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Fundraising Tuesday: 3 Segmentation Strategies For Donors With Your CRM

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Effective outreach helps your nonprofit raise awareness and funds for its cause. But if you want donors to respond to your messages, you’ll need to make your outreach relevant to each recipient.

That’s where constituent relationship management (CRM) solutions come in! CRMs store donor data, which can reveal shared characteristics among your supporters. By separating donors into categories based on these similarities, you can personalize communications.

In this guide, we’ve created a list of segmentation strategies your nonprofit can use. Explore these strategies to send the right messages to the right people.

  1. Segment donors by communication preferences.

Your donors aren’t all the same, and they don’t all want to give using the same channels. For example, some might respond to phone pledges while others prefer online donations. Use data to see how each segment prefers to communicate and then use a multichannel approach to engage them.

CharityEngine’s guide to nonprofit donations recommends using the following tools:

  • Email: If your audience is a little older, email is a reliable way to engage them. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it can stay in an inbox and remind donors to act.
  • Optimized donation forms: No matter which channel you use, everyone will end up on your donation form. It should make giving easy, offering many payment options and the ability to begin a monthly gift.
  • Mobile campaigns: Younger audiences respond favorably to SMS or text-to-give campaigns. If that’s the makeup of your audience, mobile is the way to go.

Appeal to as many communication preferences as possible by planning message templates. This way, you can adjust your messages for any channel. You’ll reach every donor, whether they prefer a text message or direct mail.

2. Group donors by involvement history.

Imagine you accept a job offer and arrive at the office for your first day of work. You’re probably expecting to go through training or new employee orientation. Wouldn’t you be surprised if you weren’t trained at all and were expected to just start working?

In the same way, your nonprofit’s communication should match a donor’s level of experience with your organization. For example, engage brand-new donors with feel-good stories about your mission. Or, identify your monthly givers and consider a campaign to get them to pledge $5 a month. Knowing how people are giving helps you understand what the next ask should be.

Properly managed donor data reveals donors’ histories of involvement. Your CRM can analyze giving history for you to make these patterns easier to find. Consider the following elements of their involvement:

  • Recency: Throughout a donor’s engagement with your nonprofit, the messages that will be most compelling change. For example, if someone donates regularly, show them how their donation is used. If you have a lapsed donor, your strategies will change.
  • Nature: How did donors come on board? Were they a plus-one at an event, or did they make a gift in a loved one’s memory? Understanding how they’re involved can help you send the right message.
  • Method: Knowing how donors give can help you tailor messages for your audience. For example, send a quick text to donors who usually give through a text-to-give campaign. 

Plus, this information can be used as social proof when stewarding prospective donors. It’s human nature to want to join a crowd! Entice others to commit to your organization by publicizing giving trends or offering donor profiles.

3. Use gift size to segment donors.

While every donation is important, gift sizes can indicate a level of commitment. For example, someone who occasionally makes sizable gifts may be a candidate for a major gift. Or, someone who gives small gifts could make a reliable monthly donor.

Tracking gift size with your CRM reveals donors’ responses to your fundraising efforts. This way, you’ll know what future fundraising asks are appropriate. To do this, segment donors according to the following gift sizes:

  • Annual gifts: It can be easy to dismiss year-end donors until that season rolls around. Build better relationships with them by sending communications as early as September! Issue a challenge and track progress to generate excitement.
  • Mid-level gifts: Mid-level donors are already committed to your cause. But they might be one impact story or case study away from making a more sizable gift. Share the impact of their donations and what more your nonprofit needs.
  • Major gifts: Selecting nonprofit fundraising software involves looking for the right features. You’ll want a CRM that manages major and planned gifts. This way, you can identify major donors and thank them for their generosity. Gratitude helps you cultivate stronger relationships with these donors.

According to Double the Donation, you can also upgrade donors to higher giving levels. Use your CRM to learn how donors’ relationships evolve with your nonprofit. Then, create a plan to guide other donors through this journey.

Use these segmentation strategies to target donors for more relevant fundraising appeals. Also,  they’ll help you properly steward donors! Your CRM can show you how to thank donors personally and specifically. This way, you can send the right messages, gifts, invites, and more to deepen each donor’s commitment.

 

Philip Schmitz – CEO & Founder

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.

3 Key Tools Every Nonprofit Needs In Its Tech Toolbox

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A guest  post by Caitlin McClain at Redpath Consulting Group 

A notable 74% of nonprofits believe that digital transformation is essential to their organization’s growth, but finding the right technology to fuel that transformation can be an overwhelming process.

If you haven’t already, you’ll likely run across a wide range of specialized tools in your search for the right software solutions for your nonprofit. While these tools can certainly be helpful for everything from virtual event planning to marketing, they’re not all essential, especially for smaller nonprofits just looking to meet their basic needs.

In this guide, we’ll help you narrow your search by breaking down the three types of software that are most important for any nonprofit. With these three tools in your toolbox, you’ll be well-equipped to handle day-to-day operations and increase your organization’s capacity for growth.

1. A CRM

Nonprofits are fueled by relationships with supporters and community members.  Cultivating these relationships can improve fundraising results, further your cause, and expand your reach to new audiences. Naturally, this means that the single most important tool your organization needs is a constituent relationship management (CRM) solution.

CRM software should be the bedrock of your technology stack. This tool provides you with a comprehensive database to house everything you know about your relationships, letting you track donations, interactions, and personal details all in one place.

Whether you choose a well-known, customizable solution like Salesforce for Nonprofits or a more basic system, your CRM should enable you to:

  • Track all of your important relationships. From donors to volunteers to business sponsors, you should be able to create profiles in your CRM for everyone your nonprofit interacts with. Here, you can record their contact information, donation and engagement history, notes about your relationship, and more.
  • Learn how supporters engage with your nonprofit. By tracking all of a supporter’s interactions in one place, you can gain insights that help you understand them better and tailor your communications accordingly. For instance, you might learn that one donor only attends fundraising auctions and invite them to register early for your next auction.
  • Report on important fundraising metrics. CRMs with reporting features help you easily calculate and track fundraising metrics like donor retention rate, cost per dollar raised, and your organization’s average gift size.

Keep in mind that not all CRMs are created equal. Some are more robust than others, giving you a more holistic view of donors that helps you craft communications that speak to their unique interests and relationships with your nonprofit. However, if you’re a small nonprofit just getting started, you might benefit more from a more straightforward, affordable CRM.

To help you choose and implement the best CRM solution for your unique needs, consider working with a nonprofit technology consultant who can walk you through your options. They’ll take your history and goals into consideration and ultimately help you navigate the implementation process with ease.

2. Marketing Automation Tools

Once you have a place to track your nonprofit’s relationships and learn about supporters’ habits, you can start putting your data into action with marketing automation tools. Whether you want to automate emails, texts, or other messages, these tools can save your team time and enhance the personalization of your communications to help you connect with supporters.

For instance, Redpath’s guide to Salesforce Marketing Cloud explains that this email automation tool includes features like nonprofit-specific email templates, an intuitive email journey builder, a simple setup process, and data extensions.

Features of Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud email automation tool, also listed in the text above

With these features, organizations can easily create and customize automated email streams for different purposes, such as welcoming new donors or following up with attendees after a fundraising event. These email streams are triggered by a donor’s actions so your staff don’t have to lift a finger after setting them up.

This might look like:

  1. A man named Jeff donates to your nonprofit for the first time on your online donation page.
  2. This action triggers your automated welcome email series for new donors, and Jeff immediately receives an email welcoming him to your nonprofit’s community.
  3. Over the course of a month, Jeff automatically receives strategically timed emails introducing him to all the most important facets of your organization.

To make the most of marketing automation, look for a tool that integrates with your CRM. This way, your automation tool can pull data from your CRM’s donor profiles to make your automated messages more personal and relevant to each supporter.

3. Fundraising Software

Invest in software that helps your organization streamline fundraising processes and boost your campaigns’ success.

Fundraising software comes in many different forms—from payment processors to peer-to-peer fundraising platforms to virtual event software. To understand which fundraising tools you need, explore your CRM’s features first and determine which needs are already met. For instance, your CRM might come with built-in donation processing and fundraising campaign management features.

Then, examine your fundraising goals to determine what other tools would be helpful. If you plan to run a lot of fundraising events, for example, you might consider investing in an online auction platform or a peer-to-peer fundraising tool that will help you host more successful events.

Beyond event- or campaign-specific fundraising tools, your nonprofit can also benefit from more general fundraising solutions like matching gift software. According to re:Charity’s matching gifts guide, these tools help organizations drive corporate matches to completion and earn more fundraising revenue from both donors and businesses long-term.

Once you have these essentials and your team feels confident incorporating them into their day-to-day tasks, you can consider other types of nonprofit software to invest in as your nonprofit grows. Note any gaps in your technology now so you know what direction to take in the future when you’re ready to expand your tech stack.

 

Caitlin McClain head shotCaitlin McClain, Director of Marketing at Redpath

Caitlin leads the brand, creative and overall go-to-market strategy for Redpath. Offering over 10 years of experience in omni-channel and B2B marketing, she has a history of successfully implementing marketing plans and leveraging campaign analytics to drive revenue. She has a passion in communications and is skilled in empowering cross-functional teams to promote positive company culture and attain collective goals.

Caitlin has a Bachelors in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas. When Caitlin is not at work, you can find her reading a good book, sipping on some chai tea, or enjoying activities with her family such as going on walks, boating, and traveling.

 

TY Thursday: 3 Ways to Make Sure You Get the Name Right

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Nothing matters more to your donors than getting their name right.

Don’t just take my word for it. Ask other experts in nonprofit communications, and they’ll tell you the same thing. Or ask the donors. You’ll get an earful about how annoyed they get when a nonprofit is happy to take their money but can’t be bothered to remember their name!

It can be simple to call the donor by the name they prefer. If you have a good CRM, it will offer you fields where you can enter the full name of the donor plus the name they’d like you to use in the salutation of your appeal letter (or the To: line of your email).

But first, you have to find out the right name.

How do you do that? Ask.

Ask about Names When You Ask for Donations

When BAGLY, the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, asked for money, they included this language on their donation card.

Did we spell your name or address incorrectly?

We’re so sorry. We try to maintain an accurate database of our supporters, but we need your help on this one.

Correct Name Spelling: _____________________________

Correct Mailing Address: ____________________________

Correct E-Mail Address: _____________________________

BAGLY is quietly allowing people to say “My name is Albert, but you can call me Al” or “I used to go by Sarah, but now my name is Carter” without making any fuss about it.

Ask about Names When You Say “Thank You”

Keshet, the organization for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life, found another good way to ask which names to use. When they thanked us for our donation, they checked how my wife and I would like to be listed in their annual report.

As I said when I congratulated them in a post in 2020: “Keshet asked what we wanted to be called. They saw the way the names were listed on the check we’d sent them, but they didn’t assume that was exactly how we wanted our names to appear.”

Because everyone knows what happens when you assume!

Ask about Names and Give the Donor Control

It’s probably no accident that the first two examples came from organizations that serve the LGBTQ+ community. Names given and names chosen matter enormously to queer people, especially people who have made a gender transition. These organizations know that and tacitly act on their knowledge. But all nonprofits should follow their lead.

Just recently, I saw a different approach from an organization that is not specifically LGBTQ+, one that impressed me. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) emailed me to let me know that the control over my name was in my own hands.

Here’s why they made the effort:

We know how harmful misnaming is and we want to do everything in our power to not do it. We want to thank those of you who have come forward and spoken up about the harm being misnamed causes in our community, especially for our trans, gender non-conforming, and non-binary members.

Here’s what they did:

“The heart of JFREJ’s new policy is our self-reporting portal which gives you control over your personal data,” they told me.

When you click on the link, you will be asked to submit the email address we have on file for you (i.e., the email address that this email was sent to). You will then be emailed a new link, which will show you the private information we have on record for you and will give you the opportunity to change any or all of it, including your name, phone number, address, email, and recurring donation. 

You can make those changes any time. Your data, your choice. 

And if the portal doesn’t work for you, and you prefer to update your information by connecting directly with a human, you can email our Development and Database Associate at [email protected]. He’ll kindly take care of it for you, anytime. 

And here’s why you should consider doing the same!

As we’ve seen over and over, names are personal. Getting a person’s name wrong sends the message that you don’t care who they are, as long as they give your organization money. That’s a slap in the face to anyone who’s fought for their identity, and it’s insulting to anyone, period.

Names are not just an LGBTQ+ issue, any more than curb cuts in the sidewalk are just a wheelchair user issue. The curb cuts make it easier for everyone to get around: workers carrying loads, parents pushing strollers, grandmas using canes or walkers, people whose legs are tired that day!

If you give everyone control over how their names appear in your database, it’s like installing curb cuts. Pretty soon, everyone will use them, and the only thing that people will notice is the backward thinking groups who have stopped them short, by continuing to call them the wrong name. Don’t be that group!

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