Astounding Donor Loyalty
In response to our Lazy or Careless Fundraising? article last week, Gail Meltzer of CoreStrategies for Nonprofits sent us an article she wrote describing her own experience as a lifelong under-cultivated donor. Her article, Acknowledging Cumulative Giving, was published last November/December in Advancing Philanthropy, the pub of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (available online to members only).
Here’s the story of a donor (Gail) whose loyalty I find truly remarkable, under the circumstances …
- She’s been giving to several groups continuously for thirty years, generally in the $25-$50 range, and generally unrestricted.
- None of the groups has ever acknowledged her cumulative giving.
- Thirty years older and gainfully employed throughout, she sees herself as a viable planned giving prospect.
- She lives in a major metro area where there are probably many donors to the organizations she supports, making face-to-face events probably feasible.
- Two of the groups have about one million active ‘members’ each — that is, these are not organizations that are starved for resources or ‘professional’ fundraising staff.
- Nevertheless, when she called these two groups to find out why they ignored her, their excuses included … limited staff resources, incomplete gift records, no focus to date on ‘donor relationships’.
Gail, your patience and loyalty to these groups is astounding. Clearly, you are much too nice a donor.
I implore you to reveal these groups to me and Roger, so that The Agitator can officially fire them — the fundraising staff, the CEO, the Board … the whole lot of them!
Tom
5 responses to “Astounding Donor Loyalty”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Hi, today I read your daily newsletter, as usual, with interest. I have to say though, that there is a risk in acknowledging cumulative donor giving. We have a jubilee mailing. Research showed that this mailing had a result that there were more members who terminated their membership, than in our control group. Pardon me for this bad English, but what I want to say is this: every contact moment could result in a termination of the membership/donorship. Especially when people realize that they have given so much already to the charity for such a long time. Maybe it seems like the wrong reason for not sending a jubilee mailing, but I just wanted to let you know that there is a negative side-effect. Regards from Holland!
Gail’s complaints are completely justified. That’s why the American Foundation for the blind have has a tradition of recognizing long-term donors regardless of their giving level. At 20 years of consistent giving our donors are given a certificate and a letter informing them that their names have been read to honor them at our most recent board meeting. At 3, 5, and 10 years of consistent giving donors receive a custom designed kitchen magnet celebrating their loyalty. We do it because cultivating low dollar donors is cheaper than acquiring them and because we know that these loyal low dollar donors often leave their favorite charities substantial bequests. Besides that, we are truly grateful and it’s just the right thing to do.
I’d be curious to know if the mailing Rob Tigelaar refers to was personalized in any way, or more generally referred to long-time donors.
As a fan of ‘positive reinforcement’ I would like to know what organization ARE acknowledging the long-term support of ‘low dollar’ donors like Gail? And if they are, what strategies they use to steward that relationship? In other words, who is doing this ‘right’?
This made me so sad. I hope nonprofit professionals will read this and take a second look at their own organization’s practices. It isn’t always easy to know who to go after but we owe it to our supporters to give it our best shot. Turn-over and limited resources will always be an obstacle but implementing some other, more long-term practices like record keeping and a good CRM can help ensure less donors have this experience.