Fundamentals of Donor Retention

“This is a group we want to keep engaged and involved, and they seem responsive to mail,” Jones said. So the CARE team developed a mail program targeted at midlevel direct-mail donors called the President’s Circle.

The program objectives were to:

• Increase retention of donors giving at the $1,000-plus level.
• Increase the number of $1,000-plus donors.
• More aggressively reactivate lapsed midlevel donors.
• Provide a bridge between traditional direct response and high-level, one-to-one cultivation.

So CARE developed a two-pronged approach: a welcome package and an invitation package. The welcome package was mailed to 0- to 24-month donors who had given $1,000 or more. It acknowledged the donor as a member of the President’s Circle, introduced the benefits of membership and provided an opportunity to make a gift. The invitation package was mailed to 0- to 24-month donors who had given $500-$999 and 25- to 36-month donors who had given a single gift of $1,000-$4,999. It invited the donor to become a member of the President’s Circle — must make a single gift of $1,000-plus to join — and introduced the benefits of membership.