We’ve devoted significant space ( here, here, here and here) emphasizing the importance of tending your Garden of Existing Donors to assure higher retention at a time when, overall, the sector is hemorrhaging donors.

BUT…as noted on Monday, even if we can arrest the momentum of the descent in numbers of donors, these actions alone will not stop us from falling, shedding about a quarter of our donors in the next decade.

Consequently, as Nick warned on Wednesday, in addition to taking better care of our donor gardens, we need to plant new seeds, bringing new people into philanthropy.

It’s time for new thinking about donor acquisition.

Fundraising orthodoxy preaches that it’s far easier to get existing direct response donors to add another organization to their already crowded list of charities. But, the grim reality of rising costs, lower response rates, and diminishing returns from the co-op databases says it’s time to challenge that received wisdom.

We are at the point where it may be easier to get people who care about our missions to donate than it is to get people who donate to care about our missions.

In short, the change in the acquisition environment means not just improving within current strategies but the creation of new strategies.

An Acquisition White Paper with New Thinking

For the past year, a team at Donor Voice has been at work developing a new acquisition model that fuses the power of donor identity with sophisticated, online lead generation.

Titled, What no one else will tell you about acquisition this first in a series of 3 white papers is available free to Agitator readers in hopes of stimulating discussion and debate.  Download it here.

Here’s a brief summary of what you’ll find in this idea-provoking paper written by Nick Ellinger, VP of Marketing Strategy and Craig Linton, DonorVoice’s Managing Director for Europe.

• Making the Most of Online Lead Generation.  There are literally millions and millions of potential prospects for every cause.  The key to narrowing down this vast and potentially rich universe is through the lens of “donor identity.”

Nick and Craig explain how to arrive at donor identity and then how to use it with GIFT (Google, Instagram/Facebook, and Twitter) advertising to talk people with that identity.

• The Power of Valuable Content.  The online sea is simply too vast, and hence too expensive, unless you can both narrow down the field and trigger conversions.

What no one else will tell you…explains how marrying donor identity with valuable content focused on identity increases, click-through rates, decreases costs and acquires donors at costs that can pay back within the first 12 months.

Giving a potential donor something of value is part of the Give-to-Get model we covered before.  And when you give a prospect information that fits with his/her identity, you’re on your way to acquisition success.

• Tips and Examples. Using examples from the U.S. and U.K., Nick and Craig offer up tips on how to put together and be successful with this new model.

Plant Some New Seeds in Your Acquisition Garden

For those readers interested in new thinking and new approaches to donor acquisition, I hope you’ll download and read What no one else will tell you about acquisition then weigh in with your thoughts and questions.

Roger

P.S. This is also why it’s so important to know your current and potential donor identities.  You can learn more about how to know your donor identities are worthwhile here.