Donor stewardship refers to the process of building and maintaining long-term relationships with donors and why they are needed. The goal is to engage on an ongoing basis to retain your donors’ long-term support.
The cost of acquiring a new donor is much more expensive than retaining an existing one. In fact, charities must often receive multiple gifts from donors to break even on their donor outreach. Donors you have long-term relationships with are more likely to promote your cause through word of mouth, further driving down your donor acquisition cost and funneling that money to your cause.
A nonprofit’s current donors are also more likely to give than new prospects. Forging long-term relationships with donors leads the to give large donations in the future. On average, it can take 4-5 years and 18-24 personalized touchpoints to successfully obtain a major gift from a recurring donor. One major gift can exceed the value of donations made by one-time donors in year.
For this reason, your nonprofit must prioritize donor stewardship as a donor retention strategy. In this guide, we will go through the following five best practices for a successful donor stewardship program.
- Segment donors and prioritize outreach
- Show gratitude promptly and publicly
- Focus on donor cultivation
- Use storytelling to demonstrate impact
- Leverage integrated technology solutions
Let us explore these best practices in further details.
Segment donors and prioritize outreach
Supporters are more likely to engage with your outreach if you tailor it to the type of donor they are. Delivering personalized experience to those already part of your nonprofit’s community will keep them connected and more likely to continue donating in the future. For example, you might ask one-time donors to donate monthly, and monthly donors to increase their donation amount.
Apart from donation frequency, you can also segment donors by donation level. You likely won’t pan have the time or capacity to call or meet with all your donors personally. By grouping donors by levels, you can devote more time to personally interacting with higher-level supporters.
For example, consider these strategies for stewarding donors by donor level:
- Major donors - Personal phone calls, face-to-face meetings
- Mid-level donors - Handwritten notes, personalized emails
- Minor donors - Virtual roundtables
Try to make your outreach as personal as you can, depending on the resources you have at your disposal.
Another way of an simultaneously segmenting users and boosting engagement is by sparingly gamifying some elements of your fundraising strategy. For example, donors can unlock special badges for social sharing after completing streaks of recurring monthly donations.
Your objective should be to incentivize action at certain stages of the donor journey (if a donor hasn’t donated for some time or if they’re close to completing a milestone like 12 consecutive monthly donations).
Show gratitude promptly and publicly
A prompt thank you gives donors confidence that you received their gift and will use it immediately. Expressing gratitude early, frequently and in various ways makes a positive first impression and reinforces their decision to give.
Make unique landing pages thanking donors for their gifts on your website for each campaign. Donors should be taken to the relevant thank you page after making their gift. They should also be sent a receipt of their gift along with an automated thank you email within 48 hours. For major gifts, a board member, the CEO, or the ED should also compose a personal email followed by a phone call.
You should also publicly acknowledge donors. For example, you could name all donors in a monthly newsletter and/or on your website’s donor wall. Public recognition not only shows your organization's appreciation for its donors, but also inspire others to give.
Focus on donor cultivation
Second donor interactions tend to happen at two primary points– within a month of the initial donation, and at the one-year mark. Donors who donate at the end of the year or for Giving Tuesday tend to wait nearly a full year before donating again.
Make sure you have a dedicated recurring monthly giving program in place you’re unable to build one, you can still create a separate campaign page for monthly givers
While you don’t often need to solicit recurring donors, it is nevertheless to cultivate them. Cultivation typically involves regular communication in the form of updates, news about your successes and how their donations are driving impact. A thank you email and receipt should also be sent for every gift within 48 hours.
Part of segmenting and prioritizing donors is communicating different messages to each segment. Acknowledge a recurring gift every time. You can ask for feedback on your outreach from recurring donors as your evolves. A donor can offer helpful advice and actively listening to their suggestions will also help you gain their trust.
Use storytelling to demonstrate impact
While you should always report hard data and relevant statistics to your donors, they should play a supporting role in a broader story. By telling stories about your nonprofit’s work and mission, your staff and volunteers, and the people and communities you serve, you humanize your data. This makes it easier for donors to feel involved and visualize why their gifts are needed, making them more likely to donate again.
Even when asking for recurring gifts, you should frame you around the their donation’s potential impact. For example, instead of simply asking for a ‘Monthly gift’ or to. ‘Donate monthly’ on your donation form or in emails, you should say ‘Provide shelter to an animal for a month’ or ‘Pay for 5 meals for a child every month’. This makes it easier for donors to visualize their gift’s tangible impact and makes them feel like they’re part of your team.
Leverage integrated technology solutions
Technology enables you to personalize your donor outreach efforts and steward donors in a more meaningful, connected way. A plethora of software designed for all aspects of nonprofit management is available, meaning you can almost certainly find software with an appropriate feature set for your organization’s needs. Utilizing donor management software with integrated fundraising and payment processing capabilities makes it easy for you to collect data to formulate your strategy
Additionally, consider these other essential software solutions and features to look out for to improve your donor stewardship plans:
- Donation software with multiple giving methods. Use donation software that allows you to offer multiple ways to give, such as direct debit or ACH payments. Offering an ACH payment option can increase the lifetime value of a donor by up to 55 percent. This is because alternative payment methods can help prevent lapsed credit cards and missed payments.
- A payment processor with an account updater tool. Even if a donor misses a payment due to a canceled or lost credit card, you should have a system for connecting with them to get their new credit card information. Some payment processors, such as iATS Payments by Deluxe® offer an account updater tool, which automatically contacts the donor’s bank in the event of lapsed credit cards and obtains the updated information.
- A robust nonprofit CRM. You can use your CRM to send personalized, targeted emails and even trigger automated email sequences based on donor behavior, making engaging large numbers of donors easy. This is much easier for nonprofits to accomplish when they have a robust donor database with integrated email marketing.
With connectivity among these tools, your nonprofit can customize email templates and then use our segments to quickly and easily send communications. New data obtained from the messages sent (like email open and click-through rates)can be updated directly back into your donor base.
Support Center