Where Have My Donors Gone? Is philanthropy over in America?

I’ll save you some time before I tell you why… “NO”.?American generosity and philanthropy is alive and well.?However, there are specific techniques and metrics for measuring donor generosity that are not only dead, but have been six feet under for more than a decade.

1.????Direct Mail Has Changed.?Direct mail for decades has been the primary “converter” (technique for accepting cash donations).?However, today, direct mail has shifted to a channel that is a “driver” to the “converter” channels.?DM drives donations to your website and giving pages.?It drives donations to your events. DM drives donations in your individual meetings.?Today, only about half of direct mail donors use the preprinted reply envelopes you send them.?Five years ago, 80% of direct mail donors used the reply envelop you sent them to return their donation and a decade ago it was nearly 100%.?NOTE: I’m not saying to cancel your DM programs.?However, how you measure DM is critical.?DM is now a “driver”, not just a “converter”.?Your fundraising channels must work together.

2.????Set It and Forget It.?More and more annual fund donors are looking to do their annual giving with “sustainer or monthly gifts”.?They want to do an annual agreement for a monthly donation via their credit card or pre-authorized check.?The time to convert donors to sign up for a “sustainer” program is when they make their second or third gift in a 90-day period.?The techniques are real time, based upon when an individual makes their second or third gift.?These are not mass marketing annual appeals.?They are actions taken based upon each individual donors’ behavior.?There are software programs and apps that can be purchased to help you manage a process like this.?Trust me, they are worth every penny.

3.????Major Gifts Are Growing.?The number of donors giving under $1,000 a year is declining significantly, while the number of donors giving $10,000+ on an annual basis has grown exponentially.?I’m sure you’ve scratched your head at the beginning of each year when they announce in all that trade journals that it was a record-breaking fundraising year, when you know the number of donations and amounts raised to your organization are down.?The answer is simple.?How many 5-figure and 6-figure solicitations did your organization do last year.?How many will you do this year??Major giving programs are mission critical to nonprofits today.?Major gifts do not happen organically.?They are strategic and require engagements with specific people to ask for specific amounts of money to meet specific needs. If you don’t have a major gift coach or counsel, go find one.?They’ll pay for themselves in 90 days.?If you don’t have a major gift officer on your team make that an immediate priority.

4.????Are You Offsetting Attrition??Donors are lapsing at a faster rate than ever before.?According to the Association of Fundraising Professionals the average donor retention rate is hovering around?40-45%?across the nonprofit sector. This means that if 100 donors give to your organization each year, then only about 40 of those donors will give again the following year.?A decade ago, the national retention rate was closer to 65%.?Do you want to grow??Your first job is to offset attrition.?Win-back the lapsed donors or go find new ones.?It is that simple.