8 Donor Retention Action Strategies + Practical Tips

The fiscal year end for many donors and corporate organizations, is in June/July?

What does this mean for you and your nonprofit? and how do you ensure you attract and don’t lose any of your new and existing donors? (Learn How to fund your Nonprofit Here)

How do you tie up every loose end so you don’t leave money on the table?. (This will be discussed in details at the upcoming FREE Webinar. Register Here)

For many nonprofits, long-term sustainability and donor retention is important  and although most donors are well-intentioned, they may just be too busy to consistently fund your organization.

What strategies can you implement to retain and access new ones?

Create a List

You need to first understand your current realities. Who funded you last year? This could be friends or families, companies or grants accessed etc. Do you have an existing database? If you do, then contact them to find out why they did not give to you this year and what you can do better. There is an art to asking and we will touch on this in our upcoming webinar.

Contact Your Most Consistent Donors or Partners

Now you have a list, begin to contact those who gave consistently. I know it may be difficult to engage past sponsors, so here is something that may help; do a live role play with your team or volunteers, develop a script and practice so people feel more comfortable and ask  expected questions afterwards. Don’t forget to send a heartwarming letter  or an inspirational quote to leave  people feeling inspired.

Send a We-Miss-You message:

This can be sent to people you called but didn’t reach. Remember in our How to Fund Your Nonprofit Class, we spoke about ”having an abundance mindset”. So assume in your tone and language your donor simply has forgotten or has just not got around to it due to the busyness of daily life.

Send specific email blasts targeting your donors:

Now if you don’t have an email listing and regular newsletters, this may be foreign to you. It is important that you make this message about your donor. So a tip would be to simply write “Did you forget you made this possible?”  Then you insert success stories from your community.

Call donors who promised to pay but are yet to:

In our Inner Circle ( you can still join us here), I shared a story about how a fortune 500 company in the UK, consistently followed on a $10 service /product someone was interested in. If a firm as big as that could be persistent, what are you worried about? You are worried about sounding pushy? Ok na!

Send out progress reports:

This is pretty clear and I will expatiate on the impact and success stories recorded simply from practicing this. Remember to register. It’s FREE

Build stronger bonds:

Relationship building in the nonprofit sector is an art. It takes skill and consistency. Who is on your target list? Do you know what a target list  is and how to work it? Our Inner Circle members recorded mind blowing testimonials simply by implementing a relationship management strategy. So can you.

Do you have a Donor Acquisition and Management Strategy?

For those who may not be joining the Inner Circle, consider participating in our upcoming training called Get Ahead where this will be discussed in details! Please see information below-you can register your interest. Thank you all so much for reading . For inquiries, please send an email to donorsforafrica@gmail.com.