be that they were recruited at a donation level that was too high, or they felt that their donation was too small to make a difference.  It could be that, as with the “financial circumstances” they weren’t engaged enough. Again this could be a reason with the recruitment channel, but it might not be as simple as bringing on the wrong people, they might be bringing them on in the wrong way.

“I’ve just become unemployed/I’m going traveling for a year” – This is completely out of your control sadly, but it if it’s any consolation getting this means that your doing your job.  By telling you that it’s a limited period of time that they wont be able to give for, they  are keeping the door open for giving to you in the future. Invite them to stay on email lists and certainly flag them for reactivation programs.

“I don’t like this thing your organisation did” – Going back to the Buckaroo theory of cancellation, this must have been the last of several straws.   Komen for the Cure’s withdrawal of support for Programs with Planned Parenthood programs  is a recent and well known example of this. When decisions are made  that move away from an organisations’ normal operations or values, they are usually made at high level and with the understanding that this will upset some of your supporter base.  This hopefully gives you time to plan a clear and concise explanation of the charities actions that can be communicated to supporters.   The other side of the coin is if people are coming into your organisation with false expectations about what you are or what you does. One of the reasons why clarity of message is so important in the recruitment process.

Terrible ideas for Face to Face programs thought up by people who clearly have never done any face to face

During my time as an account manager for a face to face agency I learned that all new client contacts would go through a similar journey at the start of their tenure.  They would start off over compensating for their initial discomfort in working with F2F. They would eulogise about the benefits and even offer to go out and campaign with the team (although when push came to shove this rarely happened). This enthusiasm is really positive and should only be encouraged, but the stage that followed was just a little awkward.

After 3-6 months they would often try to start suggesting “innovations” to the program.  There is nothing wrong with innovation, but the issue was that these “improvements” would never make sense to anyone with any experience of the practicalities of running a team of Fundraisers on the street. Oddly their seemed to be a psychic connection between these clients that forced them to suggest the same ideas one after the other.  So if you are new to your job running an F2F program, please take note not to suggest the ideas below, this will save you uncomfortable exasperated conversations with you account managers.

Balloons and/or sweets

A fairly innocuous one to start with. The idea behind it seems to be a way of attracting children to a shopping Centre stall.  If the children are there then they surely the parents will want to stick around, listen to the pitch and sign up. The first comes from the assumption that parents want their children to accept candy from strangers, generally the opposite is advised. Accusations of bribery are also likely to follow and you’ll be lucky to find a shopping centre that wants its aisles covered in deflated balloons or sweet wrappers. Last but not least, public liability insurers tend to look unfavourably on the use of compressed gas and choking hazards around members of the public.

Thank you for listening cards

There is some logic behind this.  It’s certainly true that a large number of people ask for more information on the streets and so giving them a reminder pointing them to a website might work.  Sadly though, of the people who ask for more information, most are just doing it to politely get out of the conversation and have no intention of ever giving to your charity. Of the rest some will want to sign up when given a little more information from the fundraiser and those with a genuine desire to do some deep research will do so without a card to remind them.  What the thank you for listening card does do is give the fundraiser, especially a new one, a false sense of success. When asked how they’re doing, they tell you that they’ve had a brilliant day because although they haven’t signed anyone up, eh have given out 400 cards.  Thank you for listening cards do have a couple of great uses however; for handing to people who are inappropriate to sign up while leaving them on a good note and for getting rid of time wasters

Funky pitch cards

Pitch cards, for those who don’t know, are an A3 or A4 laminated cards used help Fundraisers out when they can’t remember what they’re supposed to say next or to point at for emphasis. They’re simplicity sadly makes them ripe for pointless reinvention attempts.  There have been a variety of things tried which remind me of early attempts to redesign airplanes, you know the ones that have 14 sets of wings stacked on top of each other and look really impressive for 3 seconds before they crash and burn killing all on board. To my knowledge no ones ever been killed by a pitch card, but the heroic failure can’t be counted, even with my socks off.  I’ve seen pitch cards with intricate folding mechanisms that make it impossible for the fundraiser to open.  I’ve seen pitch booklets that allow the fundraiser to choose a variety of topics to talk about, if they can convince the donor to stick around long enough for them to find the write page. Pitch cards with interchangeable sheets sounded like a cost effective way of keeping them up to date before it was realised that interchangeable was a synonym for easily losable.

Other innovations that crop up quite frequently include getting the agency to Fundraisers “interesting” locations like music festivals (the people who chose talking to fundraisers over spending time with their friends or watching band are rarely sober or serious).  Suggesting changes to the agency’s payment model that would see the agency go under in a week while favouring the client.  One of the few ideas from a client I really liked was when a client told me that account manager role we were recruiting for was drastically underpaid and we wouldn’t find anyone decent for that salary. Although on second thoughts this was maybe a comment on my skills.

There is also a special place in hell left for the client who revises their “product” without warning or consultation, but that in itself will get its own post.

As mentioned at the top of the article, innovation is a good thing, as is that naive optimism that generated these is also to be encouraged.  It only becomes a problem when the client enforces a bad idea on an agency.  Working collaboratively with them will see much better results for all involved.

Complaint Plan

Have you ever had one of *those* weeks, where it seems like you’re receiving complaints from all over the place. Just when you think you’ve dealt with one exceptionally bizarre issue another three pop up. I’ve just had one of those weeks, complaints coming in across all of our channels. It hurts because you know that the donors, or potential donors who are complaining will think less of your organisation as a results. It hurts because the fundraisers or agencies who you trust to look after the brand of the organisation you (hopefully) love and initially it looks like they might have abused that trust. It hurts because it means that your dealing with unpleasant stuff, rather than the love in the RG circle of life.

When complaints come in, it’s important to have a checklist at hand to be able to deal with them appropriately and so you don’t loose your mind. Here’s mine:

Breathe

Remember that complaints happen. Fundraising, especially RG recruitment and management require very public interactions. When ever there are public interactions, there will be complaints. If you are not getting complaints at all, your probably not doing any fundraising

Take care of the complainant

No, not the Goodfellas type of “taking care”. That won’t solve your problems in the long term. Your first priority is the person who feels aggrieved  This is the first thing to deal is the person who is complaining. They are hurt more than you are.

• Listen to them: Hear out their complaint.  For many people all they want is to be heard.
• Apologise: Tell them that you’re sorry that they feel that way.
• Reassure them: Let them know that they are being taken seriously.
• Tell them:  Let them know what you’re next steps are and offer to contact them again.

Investigate

• Assume Nothing: Go in with an open mind. There are ALWAYS too sides to the story, you will need to know ALL the facts before making any judgements.
• Speak to the fundraiser: Or, if more appropriate, get their manager to speak to them. Make sure that they know the extent of the allegations made against them
• Check against former complaints: You and the agency should both have a complaints log outlining everything that has happened and outcomes taken. This is important for spotting any trends that develop.
• Compare the facts: Separate what happened from the subjective interpretation by any of the parties. There could be a number reasons behind the complaint; from a misunderstanding, through bad practice or bad management and onto a serious cause for concern. On the other hand the complainant may have an interpretation of events which is disputed by the facts, it could be that they have had a bad day, they’ve misinterpreted or misheard a fundraiser*. I’ve even had experience of people making up complaints because of a vendetta against the fundraiser. The important thing is to only work on the facts and put all speculation to one side.

Take appropriate action

What’s appropriate is always specific to the situation. Sometimes it will be as little as feeding back to the fundraiser how the donor felt so they know not to act in the same way again. Sometimes retraining is required, sometimes a written or verbal warning. In nine years of fundraising, there have only been four instances where the complaint has required a termination of contract.

Go Back to the Complainant

Tell them what has happened. Be honest and open with them. As any PR person worth their salt will tell you, honest will stop a negative issue from escalating and if there is a time when PR decision and a strong moral compass are saying the same thing, then you KNOW something must be right.

Document Everything

Get everyone’s point of view down and the actions taken and the outcomes. This will allow you to spot any trends which develop.  Trends may mean taking more drastic action.
With everything cleared off you can, to certain extent relax. But be ready for the next phone call, email or even twitter comment because another complaint is inevitable.

*As an aside, I’d advise any F2F fundraiser from saying anything after a member of the public has walked past them. At that point even “have a lovely day” sounds like “**** you **** ****”.