Retention

Ian Adair, executive director at the Martinez Foundation and part of the Donor Retention Project, shares why you need to be paying attention to millennial donors. Since they are different from the donors you may be used to, Ian also shares three ways you can engage and steward them.

In her January 2011 DM Diagnosis article, "Baby, Come Back," fundraising copywriter and creative director Kimberly Seville shared what happened when she deliberately became a lapsed donor.

Did you know that nonprofits as a whole have a donor retention rate of 49 percent? Retention rate refers to the percentage of donors who make another gift or have an ongoing relationship with a nonprofit.

There’s no question that poor donor communications is a core driver of poor retention. This is something most organizations can fix. But let’s raise the ante a bit. Let me posit that too many nonprofits out there are not making a difference. Or, putting it more charitably, maybe their performance has peaked! Look at your organization closely. Do you need better communications or a poison pill?

In our May 2012 issue, Donor Voice CEO Kevin Schulman mapped out the "Anatomy of a Committed Donor."

Sustainable fundraising is about keeping your entire house in order. A focus on donor retention will raise lots of money. Period. Everyone knows by now (I hope) that it’s a lot more expensive to acquire a new donor than to retain an ongoing donor. Nonetheless, too many nonprofits still focus the lion’s share of their resources on (1) upgrading a handful of major donors and (2) getting new donors in the door. Don’t get me wrong.  Tending to those things is important. But it’s definitely not all there is.

American Bible Society, a faith-based organization dedicated to bringing the message of the Bible around the world, is one of the three featured organizations at Engage. In our May 2005 issue, Stratmark's Max Bunch described how ABS retooled its message and survived two years without acquisition mailings by taking "A Well-Calculated Risk."

Fundraising researcher Adrian Sargeant found that “improving donor retention by just 10 percent can double the lifetime value of your donor database.” So how do you capture those lovely LYBUNTs (Last-Year-But-Not-This-Year donors)? We suggest more strategic and more frequent or targeted communications (surprise!). Here are some approaches you should try at home.

Building an effective donor program takes time and effort. Here are 10 ideas to help you foster the one thing we all desire most: donor retention.

We have to accept our sector is in a crisis of near terminal proportions. So anyone who might throw a lifeline setting out what wise nonprofits should be doing to slow, stop and reverse this situation should be very welcome to sector leaders. Under the general theme of wise investment, both time and money, to increase retention Chuck Longfield launched in with five specific, timely nuggets of advice.