Why is it So Hard to Retain Donors?
It’s pretty much common knowledge that most donors do not donate to an organization a second time. This fact is as depressing and frustrating as it is stunning — all that time and money and planning and marketing, and you still have to find replacements for more than 60% of your donors every single year, just to maintain your organization at the same level as last year. In fact, some reports say that, in a given year, for every 100 new donors, 99 existing donors have left.
The stats get worse, when you consider this recent 2019 report by the AFP, which shows that:
New donors to an organization dropped by 7.3% from 2017;
Newly retained donors, those who have given a second time to an organization, dropped by 14.9%;
It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that (a) there’s a problem out there, and it’s getting worse, and (b) we need to do things differently.
In order to change, we need to understand why this is happening. There are lots of thoughts as to why this decline exists, but I think that the most important issue is that fundraisers just aren’t taking the time to really understand — in an honest, non-judgmental, supportive way — what their donors are all about. Knowing what motivates a donor is a key to a successful long-term relationship.Maybe it should start with knowing your donor.
Obvious, yes, but practical? Maybe not.
Most fundraisers I have encountered spend a great deal of their time focused on the “big money” — donors who have the resources to make a gift of, say $10K or more. The potential donors who might be likely to donate under that amount — say, $1K to 5K — get very little, if any, time.
I understand that, if you, the fundraiser, are being paid to bring in the “big bucks”, and your job is on the line. And it’s true that the only reason for an increase in overall giving last year (albeit tiny, relatively) is because of an increase in seven-figure-plus foundation grants. And it can feel easier to just chase the big money, along with everyone else in the pack. Let’s just hope that you’ll hit one out of the park, and all will be hunky-dory. Oh, and let’s also hope that one of our big annual donors doesn’t stop giving overnight, or we’re really in trouble.
It seems clear to me — and it should be clear to you — that thinking like that short-sighted, short-term, and is causing a crisis in philanthropy.
The way that philanthropy is taught — whether in school programs, by consultants or by other members of the organization’s “team” — is that you do the above: spend time on the big givers. We need to make those quarterly goal numbers now, so there is zero room for “cultivation” — unless the “cultivation” is for, yes, the big givers.
So what does that mean for “knowing your donor”? It means that there is no time to know most of your donors, and that’s a problem. Donors, like me, want real connection with the organizations they support. And non-profits, for the most part (especially the larger ones) just aren’t providing that at all.
There are loads of ways of providing the connection that donors crave (and require, if they are to donate). They all take some reallocation of resources, but some more than others. More than anything, you, non-profit fundraiser or leader, need to accept that this has to happen, and commit to doing it.
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- Lisa