The New Support Matrix: Gaining Support in a Consumer Society
by Vic Wiens
Short Summary
The shift to a new consumer culture in the western world has changed the way we need to approach fundraising and donor development. Our new support matrix can guide you in moving people from consumers to supporters.
Full Article
Non-profit organizations are facing increasing challenges in developing and maintaining a strong support base in our consumer oriented culture. I personally had to undergo a paradigm shift before I was ready to effectively engage our consumer culture in supporting non-profit organizations.I grew up in the “hippy era”. It was a time of reaction but also a time of intense idealism. We were going to change the whole world! Our whole youth culture supported this idealism. Like many of my peers, I got involved in an environmental action group as well as volunteering a lot of time to work with kids in camps and church youth groups, and in cross-cultural outreach programs.
In the same way that our “hippy” culture encouraged idealism, the current culture encourages consumerism. As a result, people often get involved in a non-profit organization as a consumer. It takes time and effort to cultivate idealism.
This shift to a new consumer culture in the western world has changed the way we need to approach fundraising and donor development. Over time I have developed a new support matrix to guide us in moving people from consumers to supporters.
In the early 1990’s Thomas Sergiovanni wrote a variety of articles and books on the value of moving from “transactional” leadership to “transformational” leadership in schools. He used the words bartering, building, bonding and banking to describe stages in moving to a transformational, or vision and values based, school leadership culture. For over a decade and a half I have, used and abused, Sergiovanni’s terminology in a variety of applications, to the point where some of the words have taken on different nuances of meaning. However, I still owe the original concept behind our new support matrix to Sergiovanni’s writings.
Another major influence in the development of our new support matrix has been Ron Mortoia. In an article titled “A Transitional Pathway” he described how the typical church pathway has changed from “Believe-Behave-Belong” to “Belong-Behave-Believe”. His focus on the significance of belonging in working with our new culture has significantly influenced our new support matrix.
The underlying concept of this new support matrix is that each group of supporters (often donors) in our non-profit organizations move from a transactional (bartering) relationship with our organizations to a transformational relationship based on commitment to the mission and values of the organizations through several stages. I use the words bartering, belonging, bonding, and banking to describe these stages. I am convinced that we can significantly strengthen the support base of our organizations by moving supporters through these stages.
In our consumer culture, most people come to us at the bartering level. They want some service we offer. They are generally not ready to move to the next level until they are happy customers. However, at this level people will already support projects through fees, donations and time that directly benefit them and their families.
Happy customers are ready to move to the level of belonging. In fact, in our consumer culture, many belonging relationships are built around consumer brands. People identify themselves with what they consume, and this creates an opportunity for us to forge meaningful relationships between the people we serve. At this level people are ready to support projects that benefit their friends in the organization.
When people are happy consumers and feel like they belong in an organization, they are much more open to commit to our purpose, vision and values. As they embrace the purpose, visions and values of the organization, they become true or “rational” supporters. In order to develop a sustainable support base, we must move our people to this rational level of commitment.
Banking refers to an even higher level of commitment based on a deep conviction about the purpose, vision and values of the organization. It is the supporters who have reached this level that will be there to support us when “the wheels come off,” as sometimes happens in our organizations. It should be our goal to move a high percentage of our clients and other contract groups to this level of support.
One of our special areas of expertise at Vic Wiens Consulting is focusing on this process of moving various groups of people to higher levels of support in our client organizations. Give us a call or email to discuss how we can help move your people to increasing levels of support.
