Reflection : Storytelling to Better Understand Donor Motivations 

 Challenge :   I have been working in the financial services nonprofit and social impact sector , focused on   fundraising , articulating impact to stakeholders , and strengthening donor relationships . While   much of this process involves outreach , it is a dynamic and constantly changing journey that is   constantly challenging fundraisers to better understand their target donor groups and their   respective interests over time . Traditionally , our fundraising process has been linear : find a few   great statistics and data points to support our work and progress in the community , draft an email   with a big “ DONATE ” button , update the website to focus on the fundraising campaign , and   email this campaign out to all our stakeholders . However , funders and their priorities change , I   realized , and we need to better adapt to this changing landscape for the sake of our nonprofit ’s   future . My organization has recently seen a decrease in donations through our traditional outreach   ( described above ) , without fully understanding why , given the relatively positive economic   climate of our donor group . Now , in planning our upcoming fundraising season , I feel challenged   me to start thinking of other ways to fill this gap and identify what we do n’t know : what do   donors want , what motivates them to give , and what will keep them engaged with our work over   time ? How can we better understand our donors and connect them with our inspiring work in the   community to inspire a longer - term trend of giving ?     Selection :   I selected Storytelling as my tool to help inspire and empower our development team staff to   better understand the insights of our donors , making fundraising a more donor ( user)-focused   strategy rather than a blind outreach tactic . As per the lecture , storytelling “ has emotional   connection , and it also has larger purpose . Storytelling is the difference between solving a   problem and creating a cause . ” First , the storytelling tool will help me and my team better   identify our audience and their respective needs ; perhaps our target donor has changed , and we   need to investigate that and better understand what would drive and interest a new potential donor   group . Second , we would need to plan out a sequence of events to clearly tell our story in a   compelling way that inspires our team to keep understanding donor insights . And third , we will   need to do a better job of reflecting : not just reviewing our campaigns , but looking at our   response rates , donation amounts and frequencies , and asking our community for their feedback . 

 Application :   I started the storytelling process by meeting with our development team and writing out our   fundraising process . I needed to understand what our current donors wanted , and which potential   donors we might be ignoring in our target campaigns and outreach . I began the donor identity   process by looking through our donor data from the past five years , analyzing giving trends , and   finding a portion of lapsed donors – or donors who stopped giving last year , after consistent   donations for several years . I tried to first understand their profiles : background , career , issue area   interest ( education , housing , etc . ) , and connection with our clients . I built a survey to better gauge   what inspires donors and what made them donate in the first place – and what kept them   interested in our work . I then emailed this survey to over 100 of our major donors who had   stopped giving and who we wanted to re - engage with . The intent of this survey was to learn about   our donors and structure our fundraising strategy around their needs , desires and interests .     Insight :    This survey illuminated insights we had n’t uncovered before : that donors felt disconnected to our   outreach , which came across as data - filled and impersonal , while other nonprofit organizations   were sharing success stories and videos of their clients doing well , thanks to the donation they   had given . I realized we were n’t keeping our strategy centered on our donors , and rather , were 

 finding the easiest way to engage in outreach . I extrapolated this data into basic terms , describing   the story of one particular major donor , Jennifer B. , who clearly stated she stopped giving   because she felt “ she was merely a number to the organization ; while other grassroots   organizations were giving her updates on actionable ways her donation has made a difference to   others , [ your ] updates fell flat . I want to feel like I am actually a valued stakeholder here . ” The   team and I were absolutely shocked that we had missed this simple insight for so many years , and   did not think to stop and ask our donors about how they felt . Instead , we would read blogs and   articles about “ best practices in the nonprofit field . ” We had lost sight of our donor ’s priorities .     This also made me realized that we were holding back the amazing power of people - to - people   connection from our donors . Instead of throwing them data , we could share the amazing updates   from our clients , who were buying houses , going to college , and paying off debts , thanks to our   donors ’ gifts . We could certainly refocus our attention to tying our donor dollar amount to an   incremental change in our clients ’ lives , and share those updates to inspire and continue donating .     Approach :    Next time , I would engage more of my team in the process , and do a deeper dive in understanding   donor insights by setting up focus groups or coffee chats with a random group of donors on an   ongoing basis . I learned so much through sending out a simple survey , and there is ample   opportunity to continue understanding our stakeholders by making this a proactive , continuous   learning process , rather than a reactive one . We can continue understanding the drivers and   motivations of our donors by meeting with them and sharing stories of those engagements at   weekly staff meetings , alongside our client stories . By understanding those who we help and   those who help us do our work in the same setting , we can impact more lives and more deeply   engage our staff with our outreach creatively and proactively . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Reflection : Storytelling to Better Understand Donor Motivations 

 Challenge :   I have been working in the financial services nonprofit and social impact sector , focused on   fundraising , articulating impact to stakeholders , and strengthening donor relationships . While   much of this process involves outreach , it is a dynamic and constantly changing journey that is   constantly challenging fundraisers to better understand their target donor groups and their   respective interests over time . Traditionally , our fundraising process has been linear : find a few   great statistics and data points to support our work and progress in the community , draft an email   with a big “ DONATE ” button , update the website to focus on the fundraising campaign , and   email this campaign out to all our stakeholders . However , funders and their priorities change , I   realized , and we need to better adapt to this changing landscape for the sake of our nonprofit ’s   future . My organization has recently seen a decrease in donations through our traditional outreach   ( described above ) , without fully understanding why , given the relatively positive economic   climate of our donor group . Now , in planning our upcoming fundraising season , I feel challenged   me to start thinking of other ways to fill this gap and identify what we do n’t know : what do   donors want , what motivates them to give , and what will keep them engaged with our work over   time ? How can we better understand our donors and connect them with our inspiring work in the   community to inspire a longer - term trend of giving ?     Selection :   I selected Storytelling as my tool to help inspire and empower our development team staff to   better understand the insights of our donors , making fundraising a more donor ( user)-focused   strategy rather than a blind outreach tactic . As per the lecture , storytelling “ has emotional   connection , and it also has larger purpose . Storytelling is the difference between solving a   problem and creating a cause . ” First , the storytelling tool will help me and my team better   identify our audience and their respective needs ; perhaps our target donor has changed , and we   need to investigate that and better understand what would drive and interest a new potential donor   group . Second , we would need to plan out a sequence of events to clearly tell our story in a   compelling way that inspires our team to keep understanding donor insights . And third , we will   need to do a better job of reflecting : not just reviewing our campaigns , but looking at our   response rates , donation amounts and frequencies , and asking our community for their feedback . 

 Application :   I started the storytelling process by meeting with our development team and writing out our   fundraising process . I needed to understand what our current donors wanted , and which potential   donors we might be ignoring in our target campaigns and outreach . I began the donor identity   process by looking through our donor data from the past five years , analyzing giving trends , and   finding a portion of lapsed donors – or donors who stopped giving last year , after consistent   donations for several years . I tried to first understand their profiles : background , career , issue area   interest ( education , housing , etc . ) , and connection with our clients . I built a survey to better gauge   what inspires donors and what made them donate in the first place – and what kept them   interested in our work . I then emailed this survey to over 100 of our major donors who had   stopped giving and who we wanted to re - engage with . The intent of this survey was to learn about   our donors and structure our fundraising strategy around their needs , desires and interests .     Insight :    This survey illuminated insights we had n’t uncovered before : that donors felt disconnected to our   outreach , which came across as data - filled and impersonal , while other nonprofit organizations   were sharing success stories and videos of their clients doing well , thanks to the donation they   had given . I realized we were n’t keeping our strategy centered on our donors , and rather , were 

 finding the easiest way to engage in outreach . I extrapolated this data into basic terms , describing   the story of one particular major donor , Jennifer B. , who clearly stated she stopped giving   because she felt “ she was merely a number to the organization ; while other grassroots   organizations were giving her updates on actionable ways her donation has made a difference to   others , [ your ] updates fell flat . I want to feel like I am actually a valued stakeholder here . ” The   team and I were absolutely shocked that we had missed this simple insight for so many years , and   did not think to stop and ask our donors about how they felt . Instead , we would read blogs and   articles about “ best practices in the nonprofit field . ” We had lost sight of our donor ’s priorities .     This also made me realized that we were holding back the amazing power of people - to - people   connection from our donors . Instead of throwing them data , we could share the amazing updates   from our clients , who were buying houses , going to college , and paying off debts , thanks to our   donors ’ gifts . We could certainly refocus our attention to tying our donor dollar amount to an   incremental change in our clients ’ lives , and share those updates to inspire and continue donating .     Approach :    Next time , I would engage more of my team in the process , and do a deeper dive in understanding   donor insights by setting up focus groups or coffee chats with a random group of donors on an   ongoing basis . I learned so much through sending out a simple survey , and there is ample   opportunity to continue understanding our stakeholders by making this a proactive , continuous   learning process , rather than a reactive one . We can continue understanding the drivers and   motivations of our donors by meeting with them and sharing stories of those engagements at   weekly staff meetings , alongside our client stories . By understanding those who we help and   those who help us do our work in the same setting , we can impact more lives and more deeply   engage our staff with our outreach creatively and proactively .
### Output: 