Ready to put together a plan to encourage more of your nonprofit’s donors to give again? Here are some first steps recommended by fundraising experts.
Assess the situation. Start by looking at what percentage of first-time donors make a second gift to your organization, says Lynne Wester, director of alumni programs and engagement at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Remember, Mr. Roger Craver, author of the book Retention Fundraising: The New Art and Science of Keeping Your Donors for Life, recommends aiming for a first-year retention rate of around 40 to 45 percent and a multiple-year retention rate of 75 to 85 percent or more.
Organizations should strive for a 5- to 10-percent increase in the first year or two after they start working to hold on to more new donors, says Ms. Wester, who also writes the Donor Relations Guru blog.
Send a steady message. Donors value consistency and reliability, says Mr. Craver. He recommends that organizations start by examining their communications with donors and how they’re sharing information internally.
When departments and leadership aren’t on the same page about their mission statement and messages, donors may not get a clear idea of the organization’s goals, says Mr. Craver.
“If the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, that will wreck a donor-retention program,” he says.
Too often nonprofits get tired of their copy and change their messages frequently, which can confuse donors and push them away, says Mr. Craver. Make sure you stay true to your organization’s mission, he advises, and remember that newer isn’t necessarily better.
Set up a recurring-gift program. Donors who give monthly gifts are more likely to stick with your organization and give more over their lifetime. Nonprofits that start a monthly giving program should make one person or department responsible for it, says Erica Waasdorp, a fundraising consultant and author of Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant.
“Someone must own the program,” she says.
Recurring-gift programs are most successful when nonprofits put them front and center, Ms. Waasdorp says. Make sure donors know this is a great—and easy—way to give.
Through pledge drives and door-to-door canvassing, Twin Cities Public Television, for example, more than doubled its number of monthly sustainers from 2011 to 2014, helping boost its donor-retention rate.
Make keeping donors part of your culture. Encouraging supporters to give again requires a comprehensive strategy and can’t be attributed to specific campaigns and efforts on their own, fundraising experts say.
“In so many large organizations, fundraisers are compensated based on the success of an individual fundraising campaign,” Mr. Craver says. This, he says, undervalues the people who do equally important things like saying “thank you” in a timely manner or providing donor services.
Says Mr. Craver: “Retention is attributable to the entire work of the organization.”
