Why You Should Ask Current Year Donors For Another Gift
We sometimes hear statements like this from fundraising professionals:
“If a donor already gave this year, we don’t ask them again.”
“If donors already gave in the fall, we take them out of the end of year mailing. We don’t want to annoy them.”
“You recommend asking donors for a gift four times per year? Our management wouldn’t agree to that. What about donor fatigue?”
We have a newsflash for you.
Many current year donors will gladly give again and again if you ask them for additional gifts.
I’m talking about two, three, four or even five gifts per year from including donors in multiple solicitations …direct mail and email.
If you think I’m kidding, let’s look at the data.
For many of our clients, we analyze the response to mailings we do for them in detail. The following table of recent mailings analyzed shows that the Response Rate is higher and the Cost to Raise a Dollar is lower for asking for an additional gift from the same donor who already gave this (calendar) year, than it is for donor renewal or donor acquisition.
Of these 113 mailings, most include asking for renewal, for additional gifts and for new donors.
Of course, you need to keep donors informed about the impact of their gifts in-between additional asks by direct mail and email. And note that including a reply envelope in a donor impact report usually pays for itself, as the results for Impact Reporting show.
Additional Gifts From Current Year Donors is Second in Value Only to Renewing Last Year's Donors
Let’s dig in a little deeper by comparing asking for an additional gift per year to renewing LYBUNTS (last year but not this year) and recovering SYBUNTS (some year but not this year). In this table covering more than 100 mailings, “Years Lapsed = 0” are donors who already gave this year and “Years Lapsed = 1” are LYBUNTS. This shows how responsive current year donors are to being asked again.
Multiple Gifts From Donors In the Same Year Add 20% or More to your Annual Fund
Looking at all annual fund giving across multiple organizations, we find that the median percentage of giving from donors giving two, three, four or five times per year is 13.5% + 5.4% + 1.4% + 0.6% = 20.9%.
Donor Impact Reporting Is Essential to Receiving More Gifts
Before focusing on fundraising, I was a for-profit marketer. It would never have occurred to me that I shouldn’t ask customers for repeat sales. Not to do so would be malpractice! Any for-profit business person would want to fire a marketing manager who didn’t ask for additional orders. So, I continue to be shocked by some fundraising professionals and board members being resistant to asking for multiple gifts.
But, there is an important difference between for-profit marketing and non-profit solicitation.
The purchaser of a product or service is rewarded by having a physical product to use and/or the tangible experience of the service.
The benefits of donating to a non-profit are entirely intangible. All the action happens out of the sight and feel of the donor. That’s why researcher Penelope Burke reports in her book Donor Centered Fundraising that:
“Donors define over-solicitation as being asked to give again before being satisfied about what was accomplished with my last gift.”
Direct mail and email donors need to hear from you via donor-centric impact emails, newsletters, and social media posts in between asks, if you hope they will give again. Those communications make their gift tangible.
Pioneering direct mail fundraiser Roger Craver reports in his book Retention Fundraising the following reasons for not retaining donors.
5% - Thought the charity didn’t need them.
8% - No information on how monies were used.
9% - No memory of supporting.
13% - Never got thanked for donating.
16% - Death.
18% - Poor service or communication.
36% - Others more deserving.
54% - Couldn’t Afford.
All of these except Death and Couldn’t Afford are failure to communicate. And, as Roger points out, even Couldn’t Afford often comes down to communication.
“Experience shows that organizations that make strong cases and provide positive experiences usually avoid being cut as donors trim the list of groups they support due to changes in health, retirement, or reduction in income.”
Donors Appreciate the Opportunity to Give Again
Many donors who have invested in your mission and are enjoying reading the heart-warming stories you are sharing about what their dollars are accomplishing are quite willing to give more than once per year.
Asking current year donors multiple times is not annoying; it is giving the donor the chance to express their compassion and commitment more frequently.
Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Be So Squeamish About Asking for Additional Gifts
As shown above, the median cost to raise a dollar for including current year donors in a mailing in order to ask for additional gifts is only 6 cents.
Multiple gifts in the same year will be 20% or more of your revenue.
Donors who love what your organization is doing and have the capacity are perfectly willing to give again.
From a direct mail/email perspective, the only way to find out who in your current list is willing to give again right now is to ask.
Donors get hundreds of advertising messages per day—and you think asking once every three months is annoying? The reality is you are barely rising above the noise level. Get heard!
Donors who give more frequently are developing more attachment and loyalty to the organization . They think of themselves as investors in your mission, participants in your work.
They experience more frequently the joy of improving people’s lives and solving difficult problems when they give more frequently. You are increasing their own life satisfaction by asking again.
Multi-giver donors have high life-time value.
Multi-giving increases the possibility of a future campaign or legacy gift.
If You Want to Increase the Number of Your ‘Multi-giver’ Donors Do This:
1. Thank them promptly with a personalized email and a prompt thank you letter each time they give.
2. Have a staff member or volunteer call them to say thank-you. Mostly that takes less than 5 minutes per call because four out of five times you’ll get voice mail.
3. Send a donor impact report or postcard in-between solicitations. Don’t be the organization that only sends solicitations in the mail. Donors read those newsletters. They care what you did with their money! To quote Donor Centric Fundraising again:
“Meaningful information on their gifts at work is key to donors’ repeat and increased giving. Fundraising under-performance, therefore, is actually a failure to communicate.”
4. Send 12- 24 donor impact emails per year…yes, once to twice per month. You don’t need long content; you do need to say something interesting. Break up your newsletter or donor impact report into small pieces and repurpose them as emails or social media posts.
5. Tell stories and share testimonials. Stories and testimonials are the best way to tell your donors what you are doing with their money.
6. Consult our Second Gift Strategy: When and How to Ask Donors to Give Again for more tips.
7. Then ask again.
In short, multiple gifts per year come from keeping the donors’ attention and engagement through multiple communications and then by asking multiple times. Don’t be shy. Your mission is too important!
Yes, there will be those few who will complain and tell you to only ask them once. Thank them for letting you know and annotate them as ask-once-per-year in your donor management database.
Donor Fatigue is a Myth!
Take five minutes to read this recent article in Non-Profit Pro. As the author, Jeff Shreiffels says so well, don’t use donor fatigue as a scapegoat for low or no growth in giving. Ask yourself:
“Am I inspiring my donor with a compelling need and a believable solution so much so that my donor just has to make an impact?”
The best way to inspire is with stories and testimonials. If your appeal letters don’t include them, engagement drops. Stories and testimonials inspire emotions. Without them the reader becomes focused on your need for money, engaging the resistance of the frontal lobe. Stories and testimonials engage the emotional centers of the brain, creating the desire to help again.
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Five Maples helps fundraisers save time, raise more money and enjoy doing it!
Give us a call today for a free consultation.
Contact Sarah Gnerre, CFRE, VP of Philanthropy, at 1-802-387-3091 or sarahg@fivemaples.com!
