I routinely see some version of this on the world wide web:

1. Ask, thank, report back. Repeat.
2. But make sure you get that 2nd ask in the first 90 days otherwise, people are much less likely to give.
3. And don’t forget, do some multi-channel matching luggage exercise mimicking the mail piece in email and social.

1, 2, 3.  Easy Peasy.

I have a jumbled, disorganized swipe file and this data chart is in it.  I can’t locate the source but wish I could give credit because it’s a great piece of reporting.

It’s a four year snapshot of 50,000 donors acquired in 2019.  Let’s take a walk through the primrose of rows and columns.

From left to right here’s what jumps out at me:

• Retention of new donors is 42%, not in the 20’s as is often cited, if you merely extend your horizon.
• That still leaves a whopping 58% who never give again.
• Of those who give again, only 17% (7% of the total donor count) do so in the first 3 months.  By my math, that means 83% of 2nd gift givers don’t do it in the first 90 days
• The biggest single spike in 2nd gift is after many charities have already declared them at-risk or “lapsed” – 13 to 24 months – where the plurality (25%) of 2nd gift givers give.
• The average number of months between first and second gift is 12.6
• Your best rev per donor is your annual/anniversary giver – giving 10 to 12 months after first gift.

Let me also try to preempt the  “yeah but’s”.

• Yes, your mileage may vary but we’ve since replicated this in whole in part (with post covid data) for clients and the story is similar
• I don’t know the frequency of solicitation for this charity but I’d wager it’s weight is in metric tons
• Do you think the high solicitation frequency and/or rapidity is causing the giving?  Imagine a world where some of these 50,000 donors are connected to your mission personally and maybe even have some awareness of your brand.  Let’s say most of them live in the 0 to 3 month, 7% bar.  Do you think their future giving goes away if you don’t solicit right away?
• Let’s say for argument sake you do lose some giving if you don’t solicit early and often.  You believe the soliciting causes, in part at least, the giving. Are you not open at all to the possibility that the cause of your “success” is also the cause of your 58% failure?
• 58% is a lot bigger than 42%.

I have a love-hate relationship with my frequency of solicitation posts.  It feels 100% necessary and 100% yesterday’s news at the same time.

It’s also one-hand clapping because cleaning up the mess we created on volume is just that.  It does nothing for fostering more personalized, tailored experiences – it’s just less of the one-size-fits-all crappy ones.

Getting people to consistently part with their money and feel psychologically satisfied is really freaking hard.

Kevin