29 Tips for Gaining and Retaining a Donor Base

"The whole point of membership," Rich said, "is to make the members feel like they're part of your organization."

7. Activities. Be creative and interesting. More people drop their memberships after the first year than if they've been long-term members. Therefore, do something special to make sure first-year members will want to renew their memberships.

8. Communications. You can't communicate with members too often, Rich said, recommending putting yourself on your member list so you can receive all of the communications your members are receiving. Save each one — whether direct mail or e-mail — date them and then lay them all out and see how it looks. This is what members are seeing. Over the course of a year, Rich recommended sending one to four renewal notices, four to 15 invitations, two to four fundraising appeals, four to 12 newsletters/bulletins, as well as the annual report and a couple of surveys.