Midlevel donors — those who have the means to give more than your average direct-mail donor but aren’t likely to drop $500,000 in your lap anytime soon — are some of the most important donors to a nonprofit. Overlooking them is like leaving an open sack of cash untouched, say experienced fundraisers.
“You have to have a midlevel program, you just have to,” says Cinira Baldi, a fundraising director at Mercy Corps. “It’s the best way to retain and upgrade your donors; otherwise, you are wasting money.”
Research shows the importance of these donors. A study published by Sea Change Strategies found that donors who typically give gifts of $1,000 to $10,000 may represent only about 1 percent of a charity’s donors, but they give more than one-third of the money raised by many groups.
That finding might pique fundraising leaders’ interests, but starting a program for middle donors doesn’t happen overnight. Andrew Wiley, who manages annual giving at the World Wildlife Fund; Emily Anderson, Catholic Relief Services’ director of annual giving; and Ms. Baldi explain how to build a program from scratch.
1. The first step sometimes includes persuading a skeptical leader why establishing such a program is a necessity. Some leaders worry that the potential cost of starting a new donors program will outweigh the returns. They wonder if they’ll have to hire more gift officers or administrative staff.
Pointing out data such as those in the Sea Change study can help show the value mid-level donors bring. Another good tactic is to create a case study using real-life data from your organization. Go through your donor file and look for people who started out with a small gift and later gave much more. Then create a chart (a simple Powerpoint graph will do) showing these donors’ giving trajectory over time. Because you are using your own data, it costs nothing to put together.
“I had a donor whose first gift was about $300. She gave steadily, and a decade after the first donation gave an $11,000 gift,” says Ms. Baldi.
A more extreme example: One of her donors first gave $50, then years later left a bequest of more than $1 million.
“The upside is they might be a $2,000 donor for years and then retire or sell a business, then boom, they give a big gift,” says Mr. Wiley.
While it’s exciting when a mid-level donor becomes a major donor, fundraisers say many do not, and that’s OK, because over time that mid-level giving adds up.
“Most people want to use these programs as a prequalifier to major gifts, but it’s important to know that your mid-level donor is a really nice donor to have,” says Ms. Anderson.
She says 1.5 percent of her donors fall in the charity’s middle range, but those donors account for 10 to 15 percent of total annual giving.
Once the leaders of your organization are on board, turn back to your donor file to start the next steps:
2. At some organizations, a middle donor gives between $1,000 and $10,000 a year. The range can be lower or higher depending on a charity’s size and other factors, so determine how you will define your mid-level donors based on the giving range that makes the best sense for your stable of supporters.
3. Next, ask what that stable looks like. There are major donors and everybody else. The slice of donors at the top of that latter group is the one to focus on first as mid-level donors. Group those donors into tiers according to their level of engagement, how often they give, and whether they’ve converted to giving a monthly sustainer gift.
4. Determine how many staff members you will need to manage this group of donors. Some nonprofits can devote one or two current employees or more, while others hire additional staff. Outsourcing this group of donors to an outside fundraising firm is another option.
5. Decide how you will communicate with these donors. Fundraisers say mid-level donors need more personal interaction than your direct-marketing pool, so test out some different types of communication with these donors. Some groups send a fancier version of their direct-mail appeals, some develop customized communications, and still others employ a personal touch by assigning each donor a primary point of contact, who periodically calls or sends handwritten notes to the donor.
6. Don’t forget what an important, loyal, and committed group of supporters these donors are. For mid-level donors who are giving toward the higher end of your group’s giving range, a thank-you call from the head of your charity can go a long way toward making that donor feel connected and important to the charity’s success.
“It’s like a customer-service chain,” say Ms. Baldi. “People want to feel valued, so anything you can do that’s personalized and demonstrates you want them to be part of your mission is going to make them feel that.”