Vision is a powerful tool for dramatic change. It’s like strapping your enterprise to a rocket. It can lift donor response at every level and take your organization places you never thought possible.
Is your organization’s vision statement a catalyst for change? Or is it largely irrelevant—something that’s hanging on a wall somewhere and gathering dust?
How to Share a Compelling Vision for Each Level of Donor Engagement
If you want your vision statement to become a catalyst for your organization, here’s how you can use it to connect with and energize each level of donor:
1. Major/Mid-Level Donors
If your vision takes donors on a journey from start to finish, it will lead to intermediate milestones. Those “wins” along the way allow you to go back to donors and say, “We got to Step 1 because of you. Thank you! Now we need to work together to move on to Step 2.”
In addition, an overarching vision will transcend an ongoing mini or capital campaign. The “big vision” will let you make asks outside of whatever campaign is currently in place.
2. Annual Donors
A clear vision makes planning direct mail and online messaging easier. You’ve already defined the language of your priorities and vision, which provides a blueprint for direct-response activities. As donors move along the journey with you, unfolding your organization’s vision will provide compelling reasons for people to upgrade their giving.
Several of our partners have seen their donations grow — from $100 to $500, and from $500 to $1,500 — once they understood the impact of vision on fundraising.
3. New Donors
A strong vision provides an easy, compelling context for a welcome series. It serves to inspire as you steward and cultivate first-gift donors toward making a second gift. Vision is a powerful and natural segue to the second ask — a way to say, “Join us on this journey toward this vision.”
4. Planned Givers
Planned giving donors want to leave a legacy. Their philanthropic vision centers on what they want to commit to and how they want to be remembered. A strong vision allows you to align their priorities with those of your organization. It also provides a broader context. As you’re moving toward your vision, you can illustrate how their loved ones left behind can engage with your nonprofit to help see this vision come to fruition.
5. Prospects
Use your vision to excite people’s imaginations. Invite them to journey with you to a compelling destination. Give them an incentive to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
Are You Ready to Use Vision as a Catalyst for Change?
Do you want to use your organization’s compelling vision to attract, retain, and upgrade donors to your cause? Get the free Pursuant whitepaper called “I Have a Dream—The Importance of Vision” and learn how vision can send your organization upward.
Does your organization’s vision have clear-cut intermediate milestones that make for logical and compelling asks?