Acquisition

Where do you look for potential donors? Here are some shortcuts to help you identify the right donor prospects who can take your cause to the next level. 1. If you need funding, go to your current donors first. 2. Start with your most committed donors and move them into larger gifts. 3.  Look for people who have both wealth and affinity for your cause. 4.  Don’t expect cold calls to yield anything. 5. Focus on your top level donors. 6. Set priorities relentlessly. 7. Use your informal networks to identify prospects. 8. Pay attention to the ladies.

Does engagement at your organization begin with the "chicken," otherwise known in development parlance as the donor, or  the "egg," the prospect? Frequently, when inquiring about engagement opportunities, clients give me a broad list of annual events. However, when I ask who is invited, the list sounds pretty safe: Existing donors, past attendees, friends of attendees and the like. How about taking a different path? Let’s put the egg first and invite some new prospects.

So far I’m not aware of a webinar being used as a donor-acquisition tool (perhaps some reader will inform me otherwise?), but since I believe it has the potential to combine some of the most powerful fundraising methods currently used into one neat package, I thought it worth exploring.

As brilliant fundraisers, we must get smarter about how we can overcome the acquisition quagmire — and reverse these trends. Here are some suggestions.

Here is a feature from the May 2009 issue, in which author Geoff Handy, then vice president of media and online communications at the Humane Society of the United States, shares "The Five Basic Steps to Acquiring Donors Online."

In times where acquisition is both expensive and difficult, how is it possible that we let Mr. and Mrs. Opportunity knock on our door and we don’t answer? Even when the numbers are not big, it should be possible to organize a tiny process to accommodate these friendly people who want to get in contact.

I bet you 100 euros that donors who are willing to take the trouble of letting you know they have moved are more loyal donors, therefore have a higher Lifetime Value …

KaBOOM! leveraged a relationship with Groupon Grassroots to grow its donor file and raise money to build playgrounds.

Amanda Foster, account manager at Salsa Labs, provides five keys to grow and retain your online donor file that helped KaBOOM! reach its goals.

As you reach out to renew those friendships with loyal donors to your cause with year-end appeals, the first question you should ask yourself is how these investors to your organization came to be the loyal, dependable friends that they are? You’ll discover that sustaining and expanding the flow of year-end investments is much more about what you did last year than anything you will do in the next few weeks.

If you do nothing differently, you'll be at the same place this time next year as you are right now — or worse, you'll be smaller because you lost 7 percent more donors than you gained.