Don’t give up on your lapsed donors. With the right strategy, you can bring them back into the fold — and it’s easier than trying to win new ones.

By Cary Castle

“Renewal is all about response rate; everything else is secondary,” says Larry May of Greenwich, Conn.-based May Development Services. “Approach every contact with your donors or members from a response perspective. Could the response be higher? What other goal does the communication have that’s more significant than response? Could you achieve that goal and also increase response?”