Hello, world. I’m Nick Ellinger, the newest addition to the DonorVoice team. I’m excited to join an organization dedicated to improving donor experiences, increasing donor retention, and doing both with science-proven strategies.

One of my pet questions is why retention is not taken more serious in the nonprofit world. Yes, we track it (sometimes), but it’s usually an outgrowth of tactics designed to increase communication by communication performance rather than a goal in and of itself.

I wonder if this is because of our human nature toward loss aversion. Loss aversion means that people hate to lose things more than they like to win things. This sounds nonsensical — they are the same thing — but here’s an example from the literature.

Scientists asked people to imagine preparing for the outbreak a disease expected to kill 600 people. If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved. If Program B is adopted, there is a 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no people will be saved. Seventy-two percent of people opted for program A.

They also asked people about two other programs. If Program C is adopted 400 people will die. If Program D is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that all 600 people will die. Seventy-eight percent of people opted for program D.

The thing is that programs A and C are the same and programs B and D are the same.

The study is here. All that changes is the framing device. People hate the option of program C — that 400 people will die. And they hate the option of program B, where they can’t lock in gains.

What does this have to do with retention? Well, when you look at your retention scores or industry benchmark, it’s always expressed as what percent of your donors you keep from year to year. Witness, for example, Blackbaud’s index here, where they find we retain 27% of first-time donors and 58% of multiyear donors (we’ll talk about how you should be slicing and dicing your retention rates at another time, as this is missing important lifecycle categories like lapsed reactivated, but close enough for now).

Somehow, it seems normal that we have a 27% retention rate of first-time donors. It seems normal that 58% of people who have given multiple times will give again.

But what if the frame on this changed?

What if we said that as an industry that we have a 73% burn rate of first-time donors — that we are taking almost three out of every four people who donate to us once and flushing them away?

Let’s say it costs you $15 to acquire a new donor in acquisition. Wait. Not really. If you have a 73% donor burn rate — the industry average — it actually costs you $55.55 to acquire a real new donor. You are flushing the other $40 down the toilet on donors who you aren’t going to keep. For every single donor acquired.

And once you get them to that second gift, you are still going to burn more than 40% of them every year.

Part of the psychology of loss aversion is that we feel pain when we think we are losing something. When you lose something psychologically, the brain literally lights up in the same way as when you are hurt physically.

And that’s my point here. Losing donors should hurt. If I make Thanksgiving dinner for 12, I shouldn’t celebrate the three people who didn’t have to go to the hospital; I should worry about the nine who did.

(Actually, that may be a victory for me; I’m a terrible cook.)

But the point still stands. Every donor we burn is a loss, a missed opportunity, a little bit of pain. And we can stop the pain.

So that’s why I’m here at DonorVoice. I want to listen to donors. I want donors to know that we’re listening. And I want to engage them in great works that we can do together.

If that appeals to you, you can sign up to receive  tips and tactics that help you keep your donors close and active below.  Thanks for reading!