Why?

Why do people do what people do?

Or what makes your donors give? Or stop giving? Why do your followers follow you?

Not something I can tell you - but Howard Lake's. recent facebook posts remind us of the importance of finding this out.
Now I'm a luddite, and don't tweet or follow twitter - partly because I imagine it would take up too much time, and partly because my old mac doesn't like their webpages, so I don't know much about the specifics (yet). It also means, I've only seen what has unfolded through the status of Howard's facebook, leaving me likely well out of the loop.

It all started the day before yesterday when he posted this just before midnight - something he'd tweeted.

It's my birthday. Please join me in making sure fundraisers around the world are better trained, so they can make an even bigger impact. Donate to http://fundraisersfund.org/ .


Which I liked - and I checked out the link, and like the idea of supporting them (although I didn't, as I'd like it to go further and help people in Eastern Europe, and other parts of the world)

Early next morning - and after I'd seen the first he posted a second, updated version..

It's my birthday. Help me help fundraisers overseas get better training & achieve more: please give @ www.fundraisersfund.org. Please RT.

The next day, he said:

Hmm. Feedback on my fundraisersfund.org ask this morning - it cost me 2% of followers! Nine people stopped following me. Wonder why. Ideas?


Here were mine:

Well the only reason to know for sure is to ask them.

Why do your followers follow you at the moment - are they happy to get info for free, or were they just trying you out?

Did other followers start to tweet about donating, meaning they felt they should too - or if not leave?

Do they dislike the cause, and so have decided they don't like you any more? (Is your personal brand less strongly positive than your recommended brand's negative)

Were they thinking about stopping and this was a trigger?

Did they read that twitter are looking at a change in business model, and think they might need to pay in future, so are dropping twitter?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/162026/twitter_plots_paid_accounts_warms_up_to_newbies.html

Do they simply not like being asked to donate?

Are they ageist and have dropped you because they've discovered your age on your birthday?

Are they connected to each other in any other way, and are doing so as a concensus?

Is it all just a huge coincidence?


I've had a few more thoughts now.

Perhaps, (assuming that his tweets were done at the same time as his facebook updates), they didn't like being asked twice.

Perhaps, like me, they don't know what he meant when he said "Please RT", and this has alienated them.

Now I suspect that it's not the case, as most of his followers probably are au fait with the sector's jargon, and the technology, but the fact remains, that WE JUST DON'T KNOW.

Like a charity that receives an anonymous note saying "DON'T SEND ME ANY MORE JUNK MAIL", or the charity that discovers a supporter has cancelled their regular donation, there's no way to know why now. And if they're telling you they don't want to hear from you any more - it's a bit late to ask them.

What does this mean? Charities need to know why their supporters care. Tribe leaders need to know what makes their tribe theirs, and the only way to do this is to ask. And ask now.

If you don't know why your donors, customers, supporters, followers or fans are yours, you won't know what might change that.

At the end of the day they aren't YOUR anything, you are their something. You need to know what you are to them.

Furry Boots

Something I hate to say, and something I say a lot is that Aberdeen is not like anywhere else.

Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely place, in its own way, but it does have a culture, language and economy all of its own.

Some fundraising events that work elsewhere just don't work here. The problem is that saying that can sound like an excuse, or excessive parochialism. It's not, it's just a fact.

And it's not only fundraising.

When Kate Moss first launched a collection at TopShop there were guards at the doors of the London shops. Shoppers rushed in grabbing anything they could get their hands on. Queues stretched all along the street, and the media enjoyed the circus. The day it went on sale in Aberdeen I was driving past Aberdeen's Topshop at five to nine, and there were six school-age girls waiting for it to open. So much for the massive demand, in Aberdeen.

A one-off? No.

Today I read about Edinburgh's struggles with traffic chaos, created when T in the Park tickets went on sale. In Dundee two girls started queueing on Wednesday for the tickets that went on sale on Friday at 9am. Glasgow's SECC put on extra box-office and security staff to cope with the demand, with people queueing from Thursday morning.

Plenty of coverage in all the press about the demand and long queues too.

Now we're talking about "Scotland’s biggest outdoor music festival". Festival organisers said all of the weekend camping tickets put on sale at 0900 GMT on Friday had been sold by the end of the day, and only a handful of tickets remained for day trippers and weekend non-camping coach packages.

I know a lot of people in Aberdeen that go every year, so what makes Aberdeen different? This.

And what's the lesson? Well Aberdonians do go, they do buy their tickets, but I suspect they do it differently. So as well as knowing your product, you need to know your market. And you need to know if your market is different in different places.

It might be more different that you could ever know.