I have been reading articles recently about the phenomenon of “ghosting,” such as this one in the Health/Science section of yesterday’s Washington Post. For those of you like me who are sometimes slow to pick up on cultural trends and terms, the article defines ghosting as what “happens when someone cuts off all online communication with someone else without an explanation.”
In fundraising, an example of ghosting is when a nonprofit makes a serious mistake with a donor and assumes they will never provide support again, and as a result stops engaging them completely – which can end up sealing the fate of a relationship unnecessarily. In my book Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind, I have a short section titled “Making Lemonade” where I explain that there is an opportunity to not just resurrect but to improve a relationship with a major donor after a mistake has been made, and I provide a specific example. Check it out on pages 127-129.
In this post, I’d like to reflect briefly on the benefits, in nonprofit leadership and in life, of doing the opposite of ghosting.
By way of background, I once joined a fundraising training organized by a nonprofit that I chaired the board of. The instructors asserted that nonprofits should touch base, even in a small way, with their donors every 21 days in order to ensure that those relationships don’t start to drift. When I incorporated this thumb rule into my own fundraising trainings, I noted that these contacts do not need to necessarily be time-consuming (though some should be). Anything that reminds donors why they love the nonprofit’s mission and people, even for a few minutes before they return to whatever they were doing before, will serve the purpose. In other words, don’t overthink it. (But also don’t engage in wishful thinking – sending an online or traditional newsletter that is unread does not count as a substantive contact.)
I have observed that many people, including myself in my younger days, tend to obsess about how best to express appreciation, admiration, or some other positive thought or affirmation to another person. As a result, many never get conveyed. I always encourage people, and myself, to simply go ahead and send that thank you note or mention how meaningful someone’s speech or comment was, even if you haven’t come up with the perfect way of doing so. (By the way, sometimes when you start affirming someone, the perfect words just come to you in the moment. But even if they don’t, it’s almost always better to just do it.)
It turns out there is some sound science backing this idea up. In yesterday’s Science Times (a weekly section of the New York Times focusing on science and wellness), an excellent article summarizes the underappreciated virtues of just “checking in” with friends, family, and acquaintances. The title was, “Text Your Friends. It Really Matters.” In one study featured in the article, they had people “check in” with “weak ties,” which is to say, people they knew but didn’t know that well. They asked the sender how meaningful that communication was likely to be to the receiver, and then they asked the receiver to rate how meaningful it was to them. It turns out, they were much more meaningful than the senders expected them to be.
The article concludes with some of the reasons people tend to avoid or put off these useful and helpful communications.
The bottom line: take a few moments every day to simply contact, affirm, praise, or inquire about your donors, your colleagues and former colleagues, board members (current and former), friends (even lapsed ones), acquaintances, people you know or who you suspect are going through a difficult time or recently had a major milestone, or anyone else you can think of. Don’t overthink it and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You’ll likely make their day, or at least have a bigger positive impact than you will imagine.