When was the last time you called a donor?

I was teaching a workshop last week about how to improve donor relationships, and I started talking about making sure that your donors can talk back to you. 

“We’re really, really good at broadcasting, as nonprofits,” I said. “But I’m talking about talking WITH your donors, not AT your donors. Email blast, social media posts, mailers…that’s talking AT them, not WITH them.”

I got a lot of blank stares. Confusion. Nobody said anything for a minute. 

Finally, one brave soul raised their hand and said, “I don’t understand. How do we do that?”

And that’s not the first time I’ve gotten that question when I talk about talking WITH donors. Which is really a shame.

But it is also not really a surprise. Our average industry retention rate is 43% (according to AFP’s latest Fundraising Efficiency Project report). Most nonprofits that come to me have retention rates that range from 12% to 35%. And I find that too often nonprofits just shake their heads and accept that this is the case and will always be the case. 

Or we blame the donors…they are fickle; they have too many competing interests; they didn’t really understand our mission. But that’s a really easy way of not looking at your own operation to understand what’s not working and why.

Think of it this way, the best fundraising programs are relationship-based fundraising programs, where the organization is trying to build an authentic and meaningful relationship with the donor…so I use dating analogies to help us understand donor relationships better.

Try this one on for size: imagine you’re on a date with somebody who constantly talks about themselves and never asks you about yourself. You can’t get a word in edgewise. Worse, this person won’t stop telling you how great they are at their job and what awesome work they do, and won’t acknowledge you helped them get their job. Would you go on a second date? No…cuz nobody wants to date that guy. 

And mayhaps that’s how our donors see us when we tell them what great work WE do, and merely say “oh yeah, and thanks for your support that helps us do the great things WE do.” (Could we distance them MORE from our mission?!)

So back to this workshop and my confused group of fundraisers…talk WITH donors? How would I even do that?

Here’s what I said: “When was the last time you picked up a phone and called a donor?” 

“Wait, does that work? Who answers the phone anymore?”

Your donors will, if you start making a habit of calling them…and I DON’T mean to ask them for money. I mean to call to say thanks, to call to tell them about a big update, to call them to ask their advice.

In my first fundraising job, I’d worked for six months at a nonprofit when the Development Director who was supposed to teach me how to fundraise left, with two weeks notice, and with the advice to just “do what I’ve been doing.” It was September, year-end was coming up, so I just did what she was doing. I *may* have even used the same appeal she set the year before. 😳 

But I did one thing differently. I called through the ENTIRE donor database (you heard me, all 400 people), and said thanks in the month before we launched the campaign. I left voicemails for 90% of them, but I had some really helpful, enlightening conversations with quite a few. They told me why they loved the organization, why they gave; what they hoped we’d work on next, and the names of friends they hoped to get involved with our mission. They also told me what irked them about our communications, and requested different information or stories to better understand their impact as donors.

The year before, the year end appeal raised $15,000. That same appeal, one year later, with just a phone call difference, raised $30,000. And the donor retention rate leapt from 40% to 60%. 

That was my first lesson in fundraising, and it’s one that’s served me the rest of my career…and now it’s what I preach to literally any fundraiser who listens to me. Call your donors. Find ways for them to talk back to you. You won’t regret it.

I say this so much that at a recent conference, an audience member asked “What’s the best way to increase my donor retention.” And ANOTHER audience member said “Have you never heard Kelly talk before? She’s going to tell you to call your donors!!!” 

Maybe I’m a broken record. 🤷‍♀️ But that’s how much I believe in talking WITH—not TO or AT—your donors.

What can you do to incorporate them into your mission in a genuine, authentic way that allows them to see it, feel it, touch it, understand it? And how can you do that in a way that allows them to tell you their stories, how it makes them feel to be a part of your impact, and how they want to be involved in your mission?

It doesn’t have to just be phone calls (though, honestly, it’s so easy to add…so much easier than you think). I’ve worked with clients with younger donors who did much more listening via social media than broadcasting to great effect. I have had clients host open houses that allow donors a close-up view of their day-to-day operations, and had that become pivotal experiences in deepening donor relationships and engagement. I’ve hosted “stockholder” meetings with my donors, where I fill them in on the return on their investment in our nonprofit mission…where the profits they see are shared by the community.

One of the most incredible examples of donor engagement I’ve ever been a part of was years ago. I was working for an advocacy organization, and we’d hit a wall on an effort we’d been working on for years. We’d chosen that program to be the feature of a donor “stockholder” meeting months prior to hitting the wall, and the Executive Director and I were both scared as we headed into the meeting. What were we going to say? We had only failure to present to our donors. But we also had an 80% donor retention rate at the time, and we’d talked to our donors enough to know that they trusted us and knew we were dedicated to our mission. 

We took a deep breath, and shared our failures, our setbacks, our months of hitting walls, and our mounting frustration. To our genuine surprise, our donors restored our spirits. “If you can’t do it, it can’t be done, but I personally believe you can do it and you must do it,” one donor said. “Have you tried contacting So-and-so at Such-and-such government department? No? Okay, they could open doors for you, and I have a connection…I’ll put you in touch,” said another donor. “What about going a more grassroots angle, have you contacted the folks at Other Nonprofit to see if they could partner with you on this?” Asked another donor. 

I mean, you get the picture. When I say our donors were invested in our mission, they were INVESTED. They didn’t just give money, they gave moral support and opened doors. That meeting led to some breakthroughs in our work on that effort. We stopped hitting walls because our donors showed us doors we thought were locked. 

AND we grew 30% in individual giving that year. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. 

That was a direct result of engaging our donors in such an intimate and authentic way. They didn’t abandon us, they bolstered us. But that wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t spent three years prior working to deepen our relationships, draw our donors deeply into our mission, and show what their support made possible. You can’t do that by broadcasting, you can only do that by building a trusting relationship.

And that was just an early experience I had in my career. I’ve seen it time and time again. Engage your donors deeply and authentically in your mission. (I’ll write a whole other post on authentically very soon.) And it yields dividends later. 

I’ve gotten donor retention rates up to 80% at nonprofits I’ve worked for and with; it can be done…and its done by relationship building…talking WITH your donors.

Need help with that? We’ve got you! Schedule a discovery call today to see if we can bake up a better fundraising recipe for your nonprofit so this year’s bake can rise to new heights!