Posted on: February 23rd, 2010 by Reuben Turner

I’m pleased to tell you that we don’t spent a lot of time navel-gazing here at the Good Agency. We know what makes us different, which is that we work for organisations of all kinds who want to make the world a better place. And we’re good at it because we understand the values of the people they need to talk to.

What constantly trips me up is that we don’t have a word for those people.

In fundraising we’ve always used ‘donor’. But that’s just not good enough any more. It implies a solely financial relationship, and while that’s no bad thing, we also know that the most valuable donors are often, paradoxically, more than just donors – they’re people who give, campaign, do events, set up Facebook groups about their favourite causes. We’ve been using the word ‘supporter’ but even this doesn’t go far enough. It’s often not just about someone’s support for a particular organisation, but their commitment to a cause.

An age ago when I worked on FMCG marketing we had the term ‘consumer’ which also reduced humans to the status of units on one end of a transaction. It seemed to work if you were flogging Persil Liquitabs, or Campbell’s Soup (for which we devised the epithet ‘heavy soup user’).

But what we’re interested in at the Good Agency is the totality of ways in which people can change the world for the better. Where and how they shop. What they build their houses from. Where they go on holiday and how they get there. What they do for a living. How they campaign for change and, of course, how they support their favourite charities. Ethical choices are everywhere, and we think that understanding values means we have a role to play in helping people make all of them.

What that doesn’t leave us with is a useful, marketing-friendly term for, er, people. Donor. Supporter. Campaigner. Consumer. All too narrow. Agent? Actor? Too daft.

I hope you haven’t been reading this blog expecting an answer, because I don’t have one. Do you?

One Response to “We need a new word for, er, people.”

1. L, Charity Fundraiser says:

   June 14, 2010 at 12:08 am

   Many may dismiss the idea of debate on what a charity should call its supporters/donors as a quibble over semantics. But the importance of this question should not be underestimated, not least because a Charity’s chosen terminology for its followers often gives a good idea of how it will treat them. I agree that when a charity uses the word donor it emphasises the financial aspect of the relationship, and in practise I find that this leads to a tendency for fundraisers to see said donors not as individuals, but merely as volume for a mailing that must hit a specific income target. Unwieldy or simplistic databases have compounded this problem with a single-supporter-view a far off dream for lots of fundraising teams. The result is that donors/supporters are often overharvested and may receive as many as 10 financial asks in a single 12-month period as well as a request to attend this event or sign that petition. Internal teams squabble over who ‘owns’ a donor/supporter or more accurately, their contact details, and good stewardship goes by the wayside.

   I would like to suggest contributor as the most useful term to describe those that are currently called donors or supporters. It carries connotations of financial giving, but would also be an accurate way to describe those who set up Facebook pages or participate in a fun run. It is an inclusive word which suggests that someone is part of a bigger whole and that their action, however small, will make a difference, a feeling that charities have devoted much time and effort into inspiring. Hopefully, using the word contributor will also make fundraisers more aware that donors/supporters must be valued and their motivations understood. This will in turn lead to better targeting, and messages which belong to the pull rather than the push school of marketing. It may seem like something small, but using the word contributor instead of donor or supporter could be the catalyst for a fundamental change in the way charities perceive the people that enable them to do their invaluable work.