13 | Low Donor Growth? 3 Things to Prioritize in Your Donor Communication

Are you pouring countless hours into websites, social media, and updates—yet still not seeing donor engagement or ministry growth? You’re not alone. Many women ministry leaders feel spread thin, juggling every role and wondering if their efforts are really making a difference.

In this episode I share a clear starting point for leaders who feel frustrated, overlooked, or ready to give up on communication strategies that aren’t working.

You’ll discover:

• Why trying to do “all the things” is keeping you stuck
• The first steps toward clarity in your ministry communication
• How to simplify your message so donors actually listen and respond

If you’ve been searching for a way to connect with donors without burning out, this episode will point you in the right direction and give you a framework for moving forward.

👉 Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Lisa: irisstorytelling.com/workshop

Similar Episodes: 

05 | 7 steps to engage Your donor: The Story Structure

04 | Get Your Donors to Pay Attention Amidst the Noise

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

👉 Grab your free Ministry Newsletter Guide to easily write those updates that your donors want to read: https://irisstorytelling.com/guide

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

Transcript

1:00:00

now you're spread super thin even more thin right because you're still wearing all the other hats for your ministry but you're like I don't know what to do and all the things that I'm doing I'm putting so much time into and it's not working I'm not getting engagement our ministry is not getting growth we're struggling(Upbeat Music) Thank you for joining me today. I am thrilled that you're here and I am expected that God will speak to you through this episode. And with that in mind, I just want to pray real quick before we start. Lord, I just thank you for each and every person that you've led to this episode. They are here expected. They're here because they love you and they want to just be good stewards of the ministry that you've put them in. They're in a position of leadership and there's a lot on their shoulders. And I just pray that you would speak through me, whatever you have for them in this episode, that you would just, you know, use my mouth and put your words in my mouth and speak to their hearts that it would be encouraging, that it would be challenging if they need that. And just do your work in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so I'm excited for this episode. I say that every time. I'm excited for all episodes, but I really do love talking with you and sharing with you. And if you hear that, that's like there's the big thunderstorm outside. But in any case, if you have been listening for a while, if you've listened to several of my episodes and you have really enjoyed them, I would love if you just took five seconds right now to leave a five star review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, whatever you're on. That would help so much just for this podcast to reach more people, more ministry leaders like you to get clear and get some good tips on how to clarify their communication. So please just take five seconds right now to leave me a five star review. I would be so blessed by that. And for those of you who are, you're just in it. You're in the ministry position and you're in a leadership position and you are just frustrated don't seem to be working. You know, you're trying everything you can to communicate your ministry clearly, but you don't know what words to use or they don't seem to be connecting with donors. And you may be trying all the things, trying to be on all the platforms on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and here and there. And it's still like not working and you're just spreading yourself thin. And you're like, I just need something to simplify this for me. I need a plan and some sort of structure. So I'm not tearing my hair out over this and I'm not burning myself out so easily. I'm just trying to communicate what our ministry does and what God is doing through it so that people will get it. And so that you grow your donor support and you grow the support of people like just teaming up with you, right? Praying with you and people who understand that this is important. I just want to say to you that I offer one-on-one coaching to help you with exactly this. To clarify the way that you're communicating what your ministry is about so that donors will engage and be activated to be a part of it. over the course of four weeks, I work with you one-on-one and we clarify who your ideal donor is. We go through a whole process to clarify who it is that you are trying to talk to and bring onto your team of support. So clarifying your ideal donor and then we go through a process of clarifying what your brand story is. This really in simple terms means how you are going to communicate your message of what your ministry does to your donor. In a such a simple and structured way to where we're using the power of storytelling. I have some really good episodes talking about the power of storytelling but we use the power of story to simplify your message and make it so clear and so direct that it doesn't take much. In one sentence or even in a few sentences, you can clearly say this is who I'm talking to. This is my donor and this is your problem and this is what our ministry is and what we do to solve this other problem and everything just connects so simply and so clearly and then you use that framework and that message for everything else. All of your communication is now simplified through that one brand message, that one brand story. It's so fantastic. I cannot tell you how much freedom you can get from it because all of a sudden it's like, oh well this is my brand story and okay well I know now how to apply it to my website and I know how to email a potential donor. I know how to talk about this one-on-one where it's like very quickly super clear what we do and how the donor can be part of that story and it'll activate them. They'll feel inspired instead of looking at you with like blank eyes you know. What are you talking about and I'm trying to understand but I don't quite get it. I don't know why this is important and I don't know what has to do with me. Instead of that look you get your donors like right away they understand and they feel inspired to be part of your team. This is possible So I invite you to one-on-one coaching with me and you can learn more by going to irisstorytelling.com slash workshop that's irisstorytelling.com slash workshop. Cool let's get into the episode today. I just want to speak to you who are kind of trying to start from scratch or maybe you think maybe I should start from scratch on how to communicate what my ministry does so that donors will actually care. They'll actually engage. They'll actually like want to join our team in that way of support right financially, prayerfully, prayerfully. I don't know if that's a word pray in prayer we'll go with that in prayer. So whether you are just starting out or you have done it for a while you've been in ministry for a while but what you have done is not working and you still don't know how to clearly communicate in a way that is activating your donors. Okay so that's super fun. first thing I want to do is talk about some distractions things that you may have been putting a lot of time and effort into but they are not actually helping you. You may have looked around and seen what are other people doing this is not my area of expertise I'm trying to wear all these hats and marketing and communications and all this stuff and donor relations and so it is a lot. So you just kind of look around what are other people doing you know people have a beautiful website okay maybe I should spend all my time on a website. People have social media and social media is such a large term now because within that you have all these platforms. So maybe you're like okay well I have to be on instagram everyone's on instagram am I saying that right instagram I have to be on facebook of course everyone has a facebook and they have a facebook page and they have you know they have to post their stuff on there and updates and have to be active and have to be on youtube a lot of people are doing youtube and doing videos and updates on there so that maybe we should try that maybe some of you are on tiktok I mean bless you I've never tried tiktok thankfully I probably never will and those things aren't bad but they're really distracting you from the things that really matter so maybe you are spending time on creating a logo for your business well maybe our logo needs to be updated so it looks nicer looks more professional and so you have all these things and you might just not know where to start or where to put your focus or where to put your energy into and now you're spread super thin even more thin right because you're still wearing all the other hats for your ministry but you're like I don't know what to do and all the things that I'm doing I'm putting so much time into and it's not working I'm not getting engagement our ministry is not getting growth we're struggling so I want to help you by helping you focus on three main things that you can start with so let's say you're starting from scratch or you come to a place where I where you say I need to start from scratch let's do this okay so the three main things to start with and to focus on number one you need to define your donor audience this is not everyone okay so many of you might think what do you mean my donor audience I mean that you you don't want to be trying to convince everyone when you think of donors don't think of well for everyone anyone can give right anyone can be a donor we want anyone that will listen anyone and everyone it sounds right but the fact is and there's this saying that says when you try to talk to everyone you're talking to no one when you don't define specifically who you are talking to then it's hard for people to listen I had this there's another episode I talked about kind of a way to kind of explain this so imagine you're in a busy very busy bustling airport and you're sitting down and there's just a lot of noise and a lot of things happening around you and you hear someone shouting in the background you know to who knows who you know everyone and anyone that will listen but you tune them out because that's not for you you know they're they're not talking specifically to you so you tune it out okay do you know where I'm going with this um now imagine that someone starts yelling your name in that same busy environment and noisy environment they start shouting your name of course your ears will perk up I hear my name and then you lift your head and you turn to the left to the right who is talking to me who is trying to say something to me and that's exactly what happens when you define who your donor is specifically because a donor in reality is just another human being and there are many human beings there are many donors of different styles you know different things that speak to their heart different um they have different goals different ambitions so what will speak to one donor may not speak to another but if you can hone in on who exactly you are talking to and it shifts the way that you talk to them and you kind of call them out and they they recognize oh they're talking to me someone has something to say to me all of a sudden they're gonna listen much more effective than if you try to talk to anyone and everyone that will listen does that make sense(Upbeat Music) you need to develop your ministry brand story this may be completely new to you okay not very many people out there and even know what a brand story is so to explain it in very very simple terms a brand story is basically a story framework that uses the power of story to clarify what your ministry does who it does it for and how the donor has a role in that so um it uses the power of story in the sense of your donor becomes the main character and your ministry becomes the guide that helps this main character overcome their problem and finally reach a resolution so there are very intentional plot points to it and very intentional it's very intentional in the way that you construct this story so that it is strong and it's effective so that donor audience that we talked about when you define your donor audience that person becomes the main character of your brand story but lisa it's not about the donor is that coming up for you the donor is the person that you're trying to talk to the person that you want to move so instead of trying to take them and say come over here donor and watch what we're doing and watch our ministry and everything god's doing through us come over here and watch our story let's reframe that no you actually join their story and you say donor i understand that you want to make a difference and in this area right and it connects to your what your ministry does you care about this and i know that you want to make a bigger difference and feel like you're actually a part of what god is doing i know that right so that's their problem and you place yourself in their story and you say i'm gonna help you i'm gonna help you overcome that problem because look this is what's happening over here and this is what's god god is doing over here and you can be a part of it this is how you can be a part of it and when you are this is the success this is what happens this is the impact that you have when you're a part of it and that impact will then solve the problem that you had okay i don't want to get too much in the weeds because the whole story framework is very uh in depth but that's essentially it you are um inviting the donor to not watch you do what you do best but you are basically connecting the donor and helping them giving them an opportunity to have a transformation to really have so much change in their life by being a part of what god is doing through your ministry so it's it's a change of perspective and it's a change of like it's so hard to get all these donors to even care about us and instead you are caring about them and you are seeing them where they're at and you're saying this can solve your problem you can be a part of this and it will you can feel full of purpose and you could have a bigger impact where you really about something you really care deeply about once you develop your ministry brand story this whole storyline framework that i'm talking about all of a sudden everything will be simplified for you for every communication piece that you have every communication piece that you have all of a sudden you're going to write and create all that communication through the lens of your ministry brand story you're getting ready to present at a fundraiser go back to your ministry brand story what does that say how can you and then you will actually apply that you'll use the ministry brand story to help you create your presentation you're going to use your ministry brand story to help you write your donor appeals you're going to use your ministry brand story to help you caption your social media posts seriously everything becomes consistent in all of your messaging across all the platforms it's the same story and it's the donor wherever they meet you wherever they find you in all these platforms and communication pieces they're seeing the same story and it's going to be consistent it's going to make sense it's going to be effective because the donor is like oh she's talking to me and she's helping me solve a problem instead of just asking me for money i don't feel like an outsider that you know is feeling ashamed or guilted into giving money but i actually feel part of the the team like they want me and they need me and they value me it's going to be so much more effective and it's going to simplify all of your communication so powerful okay last thing you want to share the main problem that you solve over and over and over and over again now this is in with the ministry brand story it's something very important in that storyline but sometimes we get so close in our ministry that we feel like if i keep talking about the problem it just seems that i am you know i don't have the hope of the lord or the joy of the lord or it's all so pessimistic and really we want to be optimistic and i will say without a problem that you solve that the ministry solves or that god solves through your ministry then you wouldn't even have a ministry right the problem is kind of the it's the anchor right it's like the reason that everything happens if there was no problem you would not have a ministry if there was no problem then god wouldn't even need to meet you through that if there was no problem then the donor has no role to play so even though you might want to be positive and cheery you have to remind people that there is a real issue a real problem that that is the whole reason why your ministry exists you have to remind people over and over again that problem is in in the mind and it opens up what's called a story loop in the mind of your donor how is this problem going to be solved once that story loop is open they want to know how it's going to be solved and they'll stay with you they'll try to find that resolution so keep sharing that main problem that you that you saw that your ministry solves and that god is solving through your ministry you have to keep sharing that problem over and over again and you lead with it you know when you're talking to people when you're posting on social media you have to lead with the problem remind people this is what's happening this is what's at stake this is why we exist and once you share that problem that's not the end of it right you share the problem and there's other parts of the story that you also involve you know you share the plan and you share the resolution depending on what type of post or message you are putting together but without the problem and when I say problem this is like the people that you minister to what is the problem that they have that you're trying to solve that could be you know foster families needing support it could be homeless just homeless people without a home it could be you know people youth that have never even heard of Jesus Christ you know it could you know it could be a variety of things you know why you exist and what the problem is that the people you minister have you know that don't forget to continuously remind others in your communication what that problem is and what's at stake if you know if your ministry isn't able to keep going or if donors don't engage like what's at stake what happens if no one helps what's going to happen does that make sense there's so much more in there that I could unpack but hey we're at 20 something minutes now so the three things let's review define your donor audience who are you talking to don't don't talk to everyone it's not going to work to develop your ministry brand story this is so imperative and it will give you so much so much freedom and so much time back seriously and three share the main problem that you solve always don't have any sort of communication that doesn't share the main problem that you solve when you're talking to your donors okay now if you're saying whoa this is so awesome can you unpack all those other things for me yes of course I would love to unpack them that's exactly what we do in the coaching with you know I talked about it at the beginning of this episode but this is exactly what we talk about we go through very you know deep and um nitty gritty to define your ideal donor to develop that very uh structured story framework to develop your ministry brand story so be effective and activate those donors we do all of this and then I share with you how to apply it to all of your communication to learn more go to irastorytelling.com slash workshop that will give you all the details on what's included the weeks the cost payment plans everything and if you're ready to get started go to irastorytelling.com slash get started and we can do a quick discovery call so we can just make sure that we're both a good fit for each other and we'll get started I am so excited for you I know you really are only a few steps away from having this freedom and this clarity in the way that you communicate your ministry with donors and one that will really engage and grow your donor support in such a big way and I'm not talking about donors that will just like give once okay I'm talking about donor loyalty donors who care about your ministry who really feel that same deep need that you see in your ministry the same passion for it the same passion for the people that you minister to it's totally possible your donors can care just like that and and I believe it for you you're really not that far from it just a few steps away so I would love to see you and please reach out if you have any questions just out to me if you do at lisa at irastorytelling.com one little challenge that I have for you for this week I want you to think on these things but if there's one thing that you can take away is thinking about because I know you already know the main problem that you solve okay it's not something that takes a lot of work so the main challenge I have for you this week is to start sharing that main problem that you solve in every communication thing in every social media post in every email that you send to a donor in every conversation you have with a potential donor share the main problem that you solve and see what happens okay I love you guys and I will talk to you