Increasing face-to-face donor retention
It’s no secret that face-to-face donor retention is extremely challenging. Your fundraisers aren’t meeting cultivated lists of people — they meeting random people on the street. (OK, not totally random — they are placed in areas to maximize their potential success and screen people based on what they look to be. But these are imperfect selection criteria: if employers screened by looks, I’d be penniless.)
And the classic interruption marketing tactic of asking people to talk about something when they are usually aimed toward a particular location and time (or, in door-to-door, doing whatever it was they were doing before you knocked) means that people may say whatever it is they think will get them out of the conversation.
That said, these contacts can turn out to be loyal, committed donors if treated right. There’s a great webinar up here from DonorVoice UK (and it’s free!) about how Amnesty Belgium was able to increase their F2F six-month retention rates from 60% to 80%.
Or, put another way, they were able to cut their attrition in half. This meant an additional 24 Euros per year per donor.
Considering the cost of obtaining any donor — much less through F2F — this is a great breakthrough.
How did they do it? I strongly recommend the full webinar, but a large part of it is knowing, and tailoring, the donor experience both at the point of contact and immediately following, as well as knowing the person’s commitment to the organization. Hope you enjoy and let us know what you think in the comments!
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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