Retaining regular donors is often just as important – and less expensive – than acquiring new ones. Here are five concrete and effective suggestions we often give to charities:
1. Keep the focus on the case
Start by putting yourself in your donors place and continue the story that began when the payment agreement was created. It doesn’t matter if it’s via email, text message or phone call – focus on what first caught their interest. Don’t be afraid to evoke strong emotions (but avoid guilt and shame), and make your communication personal, concrete and ongoing. And remember, it shouldn’t just be when you ask for more funds.
A good onboarding process is one of the most important things for a long and good relationship with your donors, so make it a high priority.
2. Flexibility rather than withdrawal
25-50% of potential cancellations can be saved by proactive retention. A cancellation is not necessarily due to lack of support, but can be because of temporary financial uncertainty. Here, flexibility can save the relationship.
Many of OnlineFundraising’s customers have had small “utilities” developed where donors can choose to pause their agreement, lower the amount or change the payment frequency. It’s a simple way to accommodate cancellations, it’s good donor care, and the solutions can be built directly into your communication flow.
3. Give back
A classic fundraising mistake is to ask for money every time you communicate with donors. This may give a little extra in the short run, but in the long run it is crucial to give value back to the donor.
Make sure that you also communicate with donors between appeals. Tell them about your work, share your knowledge and include them in your shared mission.
Make sure to find the balance between effort and benefit. The tailored, unique and exclusive experiences should be reserved for your major/middle donors and special groups of volunteers. Here, a handwritten greeting from a volunteer or an open house at the shelter can be worth far more than 20 emails.
The most important thing is that the communication is open and real, and that the results are clearly stated. Anything that gives an extra sense of connection counts almost as much as the donation itself.
4. The technical
Technical withdrawals are best solved with a stable and secure payment and subscription solution that makes it easy to onboard new donors and ensures efficient member service and retention.
OnlineFundraising provides a solid basis for this, but we still observe that 2-8% of payments are interrupted, canceled or rejected every month. The reason may lie with IT systems, banks, acquirers or the donors themselves. However, this does not change the fact that organizations can gain a lot by having control over their technical withdrawal flows.
Withdrawals can be prevented through automatic notifications that both remind donors to update their cards in due time and immediately inform if a payment method is interrupted. The important thing is to keep an eye on the error codes that accompany payments. Get the overview here.
5. Churn or winback?
As with so much else in life, it’s rarely one day that changes everything for the donor. Donors will often send signals before they actually withdraw. Keep an eye on their engagement – are they still interacting with your emails, picking up the phone and so on? Be ready to catch them as soon as a payment fails or they cancel the deal. Offer alternative ways to engage, and maintain contact in a respectful manner. Put just as much energy into your thank-you flow as you did in your onboarding flow. If the farewell is respectful, they’ll probably come back. So don’t wait months to contact donors who have unsubscribed. Catch them immediately.
If you need help with the technical aspects or getting started with a good onbordaing flow, reach out to us at OnlineFundraising.
