Published April 28, 2015

Retention Fundraising Tips

Roger Craver has written an immensely important book. It’s called Retention Fundraising.

Attrition is your enemy. Roger provides a pathway to keeping your donors.

Bill Crouch, a senior officer of our firm, read the book. He is sending it to all of his clients with the following comments:

i)  The average nonprofit has a 60 to 70 percent opportunity of securing additional contributions from existing donors. They simply have to ask.

ii)  There is a 20 to 40 percent probability of securing a gift from a recently lapsed donor if you use the proper methods.

iii)  But less than a 2 percent chance of receiving a gift from a prospect without some cultivation.

iv)  “With these figures,” writes Craver, “you would think we’d be spending the bulk of our marketing and fundraising dollars into retaining donors, rather than laying out large sums to acquire more and more new ones.” It simply means paying more and more attention to those who have already said they love you.

v)  Why do donors leave?

5% thought the charity didn’t need them anymore
8% there was not the proper follow-through on how their
money was used and they never heard about the results of
their giving
13% did not get thanked appropriately
18% felt there was poor service from the organization (the way
the phone was answered, not getting back to them when
they made an inquiry, and so forth)
36% decided other charities were more deserving

Only a small percent didn’t renew because of their own personal financial situation.

vi)  All of the reasons they did not renew could be changed if the organization spent an appropriate amount of time in providing effective and sustained stewardship.