Breaking Down Donor Loyalty in 9 Tweets

4. Contact with donors about satisfaction is key in fostering retention and offends no one.
When was the last time you asked your donors if they are satisfied? Most of us are sending one-way communication. There is no dialogue with our supporters. It’s mostly a monologue from your side.

5. Know why people terminate their support so recurring themes can be tackled.
Your database is capturing all available data, including cancellation reasons. It’s a good way to see trends or procedural errors of your newest campaign, but also very necessary for future segmentations in your reactivation campaign. By the way, currently we all try to “save” our supporters and prevent them from cancelling. You can only do this when you set up a process that captures this data.

6. Active donor commitment is the enduring passion for your nonprofit. Inspiring donors is key for loyalty.
As fundraisers it is our job to inspire supporters. We need to make them understand that with our help change is possible. Explain what we want to change, how we will do that and what the impact will be. We’re not only inviting them to be part of our vision and mission. We actually provide them a journey which they’ve been looking for to express their charitable feelings (yes, donors have feelings too). It’s a life-changing experience, and they can be part of that journey.

7. Donors who feel the cause takes them on a coordinated learning journey will be significantly more loyal.
Talking about a journey: the supporter journey. Nowadays, hopefully, everybody is working hard on their supporter journeys. Supporters who are just recruited should get entirely different communication than the supporter who has been contributing for more than 10 years with a much higher value. Find out what are the most useful angles to look at donor communication: relationship stage, donor segment, recruitment or communication channel.