Attracting new donors to your cause is hard. While marketing campaigns are a core part of every nonprofit’s donor outreach strategy, they are both time-consuming and expensive. This is why it’s so important for nonprofits to steward and retain the donors that they’ve already gained, making the most of their marketing investments.
Converting new supporters into recurring donors helps your nonprofit establish more reliable revenue streams and can lead to increased support as the relationship progresses. While some new donors may make large initial contributions, many of them will need to develop a connection with your nonprofit over time before more significantly investing in your cause.
Fortunately, your nonprofit can lay the groundwork for and continue to maintain these relationships with the right donor cultivation strategies.
To help your nonprofit build donor relationships that will last for many years to come, consider implementing these tips:
Donors offer their support for a wide range of reasons, but many of them want similar things out of their relationship with nonprofits. With the right appreciation and engagement strategies, donor data tracking, and donor management tools, you can make informed decisions about each of your supporters throughout their entire donor journey, helping to facilitate fulfilling, lifelong relationships. Let’s get started.
Messages that greet your supporters with “Dear Donor” feel impersonal and do little to demonstrate your nonprofit’s investment in that donor relationship. By contrast, personalizing your messages encourages increased engagement and can help supporters feel more connected to your organization.
Of course, your nonprofit likely doesn’t have the time or resources to individually write and send unique messages to all of your supporters. Fortunately, there are messaging tools your nonprofit can use to automate several key communication processes.
For instance, CharityEngine’s guide to nonprofit CRMs highlights how CRM solutions with a communication component can allow nonprofits to stay in touch with donors and closely monitor relationships by connecting outreach responses to individual donor profiles. Specifically, CharityEngine recommends looking for a CRM that provides custom communication tools for:
By using all of these methods, you can connect with donors on multiple channels, maximizing engagement potential. Receiving personalized messages on several different platforms will make your nonprofit more memorable to supporters, helping to build up brand recognition, and convince new supporters to stick around and current supporters to continue giving.
One of the simplest but most effective ways to build strong relationships with donors is to show your appreciation. Regularly saying “thank you” helps your donors feel acknowledged and lets them know that their gifts are making a difference.
You can show your appreciation in a number of ways, including:
Consider implementing a few or all of these strategies. After all, while some donors stop giving due to a lack of appreciation, it’s near-impossible to ever say “thank you” too much, especially if each gesture is personalized to your generous supporters.
Supporters feel connected to nonprofits that they can engage with on multiple levels. If you only ever reach out to your supporters to ask for donations, the focus of your relationships will start to become more about constant monetary transactions and less about your cause.
Diversify your supporter engagements by providing them with a variety of ways to get involved outside of donating, such as:
Offering a wide range of engagement opportunities will allow your nonprofit to keep all of your supporters connected to your cause. For example, a formal gala will likely be highly appealing to a small group of major donors, but a causal 5K event can be just as effective at helping your nonprofit connect with different supporter segments, such as local donors in your community.
While your nonprofit should strive to build relationships with all donors, some of your supporters may be worth an extra investment. These supporters can be converted into becoming recurring donors, planned donors, and even major donors with a dedicated cultivation effort.
You can identify these donors with prospecting researching tools. Double the Donation’s prospect research guide explains that there are two major data points to collect when using prospect research tools:
You can collect this information in a number of ways. For example, your donation forms can provide basic insight into your donors, such as their names and addresses. This information can be used in combination with prospect research tools to discover if any wealth or philanthropic indicators apply to your supporters.
Long-term donor relationships can span decades, making it vital that your nonprofit has a method for tracking interactions and donor data. Your donor management tools should allow you to document each touch point you make with supporters on their donor journey, enabling you to ask for increased support at the most opportune moment.
Your CRM can be used to record a variety of information about your donors, including key data such as:
For your most important major donors, be sure to make note of smaller interactions you take in your relationship. In your donor profiles, make note of phone calls, conversations at events, email exchanges, and other details that can help you determine how invested they are in your cause. Then, once you have a solid relationship established, you can begin planning your fundraising appeal.
Donor relationships should be at the core of your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy. By maintaining strong relationships, you can retain donors for years, earning consistent fundraising support and setting your nonprofit up to earn more substantial donations down the line.
Make an effort to connect with donors on multiple levels with gestures of appreciation and engagement opportunities. Then, use your donor management tools to record these interactions so your team can take a data-driven approach to supporter relationships.
Philip Schmitz is the CEO and founder of cloud-services leader BIS Global, creators of the CharityEngine fundraising & communications technology platform. Founded in 1999, Phil has managed the vision and strategy for BIS’s suite of integrated business applications & hosting tools used by more than 400 businesses & non-profits.
Want to learn more fundraising, marketing & personal branding tips? Follow along on social!