Louise Batty

Manager Director and Co-Founder of Keep The Dream196

Who She Is:

Louise Batty came to South Africa from Australia in 1999 and returned as a volunteer with the Department of Health. She later co-founded the nonprofit Keep The Dream196 with Elizabeth Mabuza. She loves seeing the excitement on people's faces as they grasp new ideas, skills, and information. That 'light bulb moment' and knowing she is making a difference in the lives of children, families, and communities keeps her motivated.

Q: How do you acquire new donors during the year-end season and inspire their continued giving?

A: We cultivated 300+ new donors in our year-end campaign. We have a strategy of focusing on our impact rather than asking. I am building relationships through our GlobalGiving reports and Facebook so that people can understand more about who we are, what we do, how we do things, and why their support is so important. We constantly recap what the donors’ support has enabled us to achieve. Again, it comes back to inspiring, educating, informing, and acknowledging the donors’ gift.

Q: Share some of your year-end key messages.

A: I focus on the impact we have in the communities we serve. For example:

• Reduced teenage pregnancy from 13% in Limpopo to 0.07% in our program.
• Matriculation pass rate is 62% in Limpopo, in our program it is 92% for ten years.
• Nationally 10% of all deaths amongst children are suicide; we have had zero suicides in our program.
• All of our children must go to school to be a part of our program; children actually drop back into school to take part in our program.

I try to inspire, educate, and inform the donors about what we do, how we do it, why we do it, and what the outcome are. I try to create a sense of community so that people are open to ask questions, find out information, generate relationships, and feel like a larger part of the work we do. We can only do this work with our supporters, our partners, our collaborators, and our donors.

Q: What is the most successful way you’ve found to break through the noise during this busy and generous time of year?

A: I keep our donors engaged through regular GlobalGiving reports and Facebook on a daily basis. I also keep in contact with our potential donors that are not on GlobalGiving through monthly mail-outs. Our communication revolves around stories, testimonies, facts, and impact to educate, inspire, inform, and acknowledge donors. We always link our funding to what we’re doing.

Q: Impressive! Tell us more about these tactics.

A: In addition to regular GlobalGiving reports and stories that explain the impact, we share stories from the children themselves, testimonies from visitors who have seen the project in operation firsthand, and good quality photographs.

Also, if someone has already given during the year-end season, minimize asking for donations. I inspire, educate, and draw them closer into an ongoing relationship with KTD196.

Many of our donors are not in South Africa, but I will invite those who are to come and see firsthand the work that we do. Engage deliberately with those who are geographically closer. It’s important for me to develop trust between the donor, myself, and KTD196.

Q: Describe your most meaningful experience with a donor during your last year-end campaign.

A: A number of donors are friends that have either been to KTD196 or who know me and have decided to donate. These friends have continued supporting us and are giving regularly. We have hosted a number of international volunteers who have given over the year-end period because they know KTD196 and me. One was a Peace Corps volunteer who decided to donate a huge amount to us because she has seen and experienced our program, who knows me personally and trusts me. This is very rewarding. It is difficult to develop that sort of relationship through online mediums alone.