6 Effective Donor Retention Strategies for Small Nonprofits

5 Effective Donor Retention Strategies for Small Nonprofits

It’s tempting for small nonprofits to focus heavily on donor acquisition. After all, the more donors who give, the more funds you get, and the larger your nonprofit becomes. However, this is only half of the story. 

The logic of acquiring more donors to grow your nonprofit holds only when you can keep that engagement high over a long period. Therefore, your nonprofit must first master the art of effective donor retention. 

There are several reasons why donor retention is so crucial for small nonprofits:

• Asking a donor to give again is much less expensive than performing enough outreach to acquire a new donor.
• Donors who give to your organization over time are more likely to increase their contribution amounts and leave gifts in their will.
• Retained donors are a more reliable source of referrals, in-kind donations, volunteerism, and peer-to-peer fundraising for your nonprofit.

With these benefits in mind, we’ve compiled a list of strategies to help your nonprofit increase donor retention. Even if your staff power is low, your organization can still take these necessary steps to grow your base of loyal donors. 

1. Track donor interactions to personalize communications.

Many nonprofits make the mistake of asking donors to do things they’ve already done or sending them questions they’ve already answered without ever taking time to appreciate their support. Too often, donors feel a little bit like an ATM. And your donors are not ATMs!

Tracking all communications in your nonprofit constituent relationship management (CRM) system helps your nonprofit stand out and avoid repeating requests. Plus, you can use your CRM and marketing software to personalize your communications to make donors feel recognized as individuals. For instance, you can: 

• Use your donor’s preferred name in your messages’ subject lines and salutations. 
• Mention the last engagement opportunities they took advantage of, whether donating, volunteering, or attending an event. 
• Talk about their unique impact on your mission based on their history of giving and involvement. 

You can also leverage CRM data to analyze the effectiveness of your outreach. For instance, if you’re using email to ask for donations, you can track open and click-through rates to get an idea of their effectiveness. Make small adjustments to your outreach to determine which communication styles appeal most to supporters. 

2. Offer multiple ways to engage.

We recommend spacing out your fundraising asks, but that doesn’t mean halting or limiting communication with your supporters. You simply need to ask for something other than money occasionally. 

Supporters will appreciate your efforts to engage them in all aspects of your nonprofit’s mission, and they’ll feel valued for more than just their financial contributions. For example, ask donors to get involved in your nonprofit’s other initiatives, such as: 

• Volunteering. Volunteers deserve just as much recognition and appreciation as donors (frequently, the groups overlap!) because they donate time, which is just as beneficial. After all, volunteer time is valued at over $33 an hour! Encourage supporters to sign up to volunteer at your next event or in-office during the busy season. 
• Advocacy opportunities. If your nonprofit’s mission includes advocacy, ask your supporters for help with your campaigns. Simply signing a petition or calling their legislator can help your nonprofit dramatically. Plus, this is an easy way for supporters to contribute without donating money. 
• In-kind donations. Instead of asking for money, provide a list of in-kind donations a supporter can give, whether office supplies, electronics, clothing, tools, etc. Tell them exactly how you’ll use the items and how they will help serve your mission.
• Events. Inform supporters about upcoming events, such as a fundraising 5K, auction, awareness event, or networking opportunity. Let them know they can support your cause by attending or spreading the word about the opportunity. 
• Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. Peer-to-peer fundraising allows donors to act as fundraisers by managing their own mini-campaigns. They’ll create personalized donation pages and share them with family members and friends to generate support for your organization. 

Mixing up your communications and providing many different opportunities to get involved with your nonprofit allows you to appeal to supporters’ various interests and help them feel like integral members of your nonprofit’s team. 

3. Prioritize personalized, low-cost touchpoints.

Creating a variety of personalized touchpoints between donors and your nonprofit is essential to building genuine, long-lasting relationships. You may think it costs too much time and resources to create memorable moments for donors, but in reality, there are a variety of low-cost touchpoints your organization can use to facilitate relationship-building. 

Here are a few affordable stewardship opportunities you can offer donors: 

• Face-to-face meetings
• Handwritten greeting cards
• Digital eCards
• Tours of your nonprofit’s facilities

Although these efforts won’t cost much, they will require your staff’s time. You can always recruit volunteers to support your donor stewardship efforts, taking the pressure off your busy staff members as needed.

Remember that major donors, in particular, will want to interact one-on-one with your nonprofit executives before they make a significant contribution. This type of engagement allows them to feel closer to the inner workings of your nonprofit and increases their trust in your organization. 

No matter who you’re connecting with, dig into your donor database before meetings or events to learn details about the donors you’re talking to. Note their interests so you can lean on those topics in conversation and create a smooth exchange. 

4. Make the most of donor management software to track relationships.

Investing in the right technology allows your nonprofit to meet current and future needs. We recommend looking for software that offers scalable solutions and valuable integrations. 

Scalable solutions

Smaller organizations may be unable to afford the large solutions that bigger nonprofits use to raise money, store donor data, and conduct marketing activities. That’s why we recommend looking for scalable software. 

These solutions have the potential to grow with your nonprofit as you expand over time. Instead of investing time and energy in setting up a new solution each time you outgrow the functionality of your current solution, you can simply scale up your current solution to broaden the functionality. 

Integrations and automation

According to Bloomerang’s donor management software guide, integrations facilitate seamless data transfer between your CRM and your organization’s fundraising software, marketing solutions, and financial software:

Streamlining nonprofit work with integrations has many advantages for small organizations, including: 

• Reducing human error. Human error accompanies manual input and transfer of information from one software solution to another. Automating these activities helps you save and leverage more accurate information about your donors for the future. 
• Saving staff members’ time and energy. When you cut back on the time staff members take to transfer data from one software solution to the next, you’re creating more space for them to focus on more important matters. They’ll have more time to reach donors or work on projects to support your mission.

Because software is essential to creating engagement opportunities and developing relationships with your supporters, it’s also integral to donor retention. To set yourself up for success, work to ensure your software ecosystem is as effective and efficient as possible. 

5. Ask donors for feedback. 

Reaching out to donors for input is one of the simplest, most effective ways to improve stewardship and retention efforts. By gathering donor feedback, you don’t have to guess at their preferences or priorities—you can go right to the source to get accurate data to inform your outreach strategy.

Create and distribute donor feedback surveys via email. Ask questions that get to the heart of your communication, marketing, and fundraising efforts, such as:

• Why did you decide to give to our nonprofit?
• How would you rate the simplicity and convenience of our donation process?
• What is your preferred donation method?
• Did we effectively explain how your donation would be used?
• How frequently do you want to hear from our nonprofit about the impact of your gift?
• What is your preferred communication method?

You can also segment donors to send surveys tailored to their needs or traits to learn more about specific donor groups. For example, you could create a survey for lapsed donors to ask them why they stopped donating and what your organization could do to regain their support. Or, develop a questionnaire for donors who prefer to give online to collect their insights about ways to improve your website’s donation page.

Send a heartfelt gratitude email to donors for completing the survey. Summarize the changes you’ll make in response to their feedback so they know their voices were heard. 

Donor retention is key to helping your nonprofit grow. However, it doesn’t come without hard work! Implementing strategies like those outlined in this article will help your organization retain more supporters. And, with better retention rates, your nonprofit will see a revenue boost in the years to come.

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