Creating a new way to engage with donors
I vividly remember sitting still one day in the woods, captivated, hearing the birds call around me as I watched a man referred to as “Bat Man” tell his story about how he sees even though he is blind. It was riveting, sitting there and watching him talk with his interviewer. At one point, he took out his prosthetic eyes and handed them over to her. I couldn’t pull myself away.
What’s interesting about this particular experience, though, is that I didn’t actually “see” this at all. I heard it. I wasn’t in a southern California forest with Bat Man and Lulu Miller from the Invisibilia podcast. I was in a parking lot, sitting in my car on a hot day in Louisiana.
In fact, I was having what’s called “a parking lot moment.” I couldn’t bring myself to get out of my sweltering car to run whatever errand I was running. I had to sit and listen, because I was doing far more than listening. I was seeing. It was powerful.
This is when I began to think about how transformative podcasts can be — how they can take someone to places they’ve never been by using good sound to help paint a picture in the mind of the listener. And because I think a lot about the importance of nonprofit storytelling, I began to think about how podcasts could help connect a nonprofit to their donors and potential donors or prospects by using great sound to let donors “see” their work. A nonprofit podcast could be a new donor communication tool.
Build and Strengthen Donor Engagement
One of the most dramatic ways to help potential and existing donors understand the importance of a nonprofit’s mission is to let them to experience the work in action. Podcasts are an excellent way to do this. By creating a “theater of the mind,” you can take your supporters inside your mission no matter where they are, building new relationships and strengthening existing donor relationships.
Think about it: Donors may not have the opportunity or the will to visit a nonprofit in person. They may not be engaged enough to accept a meeting with a fundraiser. But if you can tell them a good story in your nonprofit’s podcast, one they can listen to no matter what they are doing, you might create a new way to connect with your audience. Through good nonprofit storytelling in a podcast, you might be able to deepen your relationship with your donors and supporters.
Prospects and donors already have a lot of information coming their way in a variety of mediums – cable, on-demand television (like Netflix), magazines, direct mail, video and new emails every five seconds. While podcasts are not new (I’ve been listening for at least 12 years), they are new to a lot of people. That means there’s room to be heard in this space.
More people are turning to podcasts and looking for content that matters to them. Podcast Insights shared from the Infinite Dial 2020 research that, of the US Population in 2020, “24% (68 million) listen to podcasts weekly – up from 22% in 2019.” Podcast listenership continues to climb each year in every age category (though certainly Covid-19 has impacted podcast listenership). If your donors aren’t already listening to podcasts, there’s a good chance they will in the near future.
Why I Created an Audio Series for Donors
It was exciting to think about how I could reach donors in a new way at a new time in their day, when they aren’t already inundated with options — perhaps when they are out for a walk or doing the dishes or folding laundry. I could make valuable use of their somewhat free time – the gray space when they aren’t doing “nothing” but their minds are free – and share information about what we do and why in an engaging and immersive way. Reading and video requires them to stop what they are doing and only read or watch. Podcasts allow them to listen while they are doing something else.
These are among the reasons why I wanted to create an audio series for The Nature Conservancy to share with donors. (Read more here about the backstory of creating this series on Northeastern University’s blog.)
For months my team and I worked to create a three-episode series called Destination Nature to share with donors and supporters, letting them see our work in action without ever leaving their homes. We used interviews, storytelling and excellent sound editing to create a communication product that could bring donors into the action and let them use their imaginations to paint a picture. (You can dive into the whole production process on Dallas Audio Post’s blog about this series.)
This show was a true labor of love for all of us. It was created as a gift to our donors, to share with them the impact they are making on the future of our planet. They are critical to achieving all TNC has accomplished, and they deserved to hear about it – to see it, wherever they may be.
We took listeners down to a coral reef, into the mountains of southern California and to a neighborhood in Philadelphia. We explored a the process of reef restoration, the plans in place to protect mountain lions and how one community is utilizing nature to combat challenges with stormwater. We received all sorts of positive feedback from our supporters. Some said they enjoyed the opportunity to listen versus read, and others shared that the shows made them feel like they “were there.” Overall, it was a successful story of how one nonprofit used a “new” tool to engage our supporters in a whole new way.