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Fundraising Tuesday: One Story or Many?

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You want donors to remember your organization between the times you ask them for money. You want them to think well of you. Storytelling is a time-tested way of attracting readers’ interests and getting them to remember.

Is it better to tell one story at a time, or many?

A Magazine of Stories

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently mailed me what looked like a regular news magazine. It had an attractive front cover, an ad on the back cover (for the ACLU!), and a Table of Contents full of articles about issues the organization had addressed. Some of those articles told success stories; others were works in progress.

It was impressive.

It’s a week later, and the magazine has gone out in the recycling bin–and I can only remember one of the stories the ACLU told me. (And that one has been in the mainstream news!)

Am I more likely to give to the ACLU because I received the magazine? Yes, marginally. But it cost them a lot to make that impression on me–and most of the organizations I support don’t have that kind of budget.

What can your organization do instead?

Tell the Right Story to the Right Person

If you really want to make a lasting impression on your donor that will lead to renewed and increased support, find out what they care about. Then, tell them one story about that.

Find out by asking them in your welcome series after their donation, or in a survey, or by calling them on the phone, or by seeing what they post on their own social media. (Record that information in your database or CRM, and segment your list.)

Then, write to them about that specific issue. Nothing else.

If you’re a hospital, send one story to people who care about childbirth and a different story to people who care about hospice.

If you’re a museum, talk to people who care about art preservation with different examples than you use for people who care about art education for children.

And if you’re a social justice organization–even though you know that the issues you work on are all connected!–talk to the donor about protecting voter rights, ending police violence, feeding hungry families, or stopping domestic violence, but not about all of them.

Find out what that donor cares about most. Send them messages just about that issue for the next six months. And watch your end-of-year income rise!

Determining Marketing Channel by Donor Segment: 5 Strategies

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A guest post by Grant Cobb of GivingMail

Your nonprofit is working hard to give back to your community, but perhaps you’re having a difficult time connecting with your audience. Perhaps you have low engagement rates among your donors, or maybe you’ve even heard that your audience is not receiving or remembering your marketing materials. That’s a major problem, but what can you do about it?

Marketing is an essential part of fundraising for any nonprofit organization’s development. How do you know which marketing strategy to use and which donors to use it with?

Donor segmentation, or the process of dividing your donors into groups based on similar characteristics, is a very effective strategy to appeal to certain types of supporters. For instance, while text-to-give might be an effective marketing channel for your younger, tech-savvy donors, it might fail to connect with those of older generations.

But that’s just one example! We’ve picked our 5 top strategies for identifying the right marketing channel for each of our donor segments. In determining your marketing channel of choice, you should:

  • Look at your donor’s past engagement.
  • Reference the donor’s preferred communication channel.
  • Use demographic information.
  • Categorize based on average gift size.
  • Orient your marketing around your donor’s location.

Marketing for your nonprofit takes time, energy, and money, so streamlining your outreach method can make your fundraising approach easier and might even earn you more donations. Plus, you can build better relationships for your donors, and hopefully encourage them to stick around. Let’s dive in!

1. Look at your donor’s past engagement.

Reviewing your donor’s previous engagements with your organization offers valuable insights into which marketing channel you should use and how often you should contact your supporter.

Let’s say you’re comparing two different donors. Donor #1 is highly engaged with your organization. They attend various events and sometimes volunteer. Meanwhile, Donor #2 was a one-time contributor and it’s been crickets since.

Because these donors have such different levels of engagement, your approach should vary accordingly!

For Donor #1, you could make a phone call to request a donation for your upcoming fundraiser. If this donor has had face-to-face interactions with your organization, a highly personal marketing channel, like a phone call, is a great idea. But Donor #2 might be more likely to respond to a more passive approach, like outreach via social media or email.

Here are some additional tips for ensuring that you contact your donors effectively:

  • Personalize your outreach: A little personalization can go a long way. Simply using the donor’s name or acknowledging their previous engagement history demonstrates that you value the donor as an individual, and not just a dollar amount.This GivingMail guide on how to ask for donations can help you personalize your donation requests to best fit the donor you’re contacting.
  • Try taking a multi-channel approach: Contacting your donors across more than one channel increases the likelihood that your message will reach the intended audience. Consider combining two or more channels, such as text-to-give and direct mail.
  • Identify which channels have been most effective in the past: As the saying goes, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Feel free to rely on the channels that have worked well with particular donors in the past.

2. Use the donor’s preferred communication channel.

Have you ever asked your donors how they would prefer to be contacted?  Using this information not only saves you time by eliminating the channel guessing game, but it also demonstrates that you pay attention to your donor’s preferences, which they will certainly appreciate.

If you haven’t asked your donors for their preferred communication channel, it’s a great idea to include this question in your onboarding or donation form on your nonprofit’s website going forward.

On your survey, you could provide these options:

  • Text
  • Email
  • Phone
  • Direct mail
  • Social media

You could also consider how you acquired the donor. Did they find you through your website? Did they donate through text-to-give? Did they respond to a post on your social media account? If one channel has reached them before, it will likely be their preference and will reach them again.

Obtaining this information sooner than later can make a huge difference in how much time you spend on planning your marketing approach. If your nonprofit is launching a digital campaign, for instance, and you already know your donors’ preferred digital communication method, you can get started immediately.

3. Segment by age.

One of the most commonly used demographics in donor segmentation is age, and for good reason. A younger audience might be more likely to find your organization through your website or a text-to-give campaign while older donors might hear about you through word-of-mouth or direct mail marketing.

But be careful not to make too many assumptions. While you might be tempted to use social media solely to reach your younger donors, certain platforms, like Facebook, are actually used more often by older audiences.

In addition to aiding your marketing strategy, age can also help you determine which fundraising approach you might want to implement within each segment. While a crowdfunding campaign or peer-to-peer fundraising is most effective with millennials, remember that baby boomers will tend to be more responsive to traditional mail campaigns.

4. Categorize based on average gift size.

Depending on the fundraiser you’re running, it might be more efficient to focus on a specific type of contributor as your campaign progresses. This approach can help keep your fundraising efforts organized and will give you the time to focus on one segment at a time.

For instance, if you’re running a capital campaign, you might want to focus your efforts on donors who have the largest average gift sizes first to secure major donations. Then, you can work your way down to the lowest average contributors, adjusting your marketing strategy along the way.

Not sure how to organize your strategy or which marketing methods to use? Here are some steps to follow with their ideal marketing channel if you decide to segment your donors by their average gift size:

  • Major gifts: Start here. This way, you can make sure to acquire your biggest donations before appealing to smaller donors. Prioritize highly personalized interactions with these donors. Try meeting them face-to-face or giving them a phone call to explain the value of their gift. Be sure to determine a minimum required donation amount to be considered a major donor beforehand.
  • Midsize gifts: Once you’ve secured your largest donations, move on to your medium-sized contributors. Reach them with a personalized email or direct mail campaign. Plus, if your large donors agree to match other donations, you could use this benefit as a selling point for your mid-size and smaller supporters.
  • Small gifts: Focus on these donors last to push your final fundraising total up to your goal. Connect with them through a text-to-give or social media campaign, and make the donation process as easy as possible. Remember that every donation counts!

5. Orient your marketing around your donor’s location.

Your proximity to donors will affect how accessible you will be to them, and segmenting your donors by location can help you tailor your marketing materials to fit those limitations. This is especially true if you’re an organization working within your local community.

If you’re hosting a local, in-person event, for example, it wouldn’t make sense to send a postcard invitation to someone living two states away.

However, just because your far-away donors can’t attend your event doesn’t mean that they don’t want to hear from you. All you have to do is implement a different strategy. Social media, email, text-to-give, or other digital communication methods can be an effective way to continue building meaningful relationships with donors who aren’t nearby. This OneCause guide to hybrid events can also help you bring your donors together no matter their location.

 

Grant Cobb is a fundraising specialist with over 6 years of experience in the nonprofit space. Currently the head of marketing and analytics at GivingMail, he is a huge proponent of data-driven decision making and the push to bring high-level analytics and fundraising to all.

Fundraising Tuesday: Building Better Donor Communications Through Technology–3 Tips

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A guest post by Steven Shattuck of Bloomerang

Communicating with your nonprofit’s donors is probably pretty high on your to-do list. After all, communicating with donors and retaining them for the long haul is essential for organizational growth.

It’s much more expensive to acquire new support and replenish lapsed donors than it is to retain your supporters already in your donor database. Bloomerang’s retention guide even explains how a mid-sized organization can make more than $10,000 additional funds simply by increasing their retention rate by 10%.

This guide also discusses the reasons that supporters lapse, according to a study by Adrian Sargeant. It boils down to the idea that better communication can help prevent a large percentage of lapsed support.

reasons donors stopped

So how can you better communicate with your supporters to keep them around for the long term and help your organization grow? The answer is personalization and efficient use of technology. 

In this guide we’ll cover three tech tips that you can use to optimize your communications:

  1. Leverage Donor Segmentation in Your Database
  2. Choose Multiple Communication Platforms
  3. Automate Communications Where Appropriate

1. Leverage Donor Segmentation in Your Database

When was the last time you got a personal letter or email from a friend or colleague? Maybe your best friend knows how much you love cat videos, so she sent you the latest one with a note hoping that it’ll make your day. Or, maybe a colleague sent you a heartfelt thank-you for your work on a recent project. Perhaps it was even a constituent from within your nonprofit organization, explaining how much you impacted their lives.

All of these examples have one thing in common: They’re all incredibly personal. Your best friend used the knowledge she has about you to send the video, your colleague noted a recent action you took to help them, and your constituent discussed the direct impact of your actions. If they didn’t have this information, none of these parties could send as warm a note of appreciation.

Similarly,to communicate effectively with your supporters, you need to know something about them. Share on X

Use your donor database to get more personal

In an ideal world, you would be able to send an individualized message to every supporter in your donor database. However, you’re hard-pressed for time as it is, so that’s just inefficient.

Instead, you should create segments in your donor database that will guide communications, ensuring they’re personalized while also allowing you to work efficiently.  For instance, the most common ways to segment donors are by:

  • Recency. Separate donors who are brand new to the system from those who have been around for a while.
  • Frequency. Consider how often donors give to your organization. For example, monthly donors would be in a different segment from annual ones.
  • Type. How do these donors give to your organization? Do they give at events or online? Alternatively, are they volunteers who give their time?
  • Amount. Your team likely treats major donors and donors who contribute under $100 annually differently. Consider the in-betweens, too, to cover all your bases.
  • Reason. Ask donors why they give to your organization and create supporter segments based on similar answers.
  • Interest. You can reach donors with similar interests with a similar message. This analysis will help you craft the ideal communication messaging.

If you were to send the same newsletter, fundraising appeal, thank-you letters, and event invitations to everyone in your donor database,  those supporters would not remain engaged for long. They’d be getting too much irrelevant information.

Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to our communications, leverage your donor database to create segments that will help tailor your message and personalize it according to what will best resonate with supporters.

2. Choose Multiple Communication Platforms

Too often, nonprofits take a binary approach to their communication plans. They may say, “It’s the digital age, so we’ve gone entirely digital” or “We’re resistant to new technology and have stuck to old-school methods.” While this may feel more manageable for busy nonprofit staff members, this strategy is actually harmful in the long run. Network for Good conducted a study noting that organizations that dropped to a single marketing channel from multiple ended up also dropping their retention rate by 31.32%.

Therefore, the best approach is to combine these methods and use a multi-channel approach to your communication strategy. 

Consider the number of platforms you engage with every day. You check your email, social media accounts, mailbox, text messages, and probably even more. With so many platforms available, you can make an impact by communicating your message on a number of different channels, all of which will reach your supporters at varying levels of success. However, when they see your branding across these channels, your supporters are more likely to retain the message due to repetitive exposure.

Combine repetitive exposure with well-crafted messaging and your supporters are bound to engage more than if they only received one message on one platform. You might consider communication platforms such as:

    • Email. Email is the bread and butter of a communication strategy.  Plan out automated drip campaigns and solicitations in your email marketing solution, and be sure you can track the records of these interactions in your donor database.
    • Direct mail. Do you get excited when you see you have mail in your mailbox (when it’s not a bill)? Your supporters do too! Hand-written or typed out messages sent through direct mail platforms help support your digital marketing strategies.
    • Social media. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow you to give regular updates about your organization’s latest activities. Adjust your messaging to account for the platform you’re using and create groups on these platforms to create a sense of digital community.
    • Your website. This is where your supporters go to learn more about your organization’s mission and often to give to your campaign page. Kanopi’s UX guide explains that “Good [User Experience}, especially on your nonprofit website, will lead to higher retention rates, higher engagement rates, and an overall lower cost for website development and support.” So be sure your site is easy to navigate, offers valuable information, and is well-designed overall.

Of course, you don’t want to take on more than you can handle all at once. Start by adding in one platform at a time so that you can give each one the attention it needs to become a valuable resource for your supporters. You might start by optimizing your website, then creating email drip campaigns, and finally writing several social media posts to engage supporters.

3. Automate Your Communications Where Appropriate

Automation is best used by organizations that have already created a marketing strategy that they’re using before ever automating their communications. Once you’re confident in your marketing strategy, you can start using automation to enhance it. 

Until technology matches human intelligence, we still need fundraisers and marketing specialists to communicate impactfully with supporters.

There are a few worst-case scenarios you want to avoid in the automation process. For example, perhaps you create a drip stream of messages guiding supporters to give to your latest campaign. A new donor donates once and feels good, but before they even receive a thank-you message, they’re entered into the middle of a drip campaign and receive another donation solicitation. That supporter likely will feel like their first contribution wasn’t even acknowledged, much less appreciated.

Poor automation is even more detrimental than no automation, which is why you should optimize your strategy before automating everything you can. Share on X

Some of the optimization opportunities you’ll probably get started with include:

  • Automating the confirmation email for online donations. This won’t replace your additional “thank you” that you’ll personalize later, but it should convey appreciation and act as proof that you did receive the gift.
  • Automating social media posts. Writing many social media posts all at once is a very efficient way to craft these messages. Schedule these posts to go out at specific times, but be sure to check in on them to be sure they’re still relevant before they’re posted.
  • Automating data collection. When you invest in new fundraising solutions, look for integrations or use a tool like Zapier to automate the data collection process. For example, you might automatically save the information about new supporters in your CRM when they give their first donation using an integrated donation page.

Nonprofit software and tech infrastructures are an important part of nonprofit strategies. However, you should also remember that technology can never completely replace a personal fundraising message. By leveraging technology, your goal is to maximize your relationships with supporters rather than ask the computer to do all the work.

 

Steven ShattuckSteven Shattuck is Chief Engagement Officer at Bloomerang and Executive Director of Launch Cause.

A prolific writer and speaker, Steven is a contributor to “Fundraising Principles and Practice: Second Edition” and volunteers his time on the Project Work Group of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project and is an AFP Center for Fundraising Innovation (CFI) committee member.

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