Category: Donor Participation Project

If your nonprofit organization uses a phone-a-thon vendor, your fundraisers likely receive summary reports with aggregate data on call outcomes for the year. But there is a trove of valuable data hidden within each individual call that most nonprofits never access. Before ending your contract with a vendor, make sure you request all historical phone-a-thon data—and not just the summary reports—before it’s gone for good.

Call-level data provides details on each conversation, including call duration, outcomes, and notes about the interaction.

This micro-data enables your team to build predictive models to gain insights into donor behavior and shape more targeted outreach. For example, two donors who received 10 calls each and did not make a gift could differ dramatically. One donor may have taken 3 short calls and 1 longer call, signaling higher interest, while another hung up quickly each time. Aggregate reports would not capture these nuances.

Unlocking call-level data requires effort, but the payoff can be huge.

Work with your vendor to download all available data, even if years old. This information has longevity and, combined with newer data, can uncover patterns that summaries alone would miss. You must store data in a secure yet accessible format, like a data lake. Then invest in individuals with the skills to query the data to serve your fundraising teams.

Some nonprofits hesitate to request call-level data due to lack of expertise or resources to use it. But failing to act means losing access to a potential goldmine of information as vendors purge old records. And as more peer organizations embrace predictive modeling, your nonprofit could fall behind without this data. Call-level information enables your team to work smarter by focusing efforts on the most promising prospects. The initial investment in obtaining and using this data could yield significant long-term benefits for your mission.

Take the first step now by contacting your phone-a-thon vendor and asking for all available call records before it’s too late. Your nonprofit’s future success depends on making data-driven decisions, so don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights into your donors. The time to act is now—or this data may be gone forever.

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Major gifts from dedicated donors provide the lifeblood for many nonprofits. But identifying and building relationships with these donors requires significant investment of time and resources. While in-depth, in-person conversations are the gold standard for major gift work, they are simply not scalable or realistic for all donors.

Surveys can be an effective tool for broadly engaging more donors and discovering those with the capacity and interest in major gifts. Asking the right questions in a survey helps donors articulate what they care about in a low-pressure way and gives fundraisers valuable insight into their motivations and values. With this information, fundraisers can then focus their efforts on the most promising survey respondents.

For example, questions like “What causes or issues do you care most about supporting?” or “If you had extra time or resources, what societal problems would you want to help solve?” encourage donors to envision their ideal impact and giving. Follow-up questions requesting a prediction of their likelihood to give a major gift to address the issues they identified can activate donors’ generous identities and make them more inclined to give.

While a survey will never replace in-depth conversations, it is a mechanism to start them.

Fundraisers should analyze survey results to identify major gift prospects, then schedule phone calls or virtual meetings to discuss the issues that matter to them. On these calls, fundraisers can share potential projects that match donors’ interests and ask open-ended questions to learn more about their motivations and vision for impact.

For donors who do not respond to surveys or meeting requests, fundraisers can nurture the relationship through regular communication highlighting the nonprofit’s meaningful work and impact. Over time, with a combination of broad engagement tactics and one-on-one cultivation, more donors may evolve into major gift prospects.

The key is using the right questions and a genuine spirit of inquiry to discover donors’ passions and show them that their input and partnership matters.

While potentially time- and resource-intensive up front, investing in these relationships and focusing on donor meaning can lead to transformational gifts that fund mission-critical work. Overall, nonprofit leaders must recognize that fundraising is not about what organizations need but what donors care about. Surveys and listening are two of the best ways to find out.

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Nonprofit fundraising innovator Juan Aranaga says that appealing to donors’ emotions is far more effective than relying on data and facts alone. Aranaga, who heads up global fundraising innovation at UNICEF, shared this insight during a recent podcast with nonprofit experts.

“When it comes to nurturing individual donors, 95% of the decision to donate is emotional,” Aranaga said. “It has nothing to do with outcomes. It has to do with storytelling and the human touch.”

While data and evidence of impact are important, especially for corporate and government donors, individuals primarily give from the heart.

This means nonprofit fundraisers should focus on forging emotional connections with donors through authentic storytelling. “We call them ‘human touch stories,'” said Aranaga. Share stories of the people and communities your organization impacts, not just numbers and statistics. Help donors feel inspired and build a personal relationship with your cause.

However, appealing to emotions is not enough on its own. Fundraisers also need to understand donors’ motivations and find ways to meet their needs. Aranaga recommends using the “jobs to be done” framework to determine why people support your organization. What “job” do donors hire your nonprofit to fulfill? Is it to feel good about themselves, be part of a community, or make a meaningful difference? Find how you can strengthen that connection.

Aranaga warns against relying too heavily on predictable channels like direct mail or events. While optimizing current fundraising methods has value, real innovation comes from developing new products, services, and business models informed by donor insights. This could mean starting a subscription program, creating a win-win corporate partnership, or allowing donors more ways to engage beyond just giving money.

At the end of the day, people give to people. While data should inform strategy, emotional storytelling and authentic relationships are what inspire action. By gaining a deeper understanding of donor motivations and needs, nonprofits can establish themselves as trusted partners in creating change. Fundraisers have an opportunity to move beyond transactional appeals to build something greater: a lifelong bond between donor and cause.

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People want to give and make a difference, but nonprofits are failing to provide the opportunities to do so. This is the sobering analysis from Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer at Giving Tuesday. According to Rosenbaum, while many nonprofits lament declining donor participation, the data shows that people remain motivated to give—they are just not limiting themselves to giving money to nonprofits alone.

In fact, nearly two-thirds of acts of generosity don’t involve nonprofits at all. People prefer to give in multiple ways, not just by writing checks to charities. They donate items, give gifts directly to those in need, support grassroots mutual aid networks, and more. Nonprofits focused narrowly on acquiring and stewarding major donors are missing the chance to engage community members in the ways they actually prefer to give.

The opportunity for nonprofits is to provide more avenues for people to make a difference, not just ask them for money. Rosenbaum points out that the more people care about issues affecting their community, the more likely they are to take action through donating or volunteering. Nonprofits should tap into donor motivation by enabling their agency and participation.

To reverse declining donor participation, nonprofits must build broad community support now, not just during the last months of the year. This means developing multichannel outreach that offers more options to give and get involved beyond just making a donation. With uncertainty looming in 2023, nonprofits need donor diversity to withstand potential drops in large gifts.

By cultivating grassroots givers and not viewing them as competitive with major donors, nonprofits can strengthen their foundation and fundraising results.

The call to action is clear: nonprofits must expand how they engage community members beyond transactional asks for money. Generosity is plentiful, but without providing more avenues to make a meaningful impact, nonprofits will continue to miss out on the opportunity. The time for action is now. People want to give; nonprofits must meet them where they are and how they want to make a difference.

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Social impact bonds require rigorous measurement and evaluation to determine if the agreed-upon social outcomes have been achieved and investors should be repaid. For nonprofits looking to utilize this innovative funding mechanism, focusing on measurable outcomes and impact is key.

According to Victoria Phillips, a nonprofit consultant who helps organizations implement social impact bonds, “It’s not just about measuring activities or outputs, but rather the longer-term benefits or results from these activities.” The outcomes must be clearly defined upfront between the investors, nonprofit service provider, and government entity. They should align with the nature of the program and be measurable.

For example, if a nonprofit provides job training for refugees, the outcome could be a target number of refugees finding sustainable employment within a certain time period after completing the training program. By tracking outcomes like job placement rates, wage increases, and job retention, the nonprofit can demonstrate the impact to investors and government partners.

Rigorous data collection and analysis are required to evaluate the success of the program. While this may seem daunting, Phillips says, “focusing on outcomes is one of the strengths of the SIB model. It encourages nonprofits to focus on what truly matters: making a real difference in people’s lives and demonstrating their effectiveness.”

Developing a sustainable program model with ongoing impact beyond the social impact bond is also important for long-term success. Government entities and private funders will want to see lasting change and benefits to the community.

For nonprofits new to social impact bonds, focusing on program outcomes, measurement, and evaluation is the key to attracting investors and partners. Clearly define the outcomes, determine how you will track and analyze progress, build a sustainable model, and demonstrate the lasting impact.

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For university advancement teams looking to attract investment and accelerate fundraising, benchmarking performance and aligning resources are key. According to Peter Fardy, former head of advancement at Dalhousie University, undertaking a data-driven approach to setting fundraising goals and making a case for support can have significant impact.

At Dalhousie, Fardy spent over a decade gathering data on the university’s own historic fundraising performance as well as benchmarking against peer institutions. By analyzing two decades of the university’s fundraising results and expenditures, Fardy found a clear correlation between investing in the advancement operation and securing more philanthropic commitments. On average, for every dollar spent, the university raised six dollars in new donations.

Benchmarking against seven other competitor universities provided further insights. Fardy found Dalhousie’s alumni engagement and fundraising costs were higher than average while the budget for communications and marketing was lower. Using this data, the advancement team set a plan to strategically grow areas that would have the highest ROI, specifically the fundraising operation. They made a data-driven case to university leadership to invest more in the overall advancement budget, especially the development team.

Within 12 years, Fardy and his team were able to triple the advancement budget and fundraising results through this approach. But undertaking a benchmarking project requires significant investment of time and resources. Fardy advises focusing 80 to 90 percent of your efforts on analyzing your own institution’s data first before tackling intensive benchmarking.

Start by looking at the correlation between your advancement costs and fundraising results over the past 3 to 5 years. Then determine how to improve your performance and make a case for aligning resources and investing in opportunity.

Benchmarking and setting data-informed goals are not an “algorithm for success” but rather a way to equip yourself to make better judgment calls, according to Fardy. When it comes to securing investment in advancement, facts and evidence can be the difference between growth and stagnation. Overall, the university advancement teams that know their own performance and capacity for opportunity will be best positioned to surpass expectations.

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For years, alumni participation rates have been a key metric and rankings factor for higher education institutions. However, with the US News & World Report recently dropping alumni giving from its rankings calculations, schools have an opportunity to rethink how they connect with and engage alumni.

According to experts, digital engagement and a broader focus on engagement may be the future.

Traditionally, alumni engagement has centered around giving and events. But today’s alumni consume information and connect in digital spaces.

Institutions that don’t adapt to digital engagement models risk losing the opportunity to cultivate meaningful, long-term relationships with newer generations of alumni.

Dr. Shalonda Martin notes that messaging has already started to shift, focusing more on impact and mission to inspire motivation for participation. Digital campaigns that highlight student and alumni stories are an example of how institutions are changing engagement models by showing the community and networks that exist within the school. Events like day of giving also serve a reputational purpose by demonstrating alumni pride and involvement.

Rethinking engagement also means reimagining traditional phonathons.

Instead of focusing only on securing annual fund gifts, phonathons could engage alumni in other ways like volunteer opportunities, mentorship, events, and more. This helps shift the mindset that alumni only hear from their alma mater when a donation is wanted. Engaging alumni through listening to their interests and motivations can lead to more impactful contributions and advocacy.

While alumni participation as a metric isn’t going away, how institutions approach and measure it is changing. Partnerships across campus can help identify what success looks like. Digital engagement opens opportunities to connect with more alumni in meaningful ways. And broadening phonathons beyond just fundraising can demonstrate to alumni that their time, talent and treasure are all equally valuable.

The future of alumni engagement is multifaceted, equitable, and focused on impact. By adapting engagement models, institutions can build lifelong relationships with alumni and a broader culture of philanthropy. The possibilities for connection and mutual benefit are endless.

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A recent survey of nonprofit advancement professionals reveals that developing adaptable leadership and hiring staff with digital skills are key to growing donor participation. The survey, conducted by the Donor Participation Project, found that while 73% of respondents said they have adequate budget for donor participation efforts, only 27% felt they have the right staff and skills.  

“The survey shows that the ability to adapt quickly and attract candidates with digital marketing expertise are lacking in many advancement shops,” says Cameron Hall, Executive Director of Annual Giving at the University of South Carolina. “Leadership needs to reshape how they communicate with higher-ups and boards to convey what’s really needed to drive donor participation today.”

Sean Devendorf, Senior Director of Annual Giving at Tufts University, agrees. “So much of what we’re talking about is that first level of engagement, and to get there we need to look at our data. We need better data hygiene and to determine how we can communicate with constituents on the channels they prefer.”

To develop adaptable leadership and staff, advancement teams should:

• Restructure org charts to meet donors where they are. Digital engagement roles should not be relegated to lower-level positions.  Consider VP-level leadership. 

• Create an environment where staff feel empowered to test new strategies, even if they fail. Leadership must be comfortable with quick failure and pivoting.  

• Improve data quality and analytics to gain insight into constituent communication preferences and interests. Then build engagement around those interests.

• Collaborate with marketing, communications and other departments using new tools and strategies. Tap into existing expertise.  

• Educate leadership and boards on new key performance indicators beyond traditional metrics like alumni participation rates. Explain what resources and skills are truly needed to reach today’s donors.

Overall, advancement teams aiming to boost donor participation must adapt to keep pace with their digitally-savvy donors.  By rethinking organizational structures, leadership styles and staff skills, teams can gain the agility and expertise they need to build meaningful connections and inspire more supporters to give and engage. The future of fundraising depends on it.

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Direct mail has long been a staple of nonprofit fundraising. However, as donors receive more and more solicitation letters in their mailboxes, response rates have declined dramatically. The problem lies not with direct mail itself but with the way many nonprofits approach it. Sending blanket appeals to broad audiences is no longer effective.

According to fundraising experts, nonprofits need to improve how they segment audiences and target their messages.

Organizations that take the time to analyze their donor data and group supporters based on factors like giving history, interests, and demographics see much higher returns on their direct mail campaigns.

For example, an animal welfare nonprofit may find that younger female donors are especially responsive to messages emphasizing medical care for pets in need. For mid-level donors over age 65, messages highlighting the organization’s high charity ratings and low administrative costs may be more motivating. Testing different appeals with smaller donor segments allows nonprofits to determine what resonates most before rolling out campaigns on a larger scale.  

Targeting the right message to the right donors is key. As one fundraising expert noted,

“The biggest mistake nonprofits make is trying to be all things to all people. You have to get specific about who your donors are and speak to them directly.”

By allocating time and resources to researching and understanding their donor base, nonprofits can develop highly customized outreach that inspires action.

In conclusion, while some argue that direct mail is a strategy of the past, it continues to be an important channel when done well. The key is avoiding a “spray and pray” approach in favor of messaging and targeting that is tailored to specific donor interests and motivations. With more sophisticated segmentation and targeting, nonprofits can overcome lackluster response rates, strengthen relationships, and achieve sustainable funding through direct mail. 

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Artificial intelligence and machine learning tools are transforming fundraising. While AI may seem futuristic, many nonprofits are already using AI-based solutions to improve donor retention and boost engagement.

Here are three ways AI can help:

Reactivate lapsed donors.

Chatbots, like the AI Fundraising Coach, can help re-engage donors who have stopped giving. The bot leads you through a strategic process to understand why donors stopped giving and craft personalized outreach plans. For example, if a major donor’s child was rejected from your university, the bot suggests expressing empathy, taking responsibility for any mistakes, and discussing other ways the donor can stay involved. This human-centered approach, guided by AI, can be highly effective for winning back donor trust and support.  

Improve your fundraising copy.

AI copywriting tools, such as The Best Fundraiser’s Friend, can help generate appeals, newsletters, and other fundraising content. You provide information about your campaign or organization and the tool creates a draft. The results need editing but can save time and inspire new ideas. For the best results, provide background on your nonprofit’s mission, values, impact, and any details about the specific campaign. The more context the AI has, the more tailored and compelling the copy will be.  

Analyze donor data.

Some nonprofits are using AI and machine learning to analyze donor data and predict individuals who are most likely to make a gift or increase their giving. Identifying these high-capacity donors allows fundraising teams to create targeted engagement plans. While implementing AI models requires technical skills, many nonprofits work with third-party data companies and consultants to leverage AI in this way. The result is data-driven insights to guide strategic decisions about allocating donor resources. 

In summary, AI and chatbot tools can help nonprofits revitalize lapsed donor relationships, improve fundraising copy with custom content, and uncover data insights about high-value donors. As with any technology, AI has its limitations and downsides, but by starting small and taking an intentional approach, nonprofit fundraisers can find opportunities to build more personal connections and make a bigger impact. The future of fundraising is human-centered—with some help from AI.

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