Lessons in Diplomacy: Coping With a Donor's Anger

May 07, 2008

Lessons in Diplomacy: Coping With a Donor's Anger

Disgruntled donors often stop giving — sometimes forever.

That’s why it makes sense, when a donor gets mad over a real or imagined slight, to proceed carefully and choose your words wisely.

Mark Drozdowski, a college fund raiser, writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education about how he calmed down a donor who threatened to stop giving after she received a parking ticket on campus.

How have you dealt with angry donors? Let us know what has worked best, and what to avoid, by clicking on the comment link below.

— Holly Hall

Comments

Had an donor angry about slow pace of a construction project. They were an odd combo of wanting to be overinvolved (what color carpet) and not having time to be involved at all (travel out of US). Local politics, zoning laws, changes in building inspector were just beyond their realm of knowledge, but they were giving 25% of the campaign goal. To help them understand what was up, we established a monthly call with them to review progress and next steps, and sent them board meeting minutes.

Project took about 18 months longer than we thought from when they originally made their pledge. Project completed and then they wanted to extend their 3 yr pledge to 5 yrs :-( We managed to talk them out of that… whew! All’s well now. Next time, might consider setting up a blog or some kind of online place to share project progress (both campaign and construction)?

— Nancy C May 8, 12:37 PM #
There comes a time and a place where we have to say no to donors – it gets to the point where their dollars cost too much to the fundraiser and organization. Saying no is hard, but I have seen it work to an organization’s benefit —- they end up getting more respect (and sometimes more money) for standing up for their organization & their mission.

— JP May 8, 12:56 PM #
I really enjoyed the parking ticket story linked in this post. I work primarily with foundation donors, not individual ones so I don’t have any direct experience to share on this subject, but I’ve always found foundation program officers to be incredibly understanding of project delays and changes when communicated clearly and early. I would imagine that’s true for a lot of individuals as well. Much as it’s difficult sometimes to be the bearer of bad news, sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and stand firm in your belief that your organization has made the right decision. Then again, maybe it’s easy for me to say that because I can usually just send letters. :)

— Katie May 8, 02:47 PM #

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Lessons in Diplomacy: Coping With a Donor's Anger

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