You can help more people by improving donor experiences through hyper-personalization
Like any organization, nonprofits require a steady stream of funds to operate and continue providing good value to those who need help.
However, unlike other organizations, most nonprofits do not leverage the tools or marketing essentials to maintain or grow that revenue stream. This is usually due to a lack of resources based on supporters’ misunderstanding of operating and overhead costs. Nonprofits must treat their expansion goals like any other business and invest in developing a “designed” donor experience rather than a “default” one.
What is Donor Experience Design?
Donor experience design is about developing engaging experiences, communication, and relationships with your donors that increase the value of each donor. Most nonprofits do not invest in developing donor experiences, resulting in a donor experience by default.
A poor donor experience looks something like this:
- A donor donates via a donation form.
- The nonprofit sends a thank you email and a tax receipt.
- Another email or two requesting donations, and that’s it.
As you can see, there’s no follow-up, relationship, or “experience.”
If that hits a little too close to home, it’s probably time to rethink your donor experience.
Developing a Better Donor Experience
Developing a good donor experience starts with knowing who your donors are. Knowing who is donating to your cause is necessary to design an experience that engages with them.
You can start to learn about your donors by asking them a few questions during the donation process or after they’ve already donated.
Some important things to know about your donors include:
- How did they hear about your cause? You might learn that donors are getting referred by other organizations or previous donors, revealing collaboration or volunteer opportunities.
- Why did they decide to donate? Do they believe in your cause, or are they just seeking a tax deduction? Are they personally affected, or do they know someone?
- Do they plan on donating again in the future? You would want to engage with someone who plans on making future donations!
- What other causes do they donate to? Again, you might learn about potential collaboration opportunities, or there might be an option to provide additional services.
With this knowledge, you can begin to understand your donors’ behavior and develop an experience that engages with them meaningfully. Better engagement with our donors empowers your organization to increase the average value of each donor by increasing repeat donations or the value of one-time donations.
Tracking and Storing Donor Data
To store the data you collect (and later leverage it) from your donors, you’ll need a CRM/DRM (Customer/Donor Relationship Management System).
Your CRM/DRM will be your single source of truth for all the donors on your list. It provides a powerful interface for segmenting and searching your donors and gaining actionable insights to help you develop more powerful donor experiences.
In your CRM/DRM, you can create custom fields to store the answers to your questions and then run a report on the responses. If you see similar answers among donors, you can create marketing assets that specifically engage with their feelings and sentiments.
Leveraging Donor Information
A good donor experience is about cultivating relationships through hyper-personalization, the art of sending the right message to the right person at the right time.
For example, the reports from the data you’ve collected show you have an equal number of people who donated because they know someone affected by your cause or because they’ve been personally affected by your cause.
How you communicate with those personally affected should differ from how you communicate with those indirectly affected. One-size-fits-all messaging does not work. Let’s go over how you might communicate with different segments of donors.
Donors Who’ve Been Directly Impacted:
- Lots of empathy: Acknowledge their personal experiences with sensitivity and compassion. Use language that validates their emotions and experiences.
- Use personal stories: Share stories of individuals or families directly benefiting from your nonprofit’s efforts. This helps them connect emotionally with the impact of their donations.
- Include action-oriented messaging: Highlight the tangible outcomes of their contributions. Emphasize how their donations have made a direct difference in the lives of those in need.
- Recognition and appreciation: Express gratitude for their generosity and emphasize the importance of their ongoing support in sustaining your relief efforts.
Donors with No Direct Connection to Your Cause:
- Provide education: Provide information about the broader context of the issues your nonprofit addresses. Help donors understand the systemic challenges and how their support contributes to addressing them.
- Impact reports: Share detailed reports on the outcomes of your relief efforts, including statistics and success stories. This helps indirectly affected donors see the tangible impact of their contributions.
- Community engagement: Encourage participation in events or initiatives that promote community involvement and awareness. This fosters a sense of solidarity and collective action.
- Future opportunities: Highlight upcoming projects or initiatives where their support can make a difference. Show how their donations can help prevent or mitigate the effects of similar crises in the future.
Donors Who Make Large Gifts
Big donors deserve a different experience than smaller donors. While you should strive to treat all your donors well, big spenders should be given a bit of special treatment to foster a better (and longer) relationship.
You might want to take these extra steps for big donors:
- Phone call ‘Thank You’: A team member should offer a personalized thank-you phone call whenever a significant donation is processed.
- Personalized letter: Sometimes snail mail is the best mail. A handwritten and signed thank you card can go a long way.
- Public mention: If the donor does not wish to remain anonymous, you may want to mention their donation on your website or social media.
- VIP invitation: If your organization offers a VIP event, large donations should be guaranteed an invite!
Donors Who Believe in Your Cause
- Use inspirational messaging: Focus on storytelling and inspiring narratives that highlight the positive impact of your organization’s work. Appeal to their emotions and values by demonstrating how their donations contribute to meaningful change.
- Promote community engagement: Foster a sense of belonging and involvement by inviting these donors to participate in events, volunteer opportunities, or online forums where they can connect with like-minded individuals who share their passion for the cause.
- Send progress updates: Regularly update them on the progress of ongoing projects and initiatives, emphasizing how their contributions are making a difference. Showcasing specific success stories and testimonials can reinforce their belief in the cause and the importance of their support.
- Opportunities for deeper involvement: Offer opportunities for these donors to become more deeply engaged with your organization, such as volunteering, attending exclusive events, or participating in advocacy campaigns. This allows them to feel like active partners in advancing the cause they believe in.
Donors Seeking a Tax Deduction
- Offer financial transparency: Assure these donors that their donations are being used efficiently and effectively by providing transparent financial reports and demonstrating fiscal responsibility. Highlight your organization’s commitment to accountability and good stewardship of donor funds.
- Provide clear tax-related information: Provide clear and concise information about the tax benefits of their donations, including any relevant documentation or receipts they may need for tax purposes. Make it easy for them to access and understand the tax implications of their contributions.
- Send impact metrics: While tax deductions may be their primary motivation, these donors still want to see the impact of their contributions. Share key metrics and outcomes that demonstrate the effectiveness of your programs and initiatives, emphasizing the value generated by their support.
- Planned future giving opportunities: Encourage these donors to consider long-term giving strategies, such as bequests or charitable trusts, that offer additional tax benefits while supporting your organization’s mission. Highlight the potential tax advantages of planned giving options and provide resources for further exploration.
How and When to Communicate with Donors
The easiest channel to start with is email, and in most cases, your donors will prefer it anyway. Your CRM/DRM should offer a marketing automation component that lets you create email sequences to automatically deliver your messages at specific times.
If you’re just starting, here are some basic automations that you should implement.
First-time donors should immediately be sent a hyper-personalized email onboarding sequence. The content of that sequence should match the data gathered from the initial questions.
Identify additional channels (social media) to subscribe to and follow.
- Inform about volunteer opportunities.
- Educate the issues.
- Provide financial transparency.
- Recurring donation reminders
- For one-time donors, you should send follow-ups every few months, prompting them to donate again. You can go a step further and allow donors to set their reminder periods.
- Reiterate the value.
- Stress the need for ongoing support.
- Remind tax incentives.
- Donor referral system
Implementing a donor referral system enables your donors to act as volunteers with minimal effort. Donors can send emails to their friends and share their donations, initiating a cycle of goodwill.
For all segments, the content of the messaging should always reflect the type of donor you’re communicating with. For example, a tax-incentivized donor might want to share with their other tax-incentivized associates, while a cause-oriented donor will share with like-minded friends and family.
A CRM/DRM is essential to keeping track of everything!
It will be nearly impossible to track all this information manually or in a spreadsheet. So if you haven’t already, you should implement a CRM/DRM that integrates with your donations platform that can store all the data and automatically send the right messages at the right time.
A Chat with Adrian Tobey of Groundhogg
There’s so much more to cover on this topic! Join us on April 24th for a conversation with Adrian Tobey, founder of Groundhogg. Groundhog is a CRM/DRM and marketing automation WordPress plugin that can help you acquire and retain more donors.
Adrian is the Founder of Groundhogg, a CRM and Marketing Automation suite for businesses that use WordPress. His products help a combined 10,000+ businesses in over 100 countries reach their audience. He’s been training and implementing digital marketing and CRM techniques for 10+ years and was nominated for Canadian Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020.
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