A Marketing Approach to Personal Support Development

A Marketing Approach to Personal Support Raising

David Dougherty, OMF/World Team with Dr. Steve Hoke, CRM


Introduction: From my first marketing class at Cal State San Bernardino back before joining OMF, I remember the primary difference between a sales approach and a marketing approach.

1. A sales approach begins with the product and focuses on benefits to the consumer of purchasing and using the product.

2. A marketing approach begins with the customer and focuses on understanding the customer's needs and desires; then describes the product in terms of those needs and desires.

My sense is that support development has largely been driven by the sales approach rather than the marketing approach.

One of the most helpful tools I have found is a list from many years ago of the ten major motives that donors have for supporting ministries:


Motivation: The ‘Cause’

1. Principle: motivated because principle is important. It is right! It is the strategic thing to do.

1.1. Highlight why everyone should be interested in this effort, this approach or strategy.

1.2. Provide statistics of actual need which support the importance of the cause or strategy.

• “The Ache people are one of the most unreached tribal groups in Indonesia…”

2. Vicarious: motivated because they want to participate

2.1. Lead in with attention-getting personal stories that invite them to walk and minister alongside of you in the field. Give them the feel that “you are participating with me…”

2.2. Let them see, hear and feel what you do. Recreate the actual experience for them.

• “I left the house at noon in blistering heat and humidity, to take a moto ride one-hour to visit Pastor Nhong whom I was mentoring…”

3. Extremity: motivated to rescue -- to make a difference in a critical situation

3.1. Highlight the urgency or emergency nature of the situation or project by describing the current situation or project in graphic terms, making clear the critical nature of the need or time.

• “If we are not able to make a down payment on the property by noon on Friday, we will lose our chance to purchase the land for the church.”

Motivation: Relationship

4. Favorite Son or Daughter: motivated because you are their ‘own’

4.1. Remind the reader of your relational link to them through family, childhood, school or church.

4.2. Use language that establishes a relational bond as a brother/sister, partner, etc.

• “Let me be your missionary representative here in Southeast Asia…” or: “I deeply appreciate your partnership with me in this venture…” or “I remember when I was in your house in…

5. Peer: motivated because they feel equal to you through involvement

5.1. Emphasize the horizontal relationship and linking that you share as friends.
5.2.
• “From my role in Singapore, it is great to know that you can share with me from Riverside, CA in prayer and financial support…”

6. Adoption: motivated to take parental responsibility and relationship

6.1. If there is somewhat of a parental perception towards to you on their part, build on that by asking for their counsel, advice and prayer.

6.2. Be attentive to the role they assume in their language in emails, etc.

• “As we face the new years, I value your counsel regarding two major decisions facing us…”

7. Encouragement: motivated by making you feel helped and nurtured

7.1. Report back how you have been encouraged and nurtured through their participation, partnership, prayers or giving.

7.2. Think through what you want them to feel as your encourager and spiritual supporter.

• “I thank my God upon my every remembrance of you…” Or: “Your cards and emails are always an incredible encouragement to me…”

Motivation: Personal

8. Avoid embarrassment: motivated to avoid being judged by others

8.1. Describe the consequences of potential future action which might reflect on them.

8.2. Challenge them with what others are doing with you and for you.

• “I really don’t want to have to come home at this time just to raise a few hundred more dollars of monthly support…”

9. Challenge: motivated by the level of involvement they are asked to undertake

9.1. Prayerfully consider the giving potential of each of your donors (see Scott Morton’s ideas on how and why to do this). Then think of the size of contribution you want to ask them to prayerfully consider. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a specific figure.

9.2. Larger donors are often more challenged and flattered by over-asking than they are offended. Don’t under-estimate the giving potential of some of your donors. Challenge them with a God-sized portion of your support. Share the entire project, not just a monthly slice of the pie.

• “I’d like to share a God-sized challenge that I have before me. I’d love to hear your response to this tremendous opportunity…”

10. Pressure: motivated by challenge and reminders

10.1. Describe the long-term plan and schedule, and inform them that you will be giving them monthly or quarterly updates.

10.2. Take advantage of surplus cash available for discretionary giving at year-end. Plan on making a year-end ask for project money.

• “Let me share with you what our financial situation is here at year-end…”

Always ask for a referral.

Reflect: Write down you own top two motivations for giving to missions from the list above:

1. ________________________________

2. ________________________________

Examining Your Donors:

1. Print out a list of your current donors and write the three-letter abbreviation for their top motivation in a column to the right of the name.

2. Look back over the list and see if you couldn’t create a clustered list of the people whose primary motivations fall within the three key motivations. If so, it may be helpful to reconfigure you list, so that you can see which to which people you could send a letter targeted to their primary motivation.


The reality is that most of us don't know what the particular motivation is for each of our donors. My guess is that it's primarily in the relationship category. I wonder what might happen if we engaged in a bit of market research to try to better understand our individual donor's motivation and couched our "appeals" in terms of that specific motivation? I recognize that this is a different approach than what most fund-raising training programs advise. Maybe it doesn't make sense to ignore "received truth."

The only thing I could offer that might be persuasive is that the "marketing" approach sounds more like "servant leadership" in some respects. What do you think?

Using the marketing approach would require developing a few new tools to (1) discover or at least rate a donor's primary motivations; and (2) develop new approaches to support development based on the primary motivation discovered. I sense that there are some tools that could help in some donor marketing web sites.