Maryland Food Bank retains new donors by asking them to give again — before the window of opportunity closes.

By Amy Syracuse

“If you get a third of your donors to make that second gift, it’s considered good,” says Kent Rohrbach, vice president of client services for L.W. Robbins Associates, the Holliston, Mass.-based agency that manages Maryland Food Bank’s direct-mail program.

But there’s always room to improve. That’s exactly what Maryland Food Bank set out to do after noticing an unexpected drop in new-donor retention rates in 2006. Concerned the drop could lead to further erosion, the organization was advised by Robbins to adapt its new-donor communications strategy in response to trends observed in the marketplace.