Author

Michael Wilson is the author of the book "The Digital Nonprofit: A Manifesto". 

As a nonprofit, we are clear about our mission. Are we clear about our design? If not, we aren’t ready to be the digital nonprofit of the future. If we aren’t ready to be a digital nonprofit, we aren’t ready for the future. If we aren’t ready for the future, will we be in business 5 to 10 years from now? Tough questions I know but worth considering.

So here are a couple more of intriguing questions:

• How do we ensure that our constituents are having an amazing experience?
• Why make constituents cope with the ordinary?
• Why aren’t constituents more engaged with both our mission and revenue opportunities?

Our focus and day to day work should be about creating “constituent experiences” in this new age of consumerism. What is going on in the rest of the “for profit” world isn’t lost on our constituents. They are judging us based on those experiences. We can bury our head in the sand. That will only get us left behind.

Consumers expect more from business (and hence nonprofits) than ever before. So our mission programs, products and services have a level of expectation that our nonprofit may not be aware of. The support of our contributors, members and volunteers have is not necessarily drive by our mission. It is driven by their experience at any company, for profit or nonprofit. How do we compare to USAA for example? Do we know?

Here is the harsh reality. They not only expect better experiences, they believe they are absolutely entitled to them. Will we be intentional in delivering on those expectations? Are we ready to get left behind with stagnant growth if we don’t deliver those constituent experiences? We may not be ready for that but it may already be happening. I encourage you to please thing about it. It is a good question to ponder.

There is a unique opportunity to create amazing and positive experiences at our events, on the web, at our call center (if you have one), on smart phones and in our direct mail pieces. Are all of those unified? Is the experience amazing?

That amazing or ordinary (or perhaps even bad) experience will be how our nonprofit is measured in terms of satisfaction or even our fundraising success. Do we know how our constituents feel about the experience they are having with us? If not, why not? Are we being intentional about that experience they just had at our event? Is it consistent with the experience they want on our web site?