How to Get Your Current Donors to Give You 40% More
Your current donors will put their money where their heart is!
What would it look like if you raised 40% more from your current donors?
Let’s run the numbers:
What if you are raising right now – say, $100k a year – and it comes from a group of about 700 donors.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could raise $140k from those same 700 donors?
Or what if are you raising right now $1,000,000 – and it comes from 2000 donors each year.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could bring in $1,400,00 without a whole lot of extra work?
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I like that math, don’t you?
So let’s make that happen for you!
Your current donors are where the real money is.
We all know that it is far easier to raise MORE from your current donors than it is to bust your butt to bring in new donors.
In fact, research studies show that it takes-7-12% more effort, time and money to bring in a new donor than it does to raise more from a current donor.
So this is a no-brainer, right?
(Tell your board members to stop focusing on finding new donors, ok? Point them in this direction instead!)
Master fundraising guru Roger Craver gave an amazing presentation this week – and he detailed this data and bowled us over.
Find out how we can help you achieve your fundraising goals with world-class consulting and custom training.
He said:
You have less than 2% chance of a gift from a brand new donor who doesn’t know you.
You’ve got a 20-40% chance of a gift from a lapsed donor, and a 60-70% chance of a gift from an active donor.
So now we know why we are focusing here, right?
How to Get Your Current Donors to Give You 40% More?
Here’s how:
Call your donors to say thank you within 48 hours of the gift.
Just think how happy your donors would be to hear from you!
We are finding that the SPEED of your thank you matters far more than you think.
The best possible thing you can do is pick up the phone immediately when you get a gift. And call the donor.
Sure, it’s nice if board members will do this job of phone calling donors.
But unless they will do it QUICKLY, I say go ahead and do it yourself.
Roger says:
The mere act of phone calling – even if you leave a message – hugely impacts your donor’s future gifts!
Remember, I am big on phone calls to donors – even if you might call it old-fashioned technology.
Why? Because phone calling is highly personal, a great tool for connecting and engaging.
AND you can get important unfiltered feedback immediately from your donor.
So what does it take to pull this off?
It is not so simple as picking up the phone!
I think it takes something deeper – an organization-wide commitment to devote time and energy to current donors.
You need a serious commitment to Donor Services. You need to designate someone to be in charge of this urgently important area.
If you do this you’ll have greater donor retention and less attrition.
That also means you’ll have greater Donor Loyalty – which is what my INSIDERS are learning in our webinar series right now.
You’ll have more money flowing in the door, and you’ll have to work MUCH LESS HARD to bring it in.
It’s really up to you and your organization – whether you get the most out of your fundraising program.
Roger says:
YOU and your org directly determine whether donors stay or leave you!
You’re much more in control of how much money your donors give you . . . than you think!
BOTTOM LINE:
How are phone calls working for you?
Who is doing them? What kind of results are you seeing?
What’s your experience like?
Leave us a comment and let us know!
Great post. When exactly is that specific webinar on donor loyalty?
Totally agree! As a manager of a calling program to thank donors I see how important it is to have a constant follow up. You can never say thank you enough!
I’m confused by the statistics. 60-70% of active donors who receive an acknowledgement call within 48 hours will give again, resulting in a 40% increase in giving over what: their previous gift amount or the charity’s total dollar receipts or number of gifts? The first sentences imply you mean dollars, but your description of Carver’s stats implies number of gifts, i.e., “chance of a gift.”
Hi Bill! the webinar with Roger Craver was this past monday, and we have two more webinars on how to implement donor loyalty in the next three weeks. The webinars are only available to the INSIDER members, are you a member? :)
thanks Taylor!
Active donors who will receive a phone call within 48 hours – there will be a 39-40% increase in future gifts on average from those same donors. It’s also Penelope Burk’s famous research, corroborated over and over by other people.
Do you have any thoughts on hand-written notes in the first 48 hours vs. a follow up phone call?
Generally the phone call has more impact than the handwritten note. It’s more personal and direct. But you should really do both.
My motto: “Find 7 ways to thank your donors and they will keep giving!”
I completely agree with the phone calls. My staff doesn’t love it but the donors do! I cannot tell you how many times I am out in the community and donors mention they got a phone call. It did help my staff when we role played thank you calls including leaving a voice mail message which means a lot, too! Our motto: you can never say thank you enough!
Thx Dean. Glad to have your confirmation that this strategy WORKS!
We have one staff member who spends about 30% of her time simply making thank you calls to our donors. She always leaves a message if no one answers and it is not uncommon for the donor to call back and thank her for the thank you voice mail. We’ve seen a handful of sometimes donors turn into regular donors, giving larger gifts, since we implemented the calls on a regular basis.
Hi Gail – great post. I’m curious about phoning leadership annual giving donors within that time frame. With limited resources in this area, do you have some suggestions on how best to manage that?. I work in a large shop so I’m not even sure we get notice of the gift within 48 hours…thanks, Kelly
I love calling donors and thanking them. It is an honor. When donations arrive, the relationship manager is immediately notified via email or through an assigned action in our donor care program to give the donor a thank you call. Depending on the size of the donation, the founder or President also gives a thank you call. This happens within 48 hours. We leave voice mails if no answer. I also follow up with a hand written personal note with major donors. Not sure at this time of the impact calls are making on donations. However, the donors love it. It is a personal touch.
Hi Beth – I love that you have our founder or President make the calls. It will be fun to track your long term $$ results too.
The first place I’d start is trying to get notice of the gifts as soon as possible. Can you enlist the head of that department to put it as a priority? And do consider having OTHER volunteers make thank you phone calls. It doesn’t have to be done by you and your staff and board alone. Divide and conquer!
Lindsay what happy news. Isn’t it nice that they start giving you more and you don’t even have to ask!
Thanks Gail!