Donor management is many times synonymous to data management. It is all about keeping a record of donations and details of donors. Donor management tools do help in creating better fundraisers, focusing on improving donor relations is beneficial to your nonprofit organization in the long run. Good donor management can be your key to creating a deeper level of connection with your donors.
When recording donor data, the following details should be considered mandatory:
- Donor’s name and contact information.
- Volunteer status and history
- Giving records
- Event attendance
- The response rate of each donor
In order to nail nonprofit donor management, you definitely have to wear many hats. It is a huge puzzle that includes busy work, relationships, databases and growth. This article talks about the best practices in donor management that can help you take your nonprofit organization to the next level.
Keep a tab on engagement
Track and keep tracking your donor engagement, this is the first step to getting to know your donors better. Keep a tab on your donors’ likes and dislikes. Make sure that you have your fundraising data in place with little details such as communication history with your donors. You can also resort to excellent data management software and here’s how you can choose one. When you know your current status with each of your donors, you know where to make an effort for an improvement. Moving forward, the following activities can help you smoothen your donor relations and communication.
- Phone calls & meetings: Nothing really beats a one-on-one conversation between a nonprofit and donors. Do not forget to record how each call went and how many went unanswered. Meetings, whether in person or virtual can also be a way to show how invested you are in your donors. Take notes while you are at your meetings, you can always use points from your notes to initiate future conversations.
- Emails & click through rates: For good nonprofit donor management, sending an email or an e-newsletter is far from enough. Pay attention to the click through rates and the responses you receive, make it a point to follow up.
- Tracking of donor retention rate: This is a nonprofit fundraising metric that should not be missed, it shows how your nonprofit organization is growing. With the help of this data, you can easily see which of your efforts and campaigns are able to keep and bring in more donors.
Update your donors
Everybody likes to be kept updated and so do your donors. When you do not update your donors about your projects, success stories and annual reports, there are higher chances of you losing them. Make it a priority to update your donors with details of the campaigns and causes that they’ve helped in supporting. Talk about your newsletters and urge them to sign up for the same. Send them reports and even numbers once in a while. Ask them for reviews and feedback as well – the more updated and engaged your donors are, the more they will continue to donate.
Conduct prospect research
This is all about going in-depth with your data collection. When you conduct prospect research, you track the following:
- Biographical data such as age, gender, location, educational qualifications and so on.
- Reasons to give, for you to understand what causes specific donors to give.
- Donation frequency to understand your donors’ giving pattern.
- Details of offline and online donation to your nonprofits.
- Other nonprofits that your donors support.
Once you are done with prospect research, you will be able to figure out the prospects of each of your donors. This way, you’ll be able to connect with them better.
Personalize your communication
Although this may seem like the obvious, there is just no getting over it. With all the data that you have gathered, you can simply customize and personalize your communication materials to make your donors feel more at home. Be it thank you letters, appeals, emails or newsletters, it is a must to address each donor by their respective first names. The content of your communication can also be tailored depending on their specific field of interest. You can also make an effort to connect with your donors on social media, feature your donors, tagging and thanking them for their support.
Conclusion
When you excel in managing your donors, you get to find out all the necessary milestones for each donor that further helps in strengthening the bond that you already have. You also get to reach out to lapsed donors and make an effort to bring them back. It is a process that gives you an opportunity to really work on your donor relations. With effective nonprofit data management, you are paving the path for your nonprofit to thrive and achieve its mission.
