Donor Relationship Management

Do you want to acquire more new donors? Do you want to retain more existing donors? Do you want to upgrade the support from more of your donors? Do you want to get more planned gift commitments? To achieve any of those goals, there’s something essential you must first do. You need to build trust.…

When I embarked on my own in fundraising consulting I had only one client that I served as a sole practitioner. I soon realized that I was missing the synergy of a team. Collaboration is important. We all have different skills. So, as we developed our team, we also looked for redundancy. We didn’t want just one person with a unique set of skills. We wanted backup...

For the more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the U.S., data—big and small—has never been more important in terms of its potential impact on fundraising. The opportunity to further understand, keep and grow donor relationships is huge. But for many of these organizations, there’s a catch—as hopes have risen, so have confusion and concern about using technology to make it happen without draining budgets and sacrificing other efforts...

Stop for a moment, go to a quiet place and focus on the problem your organization is dealing with. It could be homelessness, drug addiction, abuse of people or animals, the effects of humankind on the environment—whatever it is, focus on it...

Donor retention is a hot topic in the fundraising world. And it should be because retaining donors year-to-year makes your job a whole lot easier. If you are unfamiliar with this topic, then here’s a quick brief. What is donor retention? Donor retention refers to the number or percentage of donors that continue to give…

In last week’s article, I stated, “A nonprofit is not a business. But if you don’t run it like a business, you will go out of business.” A nonprofit organization differs from commercial ventures in many ways, but some important similarities exist...

Every nonprofit organization has a mission that drives and defines the good work it accomplishes on a daily basis. Communicating that mission's message in a consistent way is the charge of every individual at that nonprofit. Whether coming from the national office or one of its local affiliates, there should be little variation in that…

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to love Yogi Berra. Originator of many popular "Yogisms," including “When you come to a fork in the road, take it” and "It's déjà vu all over again,” Berra was known as much for his malapropisms as his MLB career. One of my newsletter subscribers reminded me of my favorite "Yogism" just the other day. Her organization has considered enrolling in a big-ticket, sustainable fundraising coaching program...

What donors really want to see is hope. You see, this world can feel pretty hopeless at times. There is media surrounding us that is extremely negative. Social media always is pouncing on someone’s mistakes—it can get pretty depressing. So, to be able to provide a message of hope to donors who have been supporting you is not only closing the loop on their gifts, but it’s giving them a bit of fresh air. I wonder how you are doing giving your donors hope...

Every day, your organization has numerous interactions with people across all channels. The experience of that interaction determines at least 50 percent of your supporter’s decision whether to interact with you again. So what is your organization doing to monitor and act on those experiences and ensure supporters actually support?...