No, You Aren’t Bothering Your Donors
No one wants to be a pest. But I think nonprofit teams fear this more than most of us! Their concern is something like this:
What if we annoy donors by reaching out too much?
And it connects to a flurry of other donor engagement questions related to discovering the magic number of touch points per year and creating the perfectly spaced drip campaign and synchronizing in-person conversations with solicitation mailers.
In short, NP CEOs and directors are wrestling with the WHEN question in our effective donor engagement series: WHEN (as well as HOW OFTEN) are you sharing your WHY with donors?
Quick answer? 9 times out of 10*, NP teams aren’t connecting enough with donors.
*Just my gut response, based 1st on a decade of working with NP teams and 2nd on study after study that show donors WANT to hear from the orgs they care about.
For some proof that you aren’t being a pest, check out these charts from a Donor Loyalty study featured at Nonprofit Times...
This study confirms that:
The majority of your donors want to hear from you at least once a month—and 1/3 want to hear from you twice a month or more!
The WHEN question is multifaceted and complex, but made easier by prioritizing donor needs by segment and assessing your team’s workload.
Don’t assume that your already-strapped donor comm team needs to do MORE to solve the frequency problem. It’s very possible your team needs to do LESS. At the very least, they need to shift their efforts from low-ROI activities to high-ROI activities.
Knowing HOW OFTEN and WHEN to engage with donors comes to light by developing experience plans for each segment. It clarifies for your team the CADENCE of engagement to deepen those relationships.
Your team will need to:
#1 shift their approach for each segment
#2 redistribute their efforts
It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing what’s effective for those donors. Engagement efforts will increase for some segments, decrease for others. It’s possible by freeing up your senior team members to focus on high-ROI activities that grow relationships with key donors. General donor comms can be assigned to a junior team member (or an outside vendor who can partner with your donor comm team).
Shifting your team’s priorities gives your greater flexibility and effectiveness for answering the WHEN question. It will ease your team’s workload by engaging with donors in ways that deepen the relationship and inspire donors to give their best gifts. And grow that bottom line.
Ready for more?
Here are two ways I can help you make your mission irresistible to donors:
1. Connect with me or follow me on LinkedIn.
That’s the first place I explore donor strategy ideas like these. Be sure to join the convo!
2. Work with me.
I help nonprofits already raising $1M+ annually to remove the mission-critical blind spots that keep their donors from giving and keep their teams running ragged. Should we work together? Let’s see!
Schedule your 15-minute Change Chat here and share about your nonprofit and how you’d like to improve your donor strategy.