04 | Get Your Donors to Pay Attention Amidst the Noise

Are your donors tuning you out? You’re doing your best to share your ministry’s heart and mission—but people just nod politely and move on. In this episode, I’ll walk you through why your message may not be connecting and exactly how to cut through the noise with clarity and purpose.

We’ll use a simple framework to:

• Identify your ideal donor
• Learn how to “call them by name” with your messaging
• Use storytelling and strategy to speak in a way that makes them perk up and say, “That’s me!”

Ready to clarify your ministry’s message and engage donors? Schedule a free call: https://irisstorytelling.com/getstarted

👉 Grab your free Ministry Message Checklist to start refining your message today at https://irisstorytelling.com/checklist

Connect w/ me:
lisa@irisstorytelling.com
https://irisstorytelling.com

Transcript

your donors aren't listening

your potential donors. They're not listening. Why aren't people hearing what you have to say?

doing your best to share about your ministry, what God is doing, and

their eyes glaze over and they're just kind of politely nodding.

(...)

They're not really hearing you. They're not really getting

time and whatever country across the world you're listening to this. I am excited to have you here.

I hope you're ready to lean in. You're excited to learn how to grow your donor support, how to engage your donors more effectively and maybe get your notepad. I think I have some steps later on to share that you might want to write down and apply. So let's get into it.(...) As a ministry leader,

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you probably feel or maybe you have felt this before or maybe you're going to feel this soon, but just the idea of like

your donors aren't listening or your potential donors. They're not listening. Why aren't people hearing what you have to say?

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Even maybe when you're talking to people one on one and you're doing your best to share about your ministry, what God is doing, and you're trying to engage these people so that they will join you. So they'll get excited as well. They'll have that same heart that you have for your ministry and they'll join you, but their eyes glaze over and they're just kind of politely nodding.

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They're not really hearing you. They're not really getting it.(...)

And that is so frustrating. You're doing so much work and you're trying everything, but they're not paying attention. Why aren't they?

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Why aren't they paying attention? Why can't they get it?

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illustrate this, I want you to picture something in your mind. Let's say you're at an airport, which you might visit a lot if you're a ministry that, you know, where you have to travel a lot for missions or whatever it is.

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You're in the middle of an airport. Maybe you're at the gate waiting for your flight and it is a busy airport. I'm not talking about a small town airport like Springfield, Missouri, where it takes, you know,

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like 10 seconds, 10, maybe 10 minutes to check in and get to your gate. I'm talking about a big city airport that is bustling and busy and you somehow find a seat at your gate. You're, you know, just trying to pass the time waiting for your flight.

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And there's just a lot of noise, right? A lot of background noise where people are walking, they're talking. Some people might be shouting. There's just all this noise happening around you and you kind of tune it out because, you know, you have to, if you want to focus on anything, you have to tune out the noise.

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So maybe you are, you know, listening to a podcast or reading a book, checking your email, whatever it is.

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And you might,

hear in the background some people are shouting something, but,

it doesn't pertain to you. So you kind of just ignore it.(...) Now all of a sudden you start to hear your name.

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Casey,

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Casey,

(...)

Casey.

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And you start looking around. Your ears perk up. You lift your head and you start looking around. Who is calling my name? I have to know who is calling my name. Someone knows me. Someone needs to tell me something.

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And all of a sudden you can hear it, right? When someone's calling your name, you can hear it and your ears perk up and you try to find it.

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Now side story,

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this doesn't actually work for my son and you might have,

kids that are similar. No matter how many times you call their name, they just don't hear you and don't pay attention.

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But what I've done when I realized this a few years ago, I thought, okay, well, if you can't hear my name, what can I do to get him to hear me when he's focused in on something else? And I had done something with my dog where I came up with a very specific whistle. And when he heard that whistle, that means he had to come because it wasn't just any whistle. It was a very specific call and tune to the whistle and he would come. And so I decided to try that with my son. And I came up with a very specific whistle, a call. It's kind of like a bird call for him.(...) And when I had that whistle and I taught him, you know,

this whistle is going to be your whistle and when you hear it, that means you have to listen up, you have to come.

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Guys, it worked. It really worked. All of a sudden, I still use that whistle with him all the time, every day, because when I say his name, he just kind of tunes it out with the rest of the noise. But when I do that whistle, it cuts through everything. I somehow cut through because it's a melody and I don't know. I don't know the science of it, but it cuts through all the noise. And all of a sudden, he hears it and he looks around. He says, what?

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And it works.

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That's a side note like, hey, if you need to figure something out for your kids, that might be something to try because it does work.

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But all that to say, when you are trying to get someone's attention, you either need to call them by name or have some sort of specific call for them to recognize, oh, you're talking to me and then they'll pay attention. And that's exactly how it is when you're talking to your donors.

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Instead of trying to talk to whoever will listen, anyone and everybody please listen to me, you actually start calling them by name or have a specific call for them so they know, oh, they're speaking to me. I need to pay attention.

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So how do you do that? How does that translate?(...) How do you call someone's name or how do you call someone specifically amidst all the noise,

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amidst all the digital noise? You have a lot of competition. How do you cut through that noise so your donors will listen to you?

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The way that you do that, you must be specific about who you're talking to.

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When you specify who you're talking to, very specifically, like you can even picture a face and what gender they are and what, if they have a family, how big their family is, you know what their income level is, all of these things you can picture very specifically who you're talking to, all of a sudden, you know the language to connect with them. The words that you use, the words that you use, whether casual or formal or slang or not,

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all of a sudden you're honing in that language to speak to that specific person.(...) You also call them out on maybe things that they desire or they want and all of these things kind of line up together to where they start hearing their call. Hey, they're describing me. They're talking to me.

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So let's get down to the practicals of how to do that. This is where you want to take out your notepad, your phone, wherever you take notes and write these four steps down.

I'm going to show you how to identify and create your ideal donor.

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Your ideal donor is someone that like someone very, very specific. Some marketing places will call it an avatar or a target audience. Your ideal donor, you'll identify who your ideal donor is through these four steps. And that way this is going to help you clarify very specifically how to speak to that person(...) and how to write your emails, how to write your messages, your social media, your website, all of that language. It's going to help you hone it in so that you're targeting that specific ideal donor.

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And when I'm saying when you target that ideal donor, then that will attract more ideal donors.

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And that doesn't mean that it excludes other people that are a little bit outside of that ideal. It's not going to exclude them, but it's going to attract more people that you're calling, right? That have that, that call that you're using, that whistle, whatever, it's going to attract those people. And that's what you want. You want more ideal donors.

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It's going to be much more effective to talk to quote unquote one person than to try to talk to everyone. Everyone please be our donor. Everyone please, you know, you actually specify who you're talking to. They'll start listening.

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Step number one,

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you want to think of who could be your ideal donor.

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So when you think about all the donors that you have, think about the one or two that are your favorite. Why are they your favorite? Why do you wish you had more donors like them?(...) Maybe they just love the mission with all their heart and they love the ministry and they're not just someone that gives you money, but they're like invested. They want to know the updates. They want to hear the impact. They are there alongside of you through that journey.

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So think about whoever your favorite donor is.(...) That could be your ideal donor and they can kind of help you figure out how to really hone in on who your ideal donor will be.

Real quick, if you're listening to this and thinking, "Our donors aren't engaging well, how can I actually check if our messaging is clear?" I want to invite you to download my free ministry message checklist. It's

a simple tool to help you identify what's working, what's not, and where your message might be losing people, especially when it comes to donor engagement or supporter growth. You can grab it now at irisstorytelling.com slash checklist.

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number two, you want to describe their demographics. So you start with the gender,

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male or female.

Sometimes you could, if it's like a unit, like a couple, then that would be fine.

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But who is really the decision maker?

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The one that is making the decision or has the most influence in deciding to support your ministry.

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So male or female, then age, age range, you know, who are you talking to? Are you talking to like Gen Z? Are you talking to millennials? Are you talking to boomers? What age range that's, you know, that that makes a big difference in the words and the way that you speak to someone is their age, their age range.

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Next is marital status. Are they married? Are they single? That also affects the way that you talk to someone.(...) Do they have kids? How many kids? Do they have grandkids depending on their age?(...) What's their education? Their highest level of education? You know, are they very educated, have, you know, masters or doctorates or are they, you know, doesn't matter. Maybe they just have a high school diploma. What is their education and what is their income range?

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Okay. That's step number two. You're going to clarify all the demographics for your ideal donor.

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Number three is what are their emotional priorities?

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Now, what do they care about? What do they value?

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Do you want to list out, you know, do they love Jesus?

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Hopefully they do.

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That's kind of your ministries of faith based ministry. So you probably are wanting to attract donors that love Jesus and prioritize family, prioritize people, they have a heart for people.(...) What else? You know, what are some other priorities, things that they care about?

if you're talking to an entrepreneur, well, an entrepreneur is going to value efficacy.

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how are you using your funds? Are you using them well?

they want to know that their investment is worthwhile.

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Okay, so talk through or write down all of the emotional priorities, things that they prioritize in their life.

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Now, step number four is what do they want that you can help them with?

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This is where it connects your ideal donor to your ministry.

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What do they want that you can help them with? This is really the key.(...) Once you can really clearly understand what your ideal donor wants(...) and how you can

help them meet that need, all of a sudden everything's going to change. All of a sudden it goes from come, come, join me, look at me and help us do this, to I want to empower you, talking to the donor, and solve the problem that you have.(...) And this is going to be, you probably are already thinking about it, this is going to be some sort of I want to make a difference, right? The donor has this desire to

have purpose, to make a difference, to help people, right? That are

maybe vulnerable, help people know Jesus, help kids in the foster care system, whatever the ministry is,

(...)

whatever, whoever you minister to, your donor cares about it. And your donor cares about those people as well.

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But what they want is to feel like they're doing something good, right? In their life they have, they want that fulfillment that comes from helping others and empowering other people and helping them out of their situation.(...) That is like feels good to do that. And the donor has that desire, right? Maybe they are just kind of in their day-to-day life and it just kind of feels boring, right? They're working their nine to five and they have their family and everything's great, but they want to do more, they want to give more, they want to fulfill that need to help others.

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So even though it's, yes, they are helping other people, you're helping them fulfill that need.

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Does that make sense?(...) I hope that I'm not losing you because this really is the key to everything, to your whole messaging. You must know clearly the problem that you help your donor solve.

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Because you, of course, you're solving the problem that the people you minister to, you know their problem and you know how to solve it. But don't forget, your donor also has a problem and you can help them solve it.

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And we'll get more into the story part and how that works, but you can help them solve that problem by them solving the other problem that your, the people that you minister to need.

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They solve that problem and then they also solve their, that, they also solve their own problem of fulfilling that need of doing more, having purpose,(...) experiencing the joy and the, the, I don't know, the activation that comes from helping someone else.

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So, okay.

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So that's number four.

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And let me give you one bonus step.(...) The last bonus step is give this ideal donor a name.

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Any name it can be. Obviously you want something that represents kind of their demographics a little bit, but it doesn't have to be anything special. Give them a name just for you to know internally or for your ministry to know internally your team. This is not something public. You're not going to share this with anyone, but if you give that ideal donor a name, all of a sudden it just helps you talk about that ideal donor with your team or with yourself or it just gives you language language around it. So you can more clearly define what you're talking about. So when you're talking with your ministry about how to, you know, hone in some sort of message, you'll say, okay, well, what does Casey want? Or what does Nick want? What is their desire?

what would Nick think about this? Or how do I talk to Nick about this? How do I word this to Nick? How do I ask Nick about this? What does Nick think about all of a sudden, you know, it's not just this vague ideal donor. You have a name and you know exactly who you're talking about. It's going to make everything kind of come together a lot easier and with a lot more clarity just by giving them a name.

All right. We're going to wrap this up. Once you are crystal clear on your ideal donor, you've done those four steps and you've given them a name. Now you can specify your language to speak to them. We've talked about this. Once you can specify the language, you can even use...

qualifiers when you're talking to them.

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So to the male entrepreneur that wants to make a bigger investment in people.

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Right? So all of a sudden you're using qualifiers because you know who your ideal donor is and that will help their ears perk up and start listening. Oh, I am a male entrepreneur and I want my investment to,

make a bigger impact in people.(...) So yes, that's me. I'm going to listen.(...) Right? Because you're talking to that donor and you're talking about the problem that they have, the desire that they want.

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Okay? And secondly, it's going to attract more ideal donors. We've talked through this. If you can narrow down who you're talking to very specifically, you're going to attract more of those same people. Oh, I'm also a male entrepreneur and I am a male. Well, I'm a female entrepreneur, but I relate to everything else. See, it doesn't exclude people, but it attracts your ideal donors and you want more of those ideal donors, right? Right or right?

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All right. And thirdly, it's going to activate them more effectively. Once you're speaking to the specific person, they hear you calling them, they're engaged and you, and they hear you specifically call out what they want. The problem that they have, the desire they want. All of a sudden they're like, I'm in. I know you're talking to me and this is the problem that I have. How do, how are you going to help me overcome this problem? How can you meet me there? And all of a sudden you're going to be engaging them. They're waiting to hear the plan and they're waiting to hear, how can I do this? How can I have my investment really impact more people? How can I feel more fulfilled and more purpose-filled? How can I make a difference in this group of people that I care deeply about?

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Once you are very clear on the language that you're using to attract your donors and you're telling them, this is the problem that you have and we can help you with it. All of a sudden they're in, they're engaged. This is not, come see us, whoever will listen.

Come see the good that we're doing in the world, whoever will listen and please give us money.

this is, hey, you have a need and you can, we can help you fulfill that need by this, presenting the other need that you can help with.

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I know I'm hoping that that makes sense. That is clear and we'll talk more about it soon.

if you're saying, man, this sounds great and I hear you and I understand why this would work, but I need help. Lisa, please help me. Help me walk through this. I've got you.

I would love to help walk through this with you to help you clarify who your ideal donor is and then help clarify your ministry brand story so that you can grow your support so that you can grow your supporters. You can engage them well and grow easier.

Through one-on-one coaching with me, we'll take several weeks and do step by step. I'm going to walk you through building or identifying your ideal donor so you're incredibly on who that is and then building each plot point of your ministry brand story so you are very, very clear

on your messaging and how you're talking to donors and inviting them in to a story where their

life is transformed through you, through

the ministry that you are doing. The donor's life is transformed and the people that you minister to, their life is transformed as well.

ready for that, go to irisstorytelling.com slash get started and we'll book a short discovery call. We're going to talk about your challenges with your messaging and how building your ministry brand story is going to solve the problems that you're facing and just make it so much easier and clearer and simple for you to reach and engage those donors and they will join you in your

Go to irisstorytelling.com slash get started.