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Fundraising Tuesday: 3 Donor Communication Tips for Nonprofits

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Your nonprofit likely spends a significant amount of time attracting new donors, enlightening them about your mission, and sharing how your nonprofit can make a difference. But after a donor gives, does your nonprofit still keep in touch effectively?

Donor communication is a core part of cultivating long-lasting, valuable relationships with supporters. While it is  important to attract new donors, staying in touch with the donors you have can allow your nonprofit to build a vibrant and passionate supporter community. 

To improve your donor communication practices, let’s dive into three tips nonprofits can put into action immediately:

  1. Personalize your messages.
  2. Create new engagement opportunities.
  3. Demonstrate donors’ impact.

1. Personalize your messages.

Donors are individuals, and your nonprofit should strive to create unique relationships with each one of them. This may not seem like a practical goal on the surface, but with the right communication tools, you can tailor each message as closely as possible to a donor’s unique interests.

Personalization involves including personal details about each donor in your messages. This can include referring to them by their name, using the communication channels they prefer, referring to their past engagement, highlighting upcoming activities that fit their interests, and making donation requests that align with their previous gifts.

Your nonprofit’s CRM should allow you to create donor profiles, where you still house all of this information. Of course, if your CRM is lacking, it may be necessary to switch. For example, many nonprofits switch from Raiser’s Edge to the Salesforce CRM due to the latter’s increased functionality, such as its robust donor management applications.

2. Create new engagement opportunities.

Supporters are unlikely to get invested in your nonprofit if you only ever reach out to them with donation requests. Instead, vary your messages by sharing new engagement opportunities.

By giving supporters more ways to get involved, you can learn more about your supporters and even get opportunities to connect with them face-to-face. The more opportunities you offer, the more you’ll be able to improve donor relationships and create a better communication strategy.

 

A few types of activities to get in touch with your supporters about include:

  • Volunteer opportunities. From helping with fundraisers to working on your initiatives, volunteers are a core part of your nonprofit’s team. Your donors can actually be one of your best sources for finding new volunteers as well. Reach out to donors and share how they can get involved in upcoming volunteer opportunities.


  • Membership program. To get supporters even more involved in your nonprofit, consider creating a membership program. Supporters who join your membership program will pay a recurring fee, and in exchange, they’ll have access to a variety of content. This can include exclusive articles, online courses, and VIP treatment at events. Make sure you have the necessary tools to manage your members and communicate all of the benefits and opportunities associated with the program.


  • Peer-to-peer campaign. Peer-to-peer campaigns call on your supporters to reach out to their friends and family to fundraise on your behalf. These campaigns give supporters an accessible way to help out your nonprofit besides donating. Plus, you can make your peer-to-peer campaign more engaging by combining it with other fundraising opportunities like events or giving days.

You know your donors best, so choose the engagement strategy that will most interest them. Take note of which donors engage in other opportunities. Then, the next time you get in touch with them, try sending a message about a similar activity and reference the last opportunity they participated in.

3. Demonstrate donors’ impact.

Donors want to know that their gifts are making a difference. As part of your communication strategy, be sure to share their impact. There are a few strategies nonprofits can use to let donors know their gifts matter, like:

  • Adding examples. When donors are preparing to give, help them understand what their donation means by sharing examples of how their gift might be used. For example, a nonprofit that plants trees might mention how many saplings a $25 donation will help them replant.
  • Using visuals. Help your supporters visualize their impact by using images. In your messages, add photographs of your volunteers hard at work, your beneficiaries receiving aid, and your staff rallying supporters to action. Nonprofits with access to a graphic designer can even create their own infographics to help supporters visualize the impact donations make in even more detail.
  • Providing campaign updates. After a donor gives to a campaign, they may begin to question if their donation was worth it if they never hear back from the nonprofit. Use your CRM to keep track of which donors gave to which campaigns and initiatives. Then, reach out to them to share specific details about the progress you’ve made thanks to their support.

If your nonprofit is unsure how to best demonstrate your donors’ impact—and help them make more of an impact—rest assured that you’re not alone. There are a variety of resources, conferences, and courses available for nonprofits to improve their communication strategy and learn how to make each donation go further.

 

Fundraising Tuesday: Give to Get–the Donor’s Mailing Address

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When you meet someone you’d like to date, you ask for their phone number. When you meet someone you’d like to see become a donor to your nonprofit, you ask for their mailing address.

That’s right, post office mail. U.S. mail. Fondly referred to as “snail mail.” Because it works.

Across all age groups, direct mail fundraising appeals work better than email appeals, and far better than asking for money on social media. Even when a donor goes to your website and gives online, she is more likely to give because she’s already seen your letter in the mail.

The question is, why should she trust you with her address, any more than she’d trust you with her phone number? The answer is, because you have given her a reason to.

Give to Get the Mailing Address of a Donor or Prospect

What can your organization give your actual or potential donor that has to go through the mail?

Example 1: Something timely to read.

HIAS mailing addressHIAS is an international agency whose slogan is “Welcome the stranger. Protect the refugee.” Although it helps and gets help from people of every background, it was founded a hundred years ago to aid Jewish immigrants, and a significant number of its donors are still Jewish.

So, I was impressed when, the week before Passover, I got a card in the mail containing this special reading that I could add to my Passover seder:

We extend our hands in welcome to those who continue to seek asylum in our country, and we remember the danger of what happens when ordinary people do not stand up to those in seats of power. Now, we join hands to recognize that the work of welcome is the work of each of us and all of us and that we are strongest together.

Granted, I was already on their mailing list, so the card was more of a thank-you gift than a “give to get.” But if this were the first mailing they’d ever sent to me, it would make me happy. I would tuck the card away to use at my family’s seder–so much nicer than having to look it up on my phone!

And if they had emailed me and said, “We have this beautiful reading with a colorful illustration that you can use to make your holiday more special, and we’ll mail it to you–just fill in your street address here”? Yes, I probably would have. And then HIAS would have been able to send more communications, and appeals, to my home, through the mail.

Example 2: Something symbolic to wear.

Change Comes Now works to support women imprisoned in Florida. During the depths of the pandemic, they were the only group making sure that women inside prison walls had face masks to wear.

Providing those masks was an act of real solidarity. For people on the outside, Change Comes Now figured out a way they could show solidarity symbolically–and a way they could share their mailing addresses with the organization.

Change Comes Now created rubber wrist bands, marked with the name of a women’s prison in Florida: “Gadsden,” “Lowell,” “Homestead.”  On Facebook, CCN offered its followers the chance to get one of these symbols of solidarity through the mail. For a couple of bucks to defray the cost of postage, a family member, a formerly incarcerated woman, or simply someone who believes the prison system is inhumane could receive a wrist band through the mail.

CCN received their mailing address. By entering those addresses into its database, it made it possible to mail them newsletters and, eventually, fundraising appeals.

What can your nonprofit offer that will make people who follow you online (or get your messages in their email inbox) agree to share their mailing address?

Fundraising Tuesday: Write the Donor a Love Letter

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Listen, my friends: I’ve been trying to tell you how to write the ideal appeal letter in many different ways.

I’ve mentioned that your Board is not your audience, it’s your donors…and that you need to make your donor feel like the hero of the story, and get to know them, remember them, and thank them.

Forget what I said. Someone I just met said it better.

Why Donors Give

I was speaking to a conference of people with disabilities in the northeast U.S. I was explaining that bragging about your organization and its accomplishments may make donors say, “That’s nice, but why should I care?”

I told them donors give not because you do good work but because giving makes them feel good about themselves. “Because of you,” the nonprofit should say to the donor, “a wonderful thing is happening.”

One participant at the conference turned his wheelchair to face me and raised his hand. “Now I get it,” he said.”What you’re saying is You want to write the donor a love letter. Share on X

Why a Good Appeal Letter is like a Love Letter

love letter

Brown paper card-sized envelope sealed with a valentine sticker

No heartsick suitor ever won his lady’s love by boasting. “I’m so great. I’ve done so well in so many ways. I deserve your love, so love me.” Sorry, Romeo, that’s not going to touch the heart.

What you have to say in your letter is what makes the other person–in this case, the donor–so love-able. Their values. The cause they support. The difference they make with each donation.

Persuade your donor that it’s their action that changes the world for the endangered people, species, or ecosystem they care about. Your organization is the vehicle by which they express what’s best about themselves–but only the vehicle.

Don’t focus on getting them to love you. Show the donor you love them.

Are you puzzled about how to write a love letter to your donor? Email me at [email protected]. I’ll be your Cyrano and show you the way to your donor’s heart.

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