A delicate harmony exists between attracting new donors and keeping current donors engaged. While attracting new donors can be time-consuming, marketing-heavy, and in-person demanding, maintaining donors already involved with your nonprofit will cost significantly less and yield a higher return. Just because maintaining donors is more straightforward than acquiring new ones does not mean it's a walk in the park. Many nonprofits struggle with donor retention due to various factors such as a lack of communication, unorganized donor data, missed sponsorship opportunities, etc.
This is where a nonprofit CRM (sometimes called donor management) comes in. CRM stands for Client Relationship Management; it's a tool that helps businesses and nonprofits alike keep track of all their donor (client) information. When used effectively, these tools can exponentially increase your nonprofit engagement and streamline your organization's day-to-day tasks.
Why Donor Retention Matters:
Donor retention isn't just a metric; it's a path toward progress. According to studies, a nonprofit's average donor retention rate is close to 50% every year. This means that for most nonprofits, half of their donors will not donate the following year. Let's try to avoid that!
On average, committed and engaged donors will give more year over year, spread your mission's message more often, and volunteer more. Since they already understand the importance of your mission, they will become an asset rather than a challenge. Below are some of the key value points when it comes to donor retention.
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Higher lifetime value – Repeat donors contribute more over time than new donors.
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Lower acquisition costs – Retaining donors is cheaper than finding new ones.
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Stronger relationships – Engaged donors are more likely to volunteer, spread awareness, and advocate for your cause.
How a CRM Helps Improve Donor Retention:
When you have a well-organized CRM for your nonprofit, it becomes more than just a tool for logging transactions. After you have entered sufficient information for a donor, their story begins to be unfold. What do they like to do, what excites them, and which campaign got them to take action. Spreadsheets, Google Docs, and text messages are not the solution to keeping the crucial information required to understand your donors. A CRM can store everything all in one place: donation history, click-through rates, event attendance, volunteer history, and many more.
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Access donor insights instantly
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Track engagement over time
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Identify trends and personalize outreach
Personalized Communication:
Mass messages are not going to cut it in this day and age. People's inboxes are so flooded with marketing promotions and spam text messages they have become desensitized to communication from businesses and nonprofits. To stand out now, messages need to be directed and sincere. A nonprofit CRM will help you customize your outreach, making each donor memorable, from thank you emails to happy birthdays. These will drive donor engagement and donations.
Generic messages no longer resonate—donors want to feel valued. A CRM helps tailor outreach efforts for a more meaningful connection by:
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Automating gratitude – Instantly send personalized thank-you emails after each donation.
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Celebrating milestones – Acknowledge donor birthday anniversaries and give anniversaries with customized messages.
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Personalizing appeals – Craft donation requests based on past giving behavior, interests, and engagement history.
Automated Engagement
Donations are flooding in, sponsorships are being purchased, and everyone is trying to set up flowers for an event. Tracking donor engagement during these impactful times can get swept under the rug, but your communication is what will keep donors coming back. Automated engagement within your CRM will eliminate these time-consuming follow-ups and help your team stay on track.
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Send automated follow-ups - based on donor behavior
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Remind staff to check in - with lapsed donors
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Schedule recurring giving prompts
Recurring Giving and Pledge Management
Committed donors often want to give money regularly, which is excellent! However, this also means more donations and thank you notes to keep track of. In a CRM, you can streamline your recurring giving reporting and keep track of pledges, ensuring that your pledge money is collected on time. Additionally, you can keep track of declined and late payments to ensure your funding stream keeps flowing.
Seamless Integration with Other Tools
Many nonprofit CRMs integrate with other helpful digital tools. Connect your email marketing platform to send engaging and creative content. Set up QuickBooks to keep track of all your accounting needs. Some tools like BetterUnite provide all-in-one platforms for nonprofits, so you don't have to integrate. Combining tools will help with efficiency and keep your workload manageable.
Choosing the Best CRM for Your Nonprofit
Not all CRM systems are the same. When choosing one for your nonprofit, take a step back and evaluate what your organization needs now. If you're moving on from Excel or Google Sheets, a low-cost platform that has just enough may be the best choice. If your nonprofit is catching fire and you inspire new people daily, look at a higher-end nonprofit CRM that can handle your donor level of donor or client engagement. When you feel overwhelmed and want everything in one place, look for an all-in-one nonprofit tool such as BetterUnite (which has options for any size or budget). A user-friendly CRM ensures that you and your team can adapt to what comes next and focus on the present tasks.
