How To Convert Donors

Once you’ve identified a solid pool of prospects, you’re ready to start converting.

But, how? Mail the same, tired prospect appeal you updated after Lehman Brothers collapsed?

Although probably most of the fundamental themes in that letter are still relevant, if you’re reluctant to recycle the letter by just changing to today’s date, try one of our 5 ideas…

1. Mix up the medium: if you’ve always tried converting new donors by snail-mail, try phone calls from volunteers/Trustees or email – or, try a combination of media per appeal.

2. Change the solicitor: if all your appeals come from your ED or Board Chair, try another Board member, an event/project Committee Chair, local celebrity – or a client or volunteer. Hearing about your mission from a client/recipient of your services drives home your impact.

3. Create meaningful follow-up emails: after an event, email attendees with links to photos from the event. Ask your Trustees/volunteers to forward this email to the 3 donors at their table for whom you don’t have emails. Post the photos on Facebook and your website two weeks after this email to create a sense of exclusivity.

4. Matching Gift: use a prospect appeal as an opportunity to secure a matching gift from a major donor (or group of donors). Leverage this matching gift to the prospects. Better yet, combine with #2 – by having the appeal signed by that donor.

5. Have fun: Although most of our missions deal with serious subjects, you can have fun with your appeal that’s still mission-based. For instance, NPR launched an innovative skit in one annual telethon featuring Alec Baldwin that turned the reason for giving to NPR on its head, as a way to demonstrate NPR's relevance. You know your donor audience - don't trivialize your mission, but don't feel obligated to always be so serious.

Who To Convert To Donors?

Your prospect pool is not limited to the large and often impersonal lists of donors you might purchase from a list broker (such as Melissa DATA).

Also, while expanding your donor base through Melissa DATA prospect lists is a valuable strategy - and we are absolute advocates of it - it can take coordination and human capital and financial resources that you may not have.

As a nonprofit, you also have organic sources of potential donors, including:

1. People who have contacted your nonprofit for other reasons related to your mission: send your recent prospect letter/email to people who have called your hotline (if you capture their information, but be mindful of HIPPA), who have taken tours of your facility, who have donated nominal in-kind items, or have attended trainings offered by your nonprofit.

2. Facebook/Twitter Fans: have a social-media/internet-savvy volunteer sift through all the profiles of your FB and Twitter fans to see who is already on your list.

3. People already involved in your nonprofit, but who are not donors: volunteers/vendors/former staff/speaker at your community events/conferences. Although this suggestion sounds obvious, whenever we suggest it to our clients, they usually respond “oh yeah...we should ask our volunteers to become donors – great idea!”

4. Event attendees who are guests of current donors, or people who attend your free/friend raising events: maybe you’re absolutely zealous about getting the contact information for these people, but if you’re like the rest of us Development mortals, it’s a great opportunity to ask your Trustees and Friends groups to share the names of people who “should” be giving to you.

5 Major Gift Ideas

Now that you’re convinced a major gift program is the cornerstone to an effective fundraising strategy, let’s share some ideas for what your program could look like:

1. Launch a (removable) donor wall in your lobby to recognize annual giving above a pre-designated amount. For instance, if your average gift is $50 and the top 20% of your donors give $500 and higher, make $500 the minimum for listing.

Quick case study: We had one client that employed this like gangbusters; during Q4 of their fiscal year, they sent an appeal to all donors the past year who gave at least $500, sharing that the donor wall printing was coming up and they hoped to include that donor. It was a terrific solution to sluggish summer giving.

2. Or, adjust your donor wall upward based on cumulative giving.

3. Create specific ‘benefits’ for major donors. Customize based on your resources and assets, but good ones we’ve seen include: website listing, (e-)newsletter listing, naming this group, donor wall, freebie invitation to signature events for the highest giving levels and a major gifts-only reception/event/activity/engagement (exclusive lunch with the founder/visible and popular Board Member).

4. Make sure to let higher level annual fund donors know about your major gifts program. If your major gift program begins at $500, share your major gift program with your $250-$499 donors.

5. Further stratify and re-think qualifications annually. For instance, $500 may start your major gifts program, but if your single largest donor contributes $7,500, you’ll need additional recognition opportunities for that donor and others near that level.

Additionally, re-run your 20% donors/80% revenue analysis each year; you may find your top 20% of donors shifts to $750 and you’ll need to adjust accordingly.

You may want to wait until that trend occurs for two years – and, secure buy-in from Board and Major Donor Solicitors before simply changing.

But, be proactive and aware of such changes, as you succeed with major gift fundraising!

Why Major Gifts?

We’re often asked by clients and prospective clients why should they start a major gifts program? Typically, we hear this from small, start-up nonprofits.

Many cannot spare the human capital needed to prepare, meet and follow up with individual donors.

We understand the importance of effectively allocating human capital assets to maximize an organization’s impact on its mission and other fundraising activities.

However, we also believe to achieve growth and sustainability goals, major gifts from individual donors are the cornerstone of any effective fundraising plan:

1. Your philanthropic sources should be aligned with industry trends: approximately 80% of giving in the U.S. is from individuals (grants– 12%, corporations – 5% and government grants – 3%). To achieve this balance – even with a modest $250,000 budget – fundraising professionals will spend hours upon hours chasing after their average gift donors ($35) or, worse yet, will seek grant funding, which is ultimately unsustainable.

2. Without a major gift program, you’re signaling to your community that $35 is a mission-critical gift. If you truly wish to expand your impact, $35 can’t remain mission-critical. To change your organization’s culture of small giving and grow beyond a grassroots movement, you must lead the way among your donors by launching a major gifts program.

3. It’s an expectations game and some donors in your community will absolutely ‘step up’ to this challenge of giving more than your average of $35 because your mission has special significance to them. Fundraising is an opportunity for donors to express their values; give your donors a vast array of opportunities.

4. Introducing and maintaining a successful major gifts program entails one of our favorite themes: segmentation. You will undoubtedly communicate with a major donor differently from a $35/annual fund donor. Such effective communication ultimately makes all donors happy.

Case Study: Membership Retention

Many associations are struggling with their membership renewals and Arrowhead Management has successfully increased membership renewals with our clients by analyzing our client’s database.

We’d like to share a sample case study.

The Association of Good People (AGP) is examining ways to increase its membership retention rate. Currently, AGP’s retention rate is at 76% and they wanted to see the retention rate at 80%.

Our first question wasn’t why should people renew, but rather, why do people allow their membership to lapse?

We looked at the behavior of members to see which subsets renewed memberships. Not surprisingly, we found that the more involved somebody was, the less likely that person was to lapse.

AGP’s retention rates:

Involvement Level	Members		Renewals	Retention Rate
Board Members	25		24	96%
Committee Members	91		85	93%
Donors	75		68	91%
Attended 3 + events in previous 12 months	48		42	88%
Attended 1 or 2 events in previous 12 months	132		109	83%
Opened newsletter	96		72	75%
Total Involved Members	467		400	86%
Uninvolved Members	183		94	51%
Total Number of Members	650		494	76%

Now that we know why members lapse – they are not involved – we could implement strategies to reduce membership lapsing.

The Board split up the list of “Uninvolved Members” and called everyone to invite them to the next event. The goal was for 50% (91) of the 183 uninvolved members to attend the next event. If this happened, it would increase AGP’s overall membership renewals.

Watch what happened when this was successfully executed (the blue marks the changes to note):

Involvement Level	Members		Renewals	Retention Rate
Board Members	25		24	96%
Committee Members	91		85	93%
Donors	75		68	91%
Attended 3 + events in previous 12 months	48		42	88%
Attended 1 or 2 events in previous 12 months	223		185	83%
Opened newsletter	96		72	75%
Total Involved Members	558		476	85%
Uninvolved Members	92		47	51%
Total Number of Members	650		523	80%

You’ll notice that a total of 523 members renewed, for a net increase of 29 renewals by current members and the overall renewal rate is AGP’s target rate of 80%.

By increasing the engagement and involvement of members through event participation, AGP not only improved its retention rates, but also tangibly impacted its bottom line; its annual membership was $1,000, so these changes translated into an increase in gross revenue by $29,000!

Converting Prospects

How a Donor Becomes, Well, a Donor

As fundraisers, we spend the vast majority of our time persuading people to act now.

We raise more money when we mobilize our existing supporters than when we engage people who haven't the faintest idea about our work. Customized appeals are always more successful than general appeals that try to interest everyone. Relevance to donors is paramount.

So how do we grow the pool of relevant prospects?

Let’s remind ourselves how our current donors became, well, donors.

In this blog, we'll define the five key steps that all donors go through before you're aware of their gifts. Our next blog will share a case study about one of our clients, which applied these principles to its direct mail program.

Awareness
The first step is for people to be aware of the causes and social change movements that your nonprofit belongs to. For instance, Kiva.org connects donors with entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Kiva.org belongs to the social entrepreneurship and microfinance causes.

If you're Kiva.org, both your current donors and prospective donors are, at some point, aware of social entrepreneurship as a movement.

This awareness leads adults to fall into two buckets: those predisposed to become donors and those who are not.

Although this five-step process is not always linear for donors, let’s start with people already predisposed to contribute to your organization because of their awareness about your cause.

Image Matching
At some point in the contribution process, donors visualize themselves as belonging to your cause. They co-brand themselves with your work because of the positive association your cause brings them.

Fact Matching
People who see themselves as connected to your work begin to educate themselves about it. They might Google broad industry terms or they might speak with friends or colleagues to learn more about the depth and breadth of your cause.

Organization Matching
While donors are researching your cause, they will inevitably come across your organization as well as your competitors. They've strengthened their engagement with your movement and are looking for opportunities to express their values. Make sure you are easy to find!

Gifts
You did it! Donors just completed the important journey to find you and make a contribution.

Lapsed Donors: Top 10 Ideas

1. Do a matching gift. Raise a set amount that you can leverage for a direct mail appeal. Have the appeal come from the donor and share why s/he cares so much about your cause.

2. Tell the story of why your cause matters from the perspective of a volunteer or client.

3. If you have a local community leader engaged in your work, have an appeal come from him/her.

4. Do a micro-campaign. Launch a small campaign around one, tangible outcome - say it costs $5,000 to provide a medical service to a patient – and build your appeal around improving that one person’s life. Remember, have a launch, beginning and celebration.

5. Remember, in difficult economic times, more people give – but they are more likely to give smaller amounts. Create an appeal around that concept. Select a low per person cost service – maybe it costs $10 to feed a family for one day – and ask small gift donors to help one family.

6. Start with an email ask; 7-10 days later, follow up with snail-mail (or vice versa). Snail-mail everyone on your list – or just those who opened the email but didn’t contribute.

7. Reacquaint donors with your mission. Many donors simply forget why you matter. Focus on what still needs to be done, rather than what you’ve already accomplished.

8. Reinforce donors’ image of themselves as important philanthropists. Phrases such as “as somebody who makes a difference in the community, you…” strengthens giving as part of their value systems.

9. Offer donors the option of making special occasion gifts. Tie in your appeal with holidays or other mission-based events – say, Mother’s Day for breast cancer.

10. Create multiple engagement opportunities. Prospects who write letters or volunteer will become donors. Donors appreciate that you value more than just their contribution.