The Lifecycle of Nonprofit Donors
The donor lifecycle is a great way to identify, develop and steward donor relationships. It is important to understand the importance of each stage since it is can be used as a continual anchor point for nonprofits to maximize their relationship with donors. Listed below is a brief summary of each of the six stages of the nonprofit donor lifecycle and how you can integrate it into action items for your organization:
- Identity: Who are your prospective donors? This is as simple as gathering data about their characteristics, such as their preferences and how they live. During this stage, you should find out why they are so excited by the work you do. To develop your donor relationships, have prospective donors take a survey, collect notes from meetings with them, or engage in regular conversations via call, text or social media. Do not forget this: Fundraising is cyclical, so you will need to revisit each stage every now and again. It is useful to have a tool like MyDonors to help track these interactions.
- Cultivate: Engaging and nurturing your donor base and donor prospects. At this point in the donor lifecycle, a nonprofit doesn’t only express interest in the donor, they share more about why the donor should be interested in them. By continuing to steward your relationship with donors, you will be able to set clear goals for their support. This process allows donors to learn more about how they should act and what they should do. Donors know what they value, and this is where it becomes critical for fundraising teams to show where the nonprofit’s values overlap with their donor’s values. This is not the stage where you solicit donations.
- Qualify: Assess giving information for donors. When determining who is an ideal donor, think carefully about what information can be useful in determining the kind and quality of the donation ask. Think through things like donation history, level of resources, interest in the organization, other organizations they give to, etc. When you evaluate potential donors, you can think about what types of gifts options might be the best match for them.
- Solicit: Ask for donations based on what you know about the donor. You are ready to start asking donors for support. Make sure to communicate clearly to donors or prospects about what you are asking them to do and how it aligns with their values. Spend some time thinking about how each of these donors and prospects feels and how the gifts that they make are an expression of how they feel. If donors or prospects are particularly interested in a specific project or program of your organization, focus the portion of the solicitation that you send to them based on what you already gathered. Try to make it as simple as possible for the donor or donor-prospect to help you by asking the donor to make a gift to your organization.
- Recognize: Acknowledge your donor’s gifts. When a donor decides to give, always show appreciation for that gift. This could include giving a written thank-you to the donor, sending a thank-you to the donor by mail, giving a special thank-you to the donor by calling, or even taking them to a special “donor-only” event. Even if a donor gives only $10, thanking him for his gift means you are acknowledging their generosity and caring about their gift. As an organization, create guidelines for demonstrating appreciation of those who give to your organization. This step, while simple, is often overlooked and can be a powerful way to solicit more donations in the future. Always show value to the donor.
- Steward: Continue to build relationships with your donors. Once you have received a donor’s support, demonstrate why they should continue to support you. Develop a fundraising plan that will allow you to follow up on the gifts that donors have given in order to ensure that they are happy with their support. Utilize the information you have gained during other portions of the lifecycle to facilitate more opportunities to give. Especially if someone is a big donor, create a set of goals of how you want to help steward that donor to help the organization long-term.
As each donor makes their way through this lifecycle, be sure to revisit the previous stages to see if there is a greater opportunity to get them to contribute to your organization. Every donor is valuable and helps advance the mission of the organization through their gift. MyDonors partners with organizations to help steward relationships with their donors through a simple, clean and affordable donor management system to track donor information and donations. MyDonors is part of MyCommunity, which exists to build relationships and tools that equip organizations so that they can maximize their impact. Our suite of tools is designed to help organizations of all sizes focus on their mission without worrying about the logistics. We understand the importance of building strong relationships, so we provide the necessary tools to maximize impact and make a difference like our easy-to-use platforms MyDonors and MyVolunteers. Likewise, MyNonprofitCoach equips nonprofits with the training they need to be successful. Schedule a demo for any of our solutions here.
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