Successful donor relationships are all built on a foundation of intentional listening. But if you’re not using responsive fundraising strategies to listen to your donors' direct and indirect signals, you could be missing out on some key information that helps you steward a deeper relationship with your supporters.
Responsive fundraisers that observe behaviors, solicit feedback, and notice trends in an effort to remain curious about their donors not only create better relationships but create greater opportunities for generosity.
Together, we’ll break down how, when you truly listen to your supporters, you can curate responsive fundraising experiences that lead to consistent, reliable growth at scale for your nonprofit. Plus learn tactics your nonprofit can utilize today to start listening to your supporters!
What Are Donor Signals?
Donor signals are enriched data that is invaluable to understanding who your supporters are and what motivates them to give to your cause. It’s also critical to openly receive feedback from your donors through a variety of means so your team can better serve your donors.
It’s an easy trap to fall into – we often think we know what our donors want to see, hear, or read from us – but oftentimes, we’re missing the mark. When you tap into your donor base and begin looking for signals – both direct and indirect – you’ll begin to uncover and understand more about them.
For example, as a former marketer for an animal shelter, I often fell into the trappings that when a supporter signed up for our newsletter, they wanted to know everything we were doing on a monthly basis. Goodness was I wrong!
I was completely neglecting that some of those supporters were more interested in volunteer opportunities, upcoming events, and of course, wanting to see the latest impact of their donations. Lumping them all into one email resulted in low click rates and high unsubscribes from our newsletter.
A way to help resolve this issue? Use responsive fundraising tactics to listen to your supporters by providing them with more than just a simple name and email form to sign up for your newsletters. Ask more detailed questions like:
- What are you interested in hearing the most from us?
- How often do you like to receive email communications?
- Are you interested in learning more about our volunteer opportunities?
Your supporters are eager to give their advice! We simply must make the space available to them to offer that information.
Pay Attention to Donors Through Quarterly Donor Surveys
One way to solicit feedback and signals from your supporters is to send quarterly surveys to them. Of course, you can send surveys as often as you like, and in fact, some donors may signal they want a more open line of communication. But, only send surveys when you have the bandwidth to execute meaningful action from the results. Donors will feel increasingly frustrated if they tell you what matters most to them only for your organization to ignore their wishes. We definitely want to avoid that!
Start simply when surveying your supporters. Ask questions that elicit meaningful responses like asking “how” and “why” questions as opposed to either/or questions that don’t provide deeper context for your team.
Write an email that explains the intention behind the survey, the information you’re hoping to gather, and how those responses will help craft programs and initiatives. Particularly important to responsive fundraising is personalization. Add personalized elements (first name, last name, interests, geolocation, etc.) to your email so it’s more tailored to the receiver.
After receiving responses from your supporters, begin pulling together insights and assign action items to your team. That way you can start crafting a more relevant, meaningful experience for your donors based on their responses.
Don't Miss the Boat on Improving Donor Data
Take a look at your donor database – is it brimming with rich donor insights or is it cluttered with inaccurate or outdated information? Many nonprofits have limited visibility into their donors and without comprehensive access to their data, there’s no easy way to inform your responsive fundraising efforts.
In order to add context, understand your donors, and set yourself up for successful responsive fundraising, start by enriching your data to get to know your donors on a deeper level. You can do this by:
- Wealth Data – Leverage a service that appends donor profiles and collects information on their new worth, best gift amount, and basic philanthropic giving and interests outside of your organization.
- Social Media – Use a social media integration to determine and identify your donor’s digital influence. Create connections with that donor that your team can steward into a long-term relationship.
- Physical Addresses – Determine the density of where your donors live geographically so you can better plan events that are close to their residence.
- Website and Email Tracking – Through URLs or a tracking pixel you can determine your donor’s digital engagement or interest that you can then target to that donor to get them more interested and excited about your cause.
When you begin listening to your donors, you can provide them with a more personalized experience that over time, will help increase your donor retention and deepen your supporter’s care for your mission.
Want to learn more about cultivating your supporter’s relationship with your cause? Download the Responsive Fundraising Starter Pack
About the Author
Kelly Cristaldi serves as the Sr. Partner Marketing Manager at Virtuous, a Responsive CRM, Marketing Automation, and Donor Centric Giving platform. In this role, she helps identify opportunities with partners to help fundraisers increase their supporters' generosity.
Before joining Virtuous, Kelly worked for five years in the animal welfare sector and specialized in marketing, PR, and fundraising, focusing on major donors and corporate sponsorship.
Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn here or reach out to her via email at kelly.cristaldi@virtuous.org.
