Nearly every United Way has fewer donors today than they did yesterday. Donors are disappearing for many reasons: declining workplace campaigns, retirement, and increasing competition among others. If your United Way wants to get more donors, the one thing you must do is:

Make everything you do about your donor’s goal

Our donor research has found over and over again that donors do not care about your campaign goal – it does not motivate a donor to give or increase their contribution, donors do not want to be updated about the campaign goal, and many donors do not even care if you reach your campaign goal. Why? Because your campaign goal is your United Way’s goal, not your donor’s goal.

What is your donor’s goal?

Over thirty years of donor research with local United Way donors has found that the donor’s goal is to change lives in their community. Donors want to know that their contribution has helped a child enter kindergarten ready to learn, provided a homeless family permanent housing, or allowed a single mother to finish her GED, find a job, and become financially stable.

Your donors need to be able to clearly picture how their contribution changes lives in their community. In fact, I would encourage you to think “picture” when you think about your donor’s goal. Can your donor picture the impact of their contribution? I’ll bet you can picture a child entering kindergarten ready to learn or that you can picture a homeless family in permanent housing. If you are going to get more donors, you must be able to paint a picture of how the donor’s contribution will change lives in their community.

Your donor’s goal is not to have United Way pass through money to a variety of local charitable organizations. Your donor cares about how people were helped and not how much money was allocated to partner agencies. It is impossible to picture how lives were changed knowing how much money was allocated to a partner agency or funded program. Explaining how funds raised were allocated is not impact, it does not paint a picture of how lives were changed, and it is not the donor’s goal.

Furthermore, donors need to be able to picture the results of their contribution, not the process used to achieve the results. Talking about the dozens of volunteers that dedicated hundreds of hours to the allocation process will not get you more donors. Ditto for talking about your administrative costs. Yes, there are a couple donors (about 4% from our research) who will take the time to look up your administrative costs, but no donor anywhere woke up this morning and decided they would give money to the charity with the lowest administrative costs.

Donors do not live in the past

Nearly every United Way talks about all the programs they funded last year. Your donor’s goal is not to fund last year’s work. Your donor’s goals are about changing lives now or in the future. Your donors are picturing helping a single mother earn her GED and become financially stable now. They are not picturing giving to support programs that happened last year. United Ways need to stop living in the past.

You must ask your donor to support what they will accomplish this year with their contribution because your donor’s goal is now. For example, “With your help, 17 homeless families will move into permanent housing this year” or “With your $30 contribution, a child in our community will receive a book every month from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.”

To be clear, there is a place to talk about what you accomplished last year. Once someone gives to your United Way, you should report what their contribution accomplished. Not just a thank you for giving, but a clear communication that the donor’s contribution changed lives. Tell the story of how the donor made a difference in their community. Asking the donor to give means you are asking for a contribution that will change lives now or in the future. Once they give, then you can tell them how they changed lives.

What is your United Way’s goal?

Instead of campaign goals, United Ways that want to get more donors have goals like “Fight for 70% of 3rd graders to read on grade level by 2025” (United Way of Pickens County, Easley, South Carolina) or “United, we will lift 15,000 families out of poverty by 2028“ (United Way of Pierce County, Tacoma, Washington). These goals paint a clear picture of how a donor’s contribution will change lives.

If your United Way wants to have a goal that will get more donors, then you will want to be issue focused. Issue focused United Ways choose an issue, like poverty, homelessness, graduation rate, or kindergarten readiness, and they lead and convene the community to make a measurable change on that issue. Their goal is not a campaign goal, but rather how many families are no longer living in poverty, how many homeless people now have a home, how many students graduated from high school, or how many children are ready for kindergarten.

Learn more about how adopting an issue focus will allow your United Way to adopt a goal that your donors will support by watching our free United Way Survival Guide video.

Make everything you do about your donor’s goal

Provide donors an opportunity to achieve their goal by painting a clear picture of how donors can change lives in your community by giving to United Way and you will get more donors.