5 Donor Engagement Tricks During Coronavirus
Tags: Fundraising Ideas, Nonprofit, Philanthropy, Fundraising, Donors

This guest post is from Sarah Tedesco at DonorSearch.

This year, nonprofits have had to deal with unexpected obstacles due to the impact of COVID-19. Fundraising professionals had to cancel or pivot upcoming events and adapt to the challenges of remote work.

But even through the economic downturn and general uncertainty, fundraising has persisted. After all, your mission hasn’t disappeared, and in some cases may be more critical than ever.

While the immediate changes to your fundraising strategy have likely already been dealt with, our current landscape of social distancing isn’t going anywhere. Nonprofits need creative and innovative ways to fundraise effectively, engage donors, and cultivate stronger relationships, all while keeping staff and supporters safe.

In any situation, donor engagement should involve playing to your strengths and leveraging the data you already have on hand. The coronavirus pandemic is no different.

At DonorSearch, we believe that a strong foundation of research data can equip nonprofits to achieve their fundraising goals, even in difficult times. Based on our experience working with thousands of organizations, we’ve compiled a few ways how strong data and communications strategies can engage donors, even during coronavirus:

Conduct research to identify and cultivate potential major donors. Say thank you. Hold a virtual stewardship event. Demonstrate supporter impact on your mission. Personalize communications with donors.

With these tips, your nonprofit will be better prepared to connect with supporters, even from a distance. Let’s get started.

1. Conduct research to identify and cultivate potential major donors.

You have the most fundraising success when you focus your engagement efforts on the right donors. To do this, you need to identify who in your current pool of supporters are most likely to increase their support to your organization through major gifts.

This can be accomplished through prospect research. In this technique, fundraisers learn more about donors’ personal backgrounds and histories to evaluate two major characteristics:

Capacity to give. This describes the prospect’s financial ability to give to your nonprofit.

This describes the prospect’s financial ability to give to your nonprofit. Affinity to give. DonorSearch defines this as the strength of a prospect’s natural connection to your cause. It indicates their warmth and willingness to give to your organization and mission.

A major donor prospect likely has both a high capacity to give and high affinity to give. Some fundraisers make the mistake that you simply need to look at your donor’s wealth profile. But just because a supporter has the money to make a substantial contribution, doesn’t mean they will.

Capacity and affinity to give can be determined by screening donors for the following:

Philanthropic indicators. These indicators include previous donations to your nonprofit and other organizations, past nonprofit board involvement, and personal information like demographics and interests.

These indicators include previous donations to your nonprofit and other organizations, past nonprofit board involvement, and personal information like demographics and interests. Wealth indicators. These markers include stock holdings, real estate ownership, business affiliations, and past political contributions.

These indicators are gathered from publicly available government records, online information like social media, and prospect databases. Depending on the size of your nonprofit, this data can be gathered by an in-house fundraising team, a nonprofit consultant that specializes in prospect research, or a prospect research screening company.

Once you’ve identified your prospective major donors, be sure to target them with some of the other engagement strategies on this list. Cultivating a major donor requires strategic relationship building, often over a long period of time, so it’s a good idea to start now when your other fundraising efforts may be slow.

2. Say thank you.

This tip is commonplace in donor engagement guides like this one, but for good reason — it works. Consistently and authentically saying “thank you” to supporters is the simplest way to show your appreciation.

Especially in our uncertain economic and social climate, you should remind each donor how grateful your organization is for their support.

After a donation is made, you should work quickly to follow up and thank the donor. In fact, a first-time donor who is thanked in the first 48 hours is four times more likely to give again in the future. That’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss out on.

You can handle the thank-you process swiftly through an automated email, but if you have the time available, it’s even better to send a handwritten note or make a quick phone call. These personal touches will go a long way.

If you’re looking to express your gratitude more strategically, consider following an email template made by an expert. For example, these donor thank-you notes from Fundraising Letters can guide you in the right direction. Just be sure to adapt your content to the unique characteristics of your organization!

3. Hold a virtual stewardship event.

Engaged donors should feel connected to your organization, your mission, and each other. Facilitating these connections can help you improve donor retention over the long run.

According to some studies, donor retention rates are typically only around 45% — meaning your first-time donors are more likely to abandon your organization than make a second donation. Focusing on relationships and engagement can help you boost this metric.

Even if your donors can’t convene in person for a volunteer program or fundraising event, you should still work to establish the same feeling of community in an online format. Stewardship events are a critical component of strengthening your nonprofit’s community, and they can easily be held online.

A few ideas for an engaging virtual stewardship event include:

Virtual happy hour or networking event

Virtual dinner party

Online trivia night

Virtual cooking class or art class

Online book club

Video tour of a behind-the-scenes look at your nonprofit’s headquarters

The options are nearly endless. Any virtual fundraising event can become a stewardship event if you invite supporters to attend without charging them for a ticket! Just make sure the event offers opportunities for supporters to mingle virtually.

Plus, a virtual stewardship event allows you to expand your reach to a wide audience. An in-person gathering limits attendees to your geographic area, while a virtual event unlocks the opportunity to supporters all across the country — or even the world! This also expands access to those with disabilities that otherwise limit their ability to attend or fully participate in a traditional in-person event.

4. Demonstrate supporter impact on your mission.

We’ve already explored the importance of telling donors you’re thankful for their support. This tip is about demonstrating why that support is so critical.

Whenever possible, translate the contributions of supporters into its concrete impact on your mission. This is easy to calculate if you work to provide resources to constituents, but consider the significance of time and labor, too. The goal here is for each supporter to visualize and understand the difference they can make.

Your donors will feel more engaged and empowered if they can see exactly what their donation can accomplish. This is key both for major contributions and smaller donations.

Here are a couple of specific examples of tying impact to donation amount:

Your donation of $30 provided 10 new children’s books to promote literacy efforts in the local community.

Your donation of $500 enabled our animal clinic to give vaccinations to 10 puppies.

Of course, these statements will vary based on your cause, so try to be as specific as possible. You can use these impact statements in your thank-you emails to donors as well as publicize them more widely. Displaying impact in a highly visible format will help current supporters feel proud of their contributions and may even inspire generosity from new donors!

Consider the following ways in which you demonstrate the impact of donors to your entire audience:

Annual report. This is a good place to include aggregated information from donations throughout the year.

This is a good place to include aggregated information from donations throughout the year. Social media shoutouts. Highlight major donors on social media (with their permission, of course) and include what their donation made possible.

Highlight major donors on social media (with their permission, of course) and include what their donation made possible. Live videos from organizational leaders. Tools like Facebook Live make it easy to have a casual conversation with your audience about their donations.

Tools like Facebook Live make it easy to have a casual conversation with your audience about their donations. Evidence or testimonials from affected constituents. You could include photos or stories on social media or on your website.

You could include photos or stories on social media or on your website. On your online donation page. This can be a helpful detail to add to suggested giving amounts.

Each of these opportunities can further strengthen the link between your supporters and your mission, improving overall donor engagement.

5. Personalize communications with donors.

Another useful digital engagement tactic is to personalize your communication with each supporter. Your donors will feel more connected if your outreach proves that you recognize their individual characteristics, needs, and motivations.

To do this, target segments of donors with different messaging tactics and also include information that is personalized to each donor.

Your fundraising software should make it easy to create segments of supporters based on key characteristics. For example, you might create a group based on a certain geographic area or past volunteering history. Then, you’ll be better equipped to craft content that appeals to each group.

Further personalize your email content to each individual recipient. Innovations in nonprofit artificial intelligence make it simple to gather complex data and put it to good use in your communications. Your marketing software may allow you to automate the personalization process by including tags like [first name] that correspond with fields in your donor database.

For example, you may personalize a message with strategies including:

Addressing the greeting of the email to the recipient’s first name

Including the recipient’s name in the subject line

Referencing the specific amount of a recent donation made by the recipient

Thanking the recipient for attending a recent event

Referencing details specific to your nonprofit, like whether the recipient is a dog or cat person

Personalizing the call to action based on past engagement data

Studies have shown that personalized email marketing leads to an ROI of 122%, so these strategies are proven to improve engagement and fundraising revenue.

With social distancing guidelines in place, the nonprofit world looks a little different than usual. As you head into 2020’s year-end giving season, keep these tips in mind to engage your donors from a distance. By employing relationship-building strategies with supporters, your nonprofit will be well-equipped to drive your mission forward during and after the pandemic. Good luck!