April 7, 2014 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Develop a Plan
Deborah Kaplan Polivy, fundraising consultant and author of the new book Donor Cultivation and the Donor Lifecycle Map: A New Framework for Fundraising, says charities should have a plan for getting people to give again before seeking new donors.
“How do you get a new donor in the door is the first question, but it shouldn’t be asked until you are prepared to keep them inside the door. You want to be ready to continue to woo them, by figuring out the characteristics of different kinds of donors and knowing that they might be more likely to respond to a certain kind of thank-you call or an invitation to an event. Figure out what tools you have, so you are ready to make the right communication and connection.”
Thank Donors Quickly—and Inspire Them
Lori O’Brien, director of national development at Youth Villages, says timely and genuine thank you’s work best.
“For a brand-new donor, you want to welcome them, thank them, acknowledge their gift, restate your mission, and tell them what you are doing with their money to reassure them they have made a great investment.” One way to make the thank you particularly meaningful, she says, is to include the story of a person who has directly benefited from the organization’s services.
Send Handwritten Notes
Sherry Minton, a fundraiser at the American Heart Association, says her research shows that donors especially appreciate written notes.
After testing other mail responses to first-time donors, the nonprofit discovered that they reacted most favorably to a handwritten note card. The rate at which new donors who received a card and then gave a second gift within six to 12 months grew by as much as 15 percent when the group first tried the technique six years ago. Since then, the practice has resulted in half of all new donors becoming regular contributors.
“While the expense of sending a handwritten notecard incurs an initial higher cost to raise a dollar, it more than pays for itself in the long term. By providing a high-touch package, the donor experience is enhanced.”
Seek Automatic Gifts
Michal Heiplik, executive director of Contributor Development Partnership, an effort to improve fundraising in public television, suggests appealing to donors to become monthly contributors.
“Not only is the second gift guaranteed, but with recurring gifts there is an open-ended stop date, so it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Sustainers give you a built-in loyalty, so if you keep treating them like the loyal donors they are, they will stick around.”
Focus on the Facts
Jay Love, co-founder and chief executive of Bloomerang, a fundraising software company, urges paying attention to the data.
“I speak two or three times a month with 100 people in a room, and by a show of hands only four or five say they know what their retention and attritions rates are. It’s a pretty basic math formula that anyone can make come to life. You have to know and understand the numbers, so you know what you’re working with, what your goals are.”
