In response to the query I posed a few days ago, Should Roger Keep Writing?, it appears that Agitator readers — at least the vocal ones — believe that donor relationship-building matters. We continue to have hope for converting the naysayers. Thanks for your comments.

And so Roger has been instructed to complete his book on donor retention. Now he has both his publisher and expectant Agitator readers to satisfy!

Among the comments was this case study from copywriter and communications specialist Lisa Sargent. Maybe it will inspire you to redouble your retention efforts.

Dear Roger,

Please write on. You too, Tom…

… For your assertions are neither mistaken nor romantic that nonprofits can build donor relationships.

In fact, you are 100% correct.

You’re also correct that these incredible, magical, wonderful donor relationships you nurture will then go on to become “engines of fundraising profitability.”

I come bearing proof.

In 2009 a Head of Fundraising for a smallish-to-mid nonprofit called Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) sent me an email. “Desperately seeking copywriter,” read the subject line.

As it turned out, Denisa Casement and I were a donor-focused match made in heaven. And for the past five years, her crackerjack team at MQI – along with MQI Team USA (in the form of myself and my longtime designer colleague Sandie) have drawn on every donor retention tool within their budget.

It was baby steps at first.

But always, always there was acquisition. We fine-tuned their newsletter (not once, but three times). Added a welcome pack. World-class thank you letters. Appeals that oozed emotion, urgency, and gratitude, first and foremost (saving the logical stuff for later). The list goes on.

It’s now 2014. Five years later.

What of these donors, these “engines of profitability” of which you speak? Here’s where MQI is now, all thanks to a “romantic” notion:

–       Newsletters hover between 6 and 12% response rate;

–       Warm house file up 2,200% since 2008;

–       Fundraising revenues up tenfold; and,

–       Donor retention, the mother of all benchmarks, stands at sixty percent.

Legacies are up too.

Plus lots of other good things: for example, when crisis hit in the form of a national charity scandal this past Christmas, MQI weathered the storm better than virtually everyone else we know.

It appears that paying attention to good donor relationships also makes your organization more resilient during troubled times.

Now, maybe every charity can’t reach a sixty percent retention rate. Maybe we just got lucky. Still, I ask you:

What if, with gold-star donor care and quality donor communications, even a 5% increase in donor retention is achievable for every nonprofit across the board?

Engines of profitability? Engines of hope and change and progress and good?

Yes. Yes indeed.

Please write on, Roger and Tom. And keep the faith.

Thanks for your work.

Your faithful Agitator follower,

Lisa Sargent
@lisasargent2

Thanks for that, Lisa.

Tom

P.S. Here are some additional resources from Lisa re: above story if you’re interested.

If you want to look back in time at their donor newsletter overhaul #2, knowing now what we’ve since accomplished, my 2010 case study on it is here. You can also follow Denisa on Twitter @DenisaCasement, and visit her blog, where she shares more results.

And the first week of April in Dublin, we’re presenting a masterclass on How to Do Donor Communications for Relationships, Retention and Results at Fundraising Ireland’s National Fundraising Conference. We’ll cover all facets of our donor communications and reveal 5 years of detailed results from Donor Acquisition, Appeals and Newsletters. You can read about it here.