29 Tips for Gaining and Retaining a Donor Base

"The whole point of membership," Rich said, "is to make the members feel like they're part of your organization."

7. Activities. Be creative and interesting. More people drop their memberships after the first year than if they've been long-term members. Therefore, do something special to make sure first-year members will want to renew their memberships.

8. Communications. You can't communicate with members too often, Rich said, recommending putting yourself on your member list so you can receive all of the communications your members are receiving. Save each one — whether direct mail or e-mail — date them and then lay them all out and see how it looks. This is what members are seeing. Over the course of a year, Rich recommended sending one to four renewal notices, four to 15 invitations, two to four fundraising appeals, four to 12 newsletters/bulletins, as well as the annual report and a couple of surveys.

9. Recognition. Send members a thank-you letter, call them on the phone or visit them; list their names in your newsletter (as the list becomes longer, just list upper-level members), annual report or recognition wall; and send them membership cards with their names on them.

Strategy (which of these will you focus on?)
10. Increase numbers. Why? Do you want to increase numbers for greater advocacy power, to increase your donor pool, to appear stronger as an organization or to serve the community better?

Three ways to increase membership: emphasize acquisition, increase the overall renewal rate and increase first-year renewal rate. Rich said if you can increase the first-year renewal rate, your overall renewal rate will go up.

11. Increase income. Some ways to do this are increasing dues; changing the dues structure (e.g., moving your lowest level up $5 or $10); adding/keeping more members; adding an upgrade program (ask people who have been members for a few years if they'd like to upgrade their membership levels); forming a committee (volunteers?) to solicit for support members; and cut costs.