At last! I’m pleased to report that there seems to be some evidence that more and more fundraisers are paying attention to the issue of donor retention.

Although we’re far from breaking out the champagne in celebration of universal recognition that holding on to donors is an essential activity, the new Bloomerang survey, The State of Donor Retention, contains some good news.

Here’s what the survey of 775 nonprofits revealed about the attitudes and action toward donor retention.

• More and organizations are tracking their donor retention rate. In a similar 2014 survey 55% were tracking it.  This year the number has climbed to 67%.

What are those who track their retention rate doing in response to that metric?

• 36% have set a specific goal for their rate;
• 36% have set a goal of “any increase” for their rate;
• 28% have no donor retention goal.

Those who were not tracking retention were asked why not:

• 16% don’t know how;
• 20% “don’t have the tools” [Really, a pencil and paper?];
• 1% don’t care about the metric;
• 14% aren’t sure what they would do differently if they knew their rate;
• 13% used the excuse that “no one ever asked to see it”;
• 36% listed “other” reasons such as “too much staff turnover” …” we are starting soon”…”we are new and don’t have a donor base yet.” [You are excused.]

Two items I found of special importance and interest in the survey: 1) 68% of those who paid attention to their retention rate saw an increase in retention; and 2) More than 50% of those responding as “not tracking the rate” were avoiding doing so because they didn’t know how or seemed to think they didn’t have the tools.

And that gives life to a shameless plug for my book Retention Fundraising: The new art and science of keeping your donors for life. There you will find all the information and guidance you need for eliminating virtually any excuse of “not knowing how” or “not having the tools”.

Chapter 19 of the book is devoted to “Easy Retention Wins for Everyone”. And this Agitator post excerpted from the book will get you started with all the free advice and tools you need:  Retention Win #1:  Say Thank You.

Whether your organization is huge, tiny, or in between, there are several universal donor experiences that are relatively easy and inexpensive to fix. Doing so will immediately help boost donor commitment and retention.

Roger