I grew up among the Pennsylvania Dutch who constantly reminded me, “We grow too old soon and too late smart.”

They might as well have had fundraisers in mind because it takes us lots and lots of time to adopt the proven best practices of others.  Too much time.  Too much lost donor loyalty and money.

Take the example of donor preference and the benefits that come from heeding those preferences.

For the past 12 years The Agitator has soapboxed on the importance of focusing on donor preference—the act of asking your donors what they prefer and then delivering on that preference.  We sure weren’t the first to recognize its importance.  33 years ago, as I report in Please Annoy the Pig, the UK charity Botton Village had the audacity – richly rewarded as it turned out—to pin down and honor their donors’ preference as soon as they signed up.

Included as part of Botton’s fundraising program was a form devised to give donors a range of practical choices in terms of what information they wanted to receive and when — including the option to ‘don’t ever contact me again’. (That preference form is reprinted in this must-read post by Ken Burnett and Jackie Fowler.)

Five years ago in Make it easy:  Use one checkbox to transform your membership program, Jonathan Benton of the consulting firm M+R reminded folks that if businesses from Netflix to the New York Times and hundreds more were offering automatic subscription renewals why in the world was the nonprofit world so far behind?

Using a 2014 case study from the League of Conservation Voters, Jonathan reported the power of donor preference in the form of automatic annual membership renewals, warning that if fundraisers think their sustainer programs are the same thing, they’re dead wrong.  Expensively wrong.

The Power of Auto-Renewal

In their 2013 Membership Drive, LCV set up a “big honking green checkbox” that sets the donor’s membership to automatically renew each year.  The box is pre-checked by default but is easy to spot and easy to opt out. So, no tricks.

Jonathan notes that for donors who prefer the auto-renewal it works “just like monthly giving, only on a longer timeframe.  One year from the date of the initial gift (and in each subsequent year after that), that same donation will process on the same credit card.

Results?  By the end of the membership drive, 56% of the contributions were set to auto renew. Then, a few weeks before the auto gifts were due to process, LCV sent out a Membership Renewal Notice to remind donors of the amount of their gift and their preference to have it auto-renew and give them an opportunity to cancel—or increase—their gift. “66% of the gifts that were set to renew processed as expected (the remaining were primarily people with expired cards.)”  [ For details read Jonathan’s post here.]

Even More Powerful Today

Fast forward to last week’s Nonprofit Alliance Pivot and Prevail conference in New York City where Dane Grams of The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) presented the topic What About Auto-Renew? in a fascinating case study.

The HRC Case Study

HRC views their annual auto-renewers like any other sustaining member.  The only difference: they don’t give monthly, rather they donate on an annual basis.  And here’s what happens, according to Dane:

• 10-20% of campaign donors choose the auto-renew option
• More than 15,000 current donors have this pledge with a 70% retention rate
• Viable, meaningful alternative for those who aren’t interested to do monthly.
• $1 Million revenue Stream!

Here’s how the HRC auto-renew program works.

A checkbox is added to the donation form with a highlighted section for the opt-in.

This option is offered not only online, but in mail and telemarketing.

When it comes to online efforts, HRC is persistent.  When a donor has made a one-time contribution and checks out, she/he receives a post-donation Pop Up asking them to consider an automatic renewal.  A whopping 25% of those prospects convert to auto-renewal.

A year later – in fact, two weeks before the renewal date—the donor receives a notice of reminding them: “Last year you took a bold stance against discrimination and made it known that you were someone we could rely on in the fight for LGBTQ equality.” Not some “invoice reminder”, but a message designed to trigger good feelings in the donor. 60-70% of all auto-renewal gifts are successful from this notice.

AND…HRC doesn’t’ stop there.  One month after the returns from the original billing/renewal reminder begin to drop off they send what they call an “Email Recapture”.

By the end of this process, HRC is enjoying an 80% retention rate among those donors who signaled their preference for auto-renewal.

So, what are you waiting for?

Roger

P.S. Thanks to LCV, M+R, and HRC for these great case studies!

P.P.S.  Want to know other ways to take advantage of Donor Preference? Here are a few Agitator  posts that shed more light on this important subject:

• Raise More, Ask Less — Part 4
• RESEARCH UPDATE: An Online Test of Donor Preferences
• TEST RESULTS: You Raise More Money When You Listen to Donors’ Preferences
• When Have You Acquired a Donor?