May 3, 2021 |

Boosting Your Donor Retention: The Key to Growth in Giving (On-Demand Webinar)

Boosting Your Donor Retention: The Key to Growth in Giving (On-Demand) webinar

Thousands of DonorPerfect clients were able to grow their donor retention rate in 2020. What did they do to engage and retain their donor base over the past year despite its many challenges? How were they so successful? In this on-demand webinar, you’ll learn:

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How Does Donor Retention Impact Your Nonprofit?

As a nonprofit, you know a strong donor base is a key to your organization’s success and financial stability. What factors contribute to developing a strong donor base? How important is donor retention in nonprofit resilience? DonorPerfect’s 2020 Fundraising Benchmarks Report revealed organizations with strong donor retention experienced higher growth in giving than those that did not. A few things stand out:

  • A healthy monthly giving program is a huge contributor to donor retention. The Year Over Year retention rate for Monthly Donors is 90%!
  • Organizations that thank donors the same day as their gift was received had a whopping 60% donor retention rate. It drops to 47% when thank yous are sent four or more days after a donation is given.
  • It costs less and pays bigger dividends to retain donors than to gain new donors. Donors who gave two or more times had a 50% retention rate, and this overall lifetime value $4375. One-time donors had a 25% retention rate and a lifetime value of only $875.

Calculating Your Donor Retention Rate Accurately

How can you apply these observations to your organization? Effective donor retention strategies require you to determine your baseline, define success, and measure your progress toward your goals through reporting. While measuring your overall donor retention rate is important, also consider breaking down your donor retention rate by segments such as:

  • Monthly donors
  • First-time donors
  • Online donors
  • Giving Tuesday/Year-end campaign donors
  • Event attendees

Segmenting donor retention by groups of donors is a fantastic way to get insight into which fundraising activities are the most effective.

3 Donor Retention Strategies You Can Try + Toolkits

It is far less expensive to retain a donor than to acquire a new donor. You’ve already done the work to acquire them, try these proven strategies to retain them and keep funds flowing into your organization.

Donor Retention Strategy #1: Mastering the Art of Thank You

It’s time to rethink how and when you say thanks. The longer you wait to send your thank you email, letter or video, the more donor retention drops.

Donor Retention Strategy #2: The Right Way to Welcome New Donors

Take advantage of the momentum from when new donors make their first donation to your organization with a New Donor Welcome Series that engages donors right away.

Donor Retention Strategy #3: Launching a Monthly Giving Program

Focusing on monthly donors is the roadmap to raise more money and offers the best donor retention rate of any strategy.

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Boosting Your Donor Retention: The Key to Growth in Giving

April 20, 2021

Boosting Your Donor Retention: The Key to Growth in Giving

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Written by Ally Orlando