The gap between how inspiring charities’ work can be, and how inspired donors are by their communication from charities, can be huge. Steve Andrews discusses the importance of pure, unadulterated feedback and how the Glass Workshop will be a real-time case study in donor communication.

Over my career I have had the privilege of seeing many charity’s work first hand. And I cannot think of a time when doing so wasn’t genuinely inspiring. Such visits have brought me to tears, made me interested in causes that I hadn’t previously cared for and continually reminded me why I work in this wonderful sector.

Then I speak to donors about what it is like to support those charities. And they just don’t feel like I’ve done when I see things first hand. Often they don’t talk about the cause at all. Choosing instead to focus on too much ‘junk mail’, of being phoned at home when they’re having their tea or of ‘chuggers’.

I call this ‘the reality gap’: the gap between how inspiring your charity’s work usually is and how uninspiring it usually is to be a donor.

The reality gap

My sister recently interpreted a charity’s on-going attempts to upgrade her gift by phone as a clear sign that the charity didn’t value the gift she was already giving.

My wife was dismayed to be sent direct mail asking for £10 per month, from a charity for which she’d just raised £3,000 in the London marathon. The events team had handed over her address. It would take 25 years at £10 a month to deliver the same income she did in a few months.

Another friend sent me an email, telling me: