As a nonprofit fundraising professional, you know it’s not enough to address donor outreach messages with “Dear Donor” and call it a day. With 71% of consumers expecting personalized interactions with brands, nonprofits like yours must focus on developing meaningful moments for supporters.
In this guide, we’ll explore the following tips for creating personalized donor interactions that inspire long-term, reliable support:
- Segment your donors.
- Use an interaction timeline.
- Call donors to express appreciation.
- Create unexpected moments.
- Ask for feedback.
Whether you’re looking to level up your monthly giving program, better engage with major donors, or encourage lower-level donors to increase their giving amounts, these tips can help build a stronger donor engagement approach that boosts retention.
1. Segment your donors.
Donor segmentation involves grouping supporters based on shared interests or characteristics and developing tailored communications for each group.
Think of segmentation like gardening—every section of a garden has different types of plants, each with its own needs and care requirements. You wouldn’t water a cactus at the same frequency you water marigolds. Similarly, each donor group has unique interests and needs, so a tailored approach to reach each segment will give you the best chance of helping your donors thrive.
Using the data stored in your donor management system (also known as a nonprofit CRM), you can identify donors with shared traits and start grouping them based on different criteria. Here are a few segmentation criteria that can help your nonprofit develop useful groups:
- Donor type: New, active, retained, lapsed donors
- Frequency: Donors who give monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.
- Monetary value: Small, mid-sized, and major donors
- Program: The specific programs or mission areas in your nonprofit donors support Donation type: Online donations, in-person gifts, donor-advised fund gifts, event gifts, in-kind donations, etc.
- Communication preference: Email, social media, text, phone calls, in-person, or direct mail
Most top-of-the-line nonprofit CRMs allow users to filter donors based on these criteria to identify and sort them into the right segments. Save these groupings in your CRM and start sending personalized messages to each segment.
For example, let’s say you’re planning a GivingTuesday campaign and you want to develop customized gift requests to donors based on their giving capacity. Here’s what those messages might look like:
- Small donors: “Just a $10 gift can help push our GivingTuesday campaign toward success!”
- Recurring donors: “Your extra gift today can provide more food to those in need”.
- Mid-level donors: “Give $250 right now to join our exclusive Heroes Circle!”
- Major donors: “Would you be willing to give $2,500 to push us over our goal and join our Legends Circle?”
Use the average gift amount from each segment to customize each donation request and customize the donation form accordingly. .
2. Use an interaction timeline.
Another feature common across nonprofit CRM platforms is donor interaction timelines. These data visualization tools allow fundraisersto note every interaction they’ve had with donors and use that information to build genuine relationships.
For example, interaction timelines track the following donor information:
- Emails they’ve opened
- Social media posts they’ve engaged with
- Campaigns they’ve donated to
- Conversations they’ve had with your staff, whether by phone or in person
- Meetings they’ve attended
- Volunteer events they’ve participated in
- Peer-to-peer campaigns they’ve participated in, whether as a fundraiser or as a donor
Ensure your CRM seamlessly integrates with your fundraising tools, marketing platforms, volunteer management system, and any other management software your nonprofit uses. This allows for smooth data flows between these platforms and your donor management system so that you can easily keep track of every donor interaction.
3. Call donors to express appreciation.
As digital messaging tools like text and email grow in popularity, you may think that phone calls are a thing of the past. However, there are still plenty of benefits to picking up the phone and making personal calls to thank donors for their gifts.
According to research from Bloomerang, calling donors once within 90 days of their first gift increases retention to 41%, compared to 33% for donors who didn’t receive a call. By calling donors twice within 90 days, retention jumps to 58%. Plus, donors who receive phone calls are more likely to increase their second gift size and make a follow-up donation much faster.
Graph showing the impact of phone calls on first-time donor retention (explained in the paragraph above)
Make an effort to personalize your conversations as much as possible using information in your donor profiles and interaction timelines. For example, ask donors what their last volunteer experience was like or congratulate them on their recent peer-to-peer fundraising win. Show donors that you’re paying attention to them and genuinely care about them as individuals.
4. Create unexpected moments.
Think about the last time you received an unexpected gift or text from a friend you hadn’t heard from in a while. You probably felt touched that they were thinking about you and, as a result, felt a renewed sense of goodwill toward them.
Similarly, donors appreciate unexpected, heartfelt moments that feel spontaneous and genuine. For example, here are some examples of meaningful messages you might send donors:
- Birthday messages. “From all of us at [your nonprofit’s name], we wish you a very happy birthday!”
- Personal event invites. “We noticed that you’ve previously attended our annual [fundraising event name] and wanted to extend a personal invitation to this year’s event.”
- Special welcome series for recurring donors. “Welcome to our monthly giving program! Explore the benefits available to you as a recurring donor.”
- Personalized impact reports. “Here is your 2023 Giving Roundup showing all the ways you’ve supported our organization last year!”
- Thank-you gifts. “We truly value your support. Please accept this car magnet as a token of our appreciation!”
Messages you send “just because” can be just as impactful for building relationships as donation-related messages because they show donors that you’re interested in creating connections that aren’t simply transactional.
5. Ask for feedback.
Ultimately, one of the best ways to learn donors’ preferences is to just ask. By sending a survey, you can gain insight into supporters’:
- Preferred communication platforms and frequency
- Favorites campaign to support
- Reasons for supporting your nonprofit
- General feedback on your donation process
- Interest in special ways of giving, like donor advised funds or legacy gifts
Donor feedback surveys allow you to gather crucial insights you can use to develop more personalized materials. Plus, they show donors that you value their perspective and want to hear from them about how you can improve their experience. And you know what they say: Ask for advice, get money!
Add the donor’s responses to their profile in your CRM to track their feedback and preferences. Thank supporters for taking the time to complete the survey and let them know how you plan to incorporate their feedback, whether through a change in your marketing approach or an adjustment to your donation process. And providing feedback about surveys is also an option.
It’s easier to create personalized interactions when you actually know who your donors are and what matters to them. Your nonprofit’s software tools can keep donor information organized as your organization grows to include a broader base of supporters. Using these solutions can help you create a doable and sustainable donor outreach program that maintains a personal touch for every supporter, making them more likely to stay engaged long-term.
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