What is Donor Retention? Top Donor Retention Strategies

Donors are the foundation of your university, and getting new alumni and supporters to start their donor journeys can be a challenge. Small donations from first-time donors today can eventually by grown into recurring, planned, or even major gifts down the road. Cultivate donors at each step of the giving process to captivate their interest, garner their support, and steward recurring donations. 

While your university has an obvious connection to new alumni donors, you can also connect with other new donors through a variety of channels, such as your networks of current supporters, volunteer opportunities, and community events. To reach potential donors, educate your current base about their donation’s impacts on your university and provide them with shareable content like social media graphics and forwardable email newsletters to help them reach out to their own networks. 

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To help your university connect with alumni and other first time donors, this article will explore three ways you can energize your current supporters and attract new ones. Let’s get started.

Awareness Campaigns 

Awareness campaigns are a great way to reach new audiences. Try creating content that can easily be optimized for multiple platforms to spread awareness about your newest institutional projects. 

Awareness campaigns should share information about what projects your institution is working on, who it helps, what you’re doing to make a difference, and if there are other opportunities for supporters to get involved in addition to donating. Keeping donors in the loop about your ongoing initiatives will make your university more transparent. Plus, many alumni donors will likely be interested in what their former departments, professors, and friends are doing now. 

Spread the word about your ongoing projects on several communication channels. Choose your channels based on your new target audiences. For example, your university’s most recent graduates are Gen Z, who are more likely to be interested in social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, rather than Facebook. 

Take note of how your audience responds to your messages. While each platform you leverage in a multi-channel marketing strategy can help by creating a new touch point, some may have notably higher engagement and conversion rates than others. To start, try sharing your awareness campaigns through these channels: 

• Email newsletters
• Social media 
• Ambassadors 
• Local events 
• Virtual information panels 
• Text
• Direct mail

To leverage your current supporters’ networks, have your school’s ambassadors share your campaign on their social media accounts and within their personal networks. You can also reach out to high profile alumni or nonprofit influencers with large social media followings and ask if they would be willing to share your current initiatives. 

When reaching out to supporters, offer them multiple engagement opportunities. In addition to requesting donations, let them know when you have upcoming events, how they can learn more, and other activities open to supporters.

Recruit Volunteers for Your Organization 

Many of your alumni will be excited at the opportunity to give back to their university. Your alumni volunteers dedicate their time because they believe in your school and want to invest in their alma mater. Inviting new alumni volunteers to your organization can be the first step in stewarding them to eventually become donors. 

Your school should access your volunteer databases and alumni databases to see who has previously helped your organization. Take note of these volunteers and conduct prospect research to see who has the potential to give or even become a major donor. 

As alumni join your volunteer programs, continue stewarding them by regularly messaging them about other opportunities, sharing your university’s latest news, and showing your appreciation. Here are just a few ways you can show your gratitude to your alumni volunteers: 

• Mail a thank-you letter
• Conduct a phone call, especially with prospective major donors
• Create social media spotlights

Your volunteers can become some of your most reliable donors, and vice versa. Use your CRM to create profiles for each supporter and note if they’ve volunteered or donated. Then, send them messages that align with how they’re currently engaging with your university, as well as a few encouraging them to try getting involved in new ways

Events 

To get new donors involved with your university, host events that are open to the public, alumni, and major donors alike. You can charge an entrance fee, but be sure the main event is not donation based when trying to secure new donors. Here are some of the best ways to make your events more inviting and appealing to new donors: 

• Donation kiosks: This can make donating at events less overwhelming for individuals who prefer to donate discreetly. 
• Information tables: Have volunteers talk about their experiences with potential donors to humanize your volunteer and donation process.
• Emphasize scalable impact: Explain how every little donation counts, and highlight tangible ways that different amounts can impact your university. 

If interested individuals are unsure about donating, encourage them to sign up for your newsletter or volunteer opportunities to stay engaged with your organization. This way you can collect their data and connect with them later to begin the stewarding process. 

Your university needs new donors to continue funding your programs. To connect with alumni and community members who might be interested in giving, host a variety of opportunities to give them as many chances as possible to make that first step on their donor journeys. From there, you can begin stewarding monthly gifts and even uncover prospective major donors. 

Successful school auctions require significant planning, thoughtful execution, and effective follow-through. Since they can be so involved, how do you measure their ROI? Of course, you’ll track your fundraising goals, but another underused metric can help supercharge your efforts: donor relationships. 

School auctions help you increase both the quality and quantity of your donor relationships to facilitate future support, improve donor loyalty, and build sustainable engagement habits. 

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Think about how you foster these relationships before, during, and following your auction. To help you get started, we’ve listed our top recommendations for making the most of your school auction. Let’s jump in!

1. Research Auction Attendees in Advance

To tailor your outreach approach, research potential attendees in advance to determine who you should prioritize inviting and engaging with. Reference your data and be sure to invite previous attendees with:

• Previous giving history: Has this individual given to your school or any other charitable organization in the past? 
• Previous engagement: Have they attended or volunteered at previous fundraisers or other school events? 
• Relevant connections: Are they still connected to your school in some way? Aim to target supporters who have either recently graduated or still have children enrolled. 

Pay special attention to your most recent audience data that dates back about two years. Using this data, you can identify your high-impact donors and tailor your outreach and auction format to engage them. For example, you might recognize their impact from the previous year and ask them if they have any auction items they would like to see at this upcoming auction. 

2. Pay Attention to Business Affiliations

While researching individuals to invite to your auction, note their business affiliations. These connections will help you uncover valuable insights into other opportunities for potential guests to contribute to your school. 

Here are a few opportunities business affiliations can present:

• Auction item procurement: You may have donors that work for or run companies with products or services that are appropriate auction items. The best way to ask a company to donate an auction item is with an effective procurement letter sent to the right contact. Even if your donor won’t be the ultimate decision maker, they can likely help you identify the correct person to contact. 
• Sponsorships: Donors may work for companies that have corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs or grant initiatives that align with your school’s mission. You can leverage these connections to initiate conversations for partnerships that could benefit both parties. 
• Matching gifts: Several companies have matching gift programs that match their employees’ donations at a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio, which would double your supporters’ impact. By identifying your donors’ business affiliations, you can encourage them to use tools like advanced matching gift autosubmission to streamline the giving process. 
• Expanded networks: Even if a donor’s employer may not have CSR objectives that align with your school’s initiatives, they might have professional contacts that they can introduce you to that can help your school in other ways. 

Reference these business affiliations when preparing a live auction. For instance, you might create a seating chart with two (friendly) business competitors side by side to increase healthy competition. 

3. Create a Pre-Event Buzz

Leading up to your school auction, lay the groundwork for building lasting donor relationships that engage your community. Doing this will open the door to opportunities for long-term connections. To increase anticipation before your auction, consider: 

• Sending out personalized invites: After narrowing your prospective attendees, craft personalized invitations that clearly communicate your auction’s purpose and why an attendee’s presence will be valued. For instance, you might mention that this year’s auction will fund your school’s athletic department and invite alumni who were student-athletes to enjoy a night of friendly auction competition. 
• Posting social media promotions: Post updates leading up to your auction on social media. You might spotlight a few enticing items like an inclusive weekend getaway or concert tickets, or you could recognize a sponsor to thank them before your event begins. 
• Sharing testimonials from previous events: Dive into your school’s fundraising history to share moments that helped you achieve success. Was there a new theater program or building addition in the last couple of years? Recognize your previous successes and remind your attendees that you can’t do it without them. 
• Planning an attention-grabbing email marketing campaign: Write a series of well-crafted emails sharing regular updates, countdowns, and exclusive sneak peeks to potential participants and registered attendees. Encourage your recipients to forward these communications to their personal networks to reach more supporters and increase the hype surrounding your auction. 

According to SchoolAuction.net, pre-auction event planning and promotion can define your auction’s success as promotion is the first step in inviting donors into a productive relationship. In other words, effective event promotion will widen your reach which can positively impact your donor acquisition efforts. 

For best results, stick to posting on channels that your alumni and other potential guests are already active on. For instance, many schools have active Facebook groups you can leverage to get the word out about your upcoming auction. 

4. Leverage auction software

During the auction, have your team mix and mingle with guests freely. That means you should avoid spending time supervising check-in, check-out, and other bidding procedures. To streamline auction logistics, use comprehensive auction software.

Use software that offers the following features to streamline your event:  

• Item procurement tracking: Keep track of item requests and results and send receipts within one centralized system. 
• Multiple ways to give: Text-to-give and recurring giving options are a must to make donating during your fundraiser flexible and accessible.
• Mobile bidding: Use software to get rid of paper bidding sheets and allow attendees to bid using their phones. 
• Speedy checkout: Look for an auction software provider with an easy-to-use self-checkout feature that lets guests quickly review their cart and checkout from their phone using a secure credit card processor. 

These features are essential for providing an unforgettable guest experience. You might consider partnering with an auction provider whose software is also format flexible, so you can easily transition in-person auctions to hybrid or online formats. Built-in gamification features like countdowns and outbid notifications are also useful tools for enhancing the bidding experience and spurring friendly competition.

5. Engage Donors Beyond the Auction

Your work is not over after the auction! Engage your auction guests and communicate that your school is willing to go the extra mile even after securing support. To make your guests feel valued, follow these best practices: 

• Send post-auction surveys: Ask for feedback following your auction. Doing this will help you improve future fundraising efforts by taking note of what worked well. It also indicates that your school values your guests’ opinions and is making an effort to prioritize their satisfaction. 
• Share impact reports: Donors want to know how their contributions helped your school reach its fundraising goals. Use your school’s newsletter to include how their donations helped your school purchase new athletic equipment, build out your arts program, or improve a department’s educational materials. 
• Express gratitude and offer recognition: Send personalized appreciation notes to donors thanking them for their participation. With their permission, you can also publicly recognize individuals who made a large impact. 

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Your recognition and gratitude efforts will vary according to the donor. For instance, you might mention major sponsors in your newsletter updates, call them personally on the phone to express gratitude, or plan an appreciation event to celebrate their generosity. 

By considering which donors to invite, how you’ll invite them, and how you’ll engage them, you can set the stage for long-term relationships. Use tools like prospect research and auction software to plan and execute your auction. That way, you can expand your network and streamline your event. To your fundraising success!

As a fundraising professional, you understand the importance of building relationships with your valuable donors. They’re the ones who provide the funding that make it possible to provide new opportunities for students and alumni. Therefore, building relationships with them secures support both now and in the future for these fundraising programs to continue taking place. 

Considering the disruptions that everyone experienced (and continues experiencing) during the COVID-19 pandemic and how the industry has evolved since then, your relationships with many donors might appear to be volatile or different. When everyone changed up their strategies to incorporate the latest trends in engagement, some strategic aspects undoubtedly fell through the cracks. 

We recommend taking your approach back to the basics of engagement and donor relationships this coming year. Revisit some tried-and-true ideas that have been proven time and time again to bolster relationships with your supporters. After all, these are the strategies that are most often forgotten when we embrace new methods and change up our approach to relationships. 

The tips we’re covering in this article are ones that you may have seen before. However, they’re immensely important to maintain throughout the hubbub and chaos of the year. Without further ado, let’s dive deeper into these important and timeless strategies to help take your donor relationships to the next level. 

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For students, alumni, and donors, it’s painfully obvious when you send out emails or other communications that do not employ segmentation or other personalization strategies. Everything from a “To whom it may concern” introduction to the lack of personal details in the message makes it clear that you sent the same message to everyone on your email list. 

Generic, impersonalized outreach is the easiest to ignore and causes the downfall of many marketing programs. See how institutions such as Gann Academy increased alumni email open rates by personalizing their email campaigns. 

When it comes to your donors, you should include the same personalization strategies for outreach. 

The easiest way to start making the most of personalization is to use the same approach as Gann Academy: start with your email campaigns. Use the information in your donor database to fill in some gaps and to show your supporters that the message you’re sending is customized just for them. You can do this by: 

- Using the donor’s preferred name in the introduction. 

- Including details about the supporters’ engagement history. 

- Approaching specific segments of donors with targeted messages. 

- Sending messages relevant to the interests of the donor. 

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When you have access to an effective donor database, a lot of this information can be automated to save you time and energy in sending these highly targeted messages. This effective donor database buyer’s guide explains that automation features, when used correctly, can make personalization more effective and efficient. 

Your database can be used to auto-populate details into message templates and ensure you reach the right audience segments in your communications to enhance donor engagement.

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Building relationships is impossible if it’s a one-sided effort. Your institution needs to not only work to communicate and show your donors that you care, you need to invite them to engage back with you by providing ample opportunities. 

Since COVID-19, engaging opportunities look a little different than they have in the past. To create engaging opportunities amidst of a pandemic, many institutions had to adhere to social distancing guidelines by coming up with new virtual event ideas. 

We’ve come up with a list of our favorite virtual fundraising ideas that any educational institution, nonprofit, or other organization can make use of. While you can find the full list here, we’ll highlight some of the options below: 

- Online Gala - This is a great opportunity to encourage your major donors to get dressed up and network with one another using virtual conferencing software.

- TED Talk Events - Encourage your donors while enforcing your emphasis on education by providing TED Talk-style events to spread knowledge about certain topics. 

- Online Classes - Provide online class opportunities for donors as well as students. These may not be full-fledged courses, but mini opportunities to sharpen skills. 

- Annual Giving Days - Giving days encourage a great number of people (especially alumni) to give on a very specific day, similar to #GivingTuesday. 

- Matching Gift Drives - This is a great way to encourage more donations and maximize impact. Promote corporate giving opportunities and remind supporters to check their eligibility for matched gifts. 

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When your donors get involved with all of the opportunities you offer, they strengthen their ties to your institution. This makes it all the more likely that they’ll continue supporting you in your upcoming fundraising events.

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A phone call is an often overlooked relationship-building strategy because it can be somewhat time-consuming. However, it’s a valuable tool and makes a huge difference, especially when it comes to new donors. 

For instance, consider the new donor cultivation timeline below. It shows that a thank-you call within 48 hours of a donation can dramatically improve your donor retention rates. Plus, it’s the first step to begin a strong relationship with your donors. This is because you establish a personal connection with the donor while showing your appreciation for their contribution.

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Phone calls are a great way to start a relationship with donors on the right foot. However, don’t forget to employ the strategy with your seasoned donors as well! Call them to maintain regular contact and to express your gratitude for their continued support in your fundraising initiatives. 

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You’ll notice that on the cultivation timeline from the previous section that the step after a “thank you phone call” is sending a “signed thank you letter.” While email is likely your primary method of communication with the donors, the power of a physical letter of appreciation should not be underestimated, especially when it’s hand-written. 

Handwritten notes are a classic way to show your donors that you will truly take the time out of your day for them. They want to feel like a priority for your organization, which is what a hand-written note should communicate. 

When you write these notes, there are specific elements that you should make sure to include, such as: 

- The preferred name of the donor. Just like in email communications, you should make sure to refer to the specific donor as you hand-write letters (be sure to double-check your spelling, too!)

- The activity they participated in. If your donor has just contributed funds, be sure to thank them for the specified amount. If they attended an event, thank them for their involvement and participation. 

- The president’s signature. Letters are generally better received when they come from the top office of your institution. Therefore, you should make sure the president of your institution’s signature is on each and every one of them.

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Just like phone calls, hand-written letters tend to be important strategies as you cultivate relationships with your new donors. However, don’t forget about the strategy for your veteran donors! 

Be sure both phone calls and hand-written letters are a part of both your cultivation and stewardship strategies to strengthen donor relations. 

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Don’t we all love stories? Your donors want to hear your inspiring story. They want to hear the reason behind all the great work that you do and the support that you provide to your community. Sharing these stories with your donors is a great way to show them what it is that their contributions support. 

One of the current trends in the higher education space is the use of images to communicate these types of narratives. This trend is important to keep in mind because there are so many different platforms on which you’ll be telling stories. For instance, consider the following examples: 

- Email - Whether it’s an email to a certain segment of your audience or a regular newsletter sent to many, include an image of an individual who attended your institution along with their story. This adds a face to the name and a personal touch to show the impact of donations. 

- Social media - Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are made for visual storytelling. Be sure to use an image that tugs at the heartstrings to gain the attention of your audience, then caption it with details about the story itself. If it’s a longer story, be sure to provide a link to where donors can read the rest of it. 

- Blog posts - Blogs are the perfect way to write long stories about individuals or about the progress of your institution. Showing images, faces, and specific names makes them even more powerful. 

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And it’s true! Be sure to leverage both text and image when you tell the story of your institution’s successes. ‍

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In the last section, we mentioned briefly that stories are a method of showing impact. Communicating impact is critical for donor engagement and continued support down the line. Think about it. If you give to an organization, you’re not contributing money for the sake of spending it. That would be silly! Rather, you’re donating to help accomplish a mission. 

Communicating the progress of this mission and the impact of specific donations is a great way to give your donors the warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of their stomachs that was probably what drove them to contribute in the first place. You’re reinforcing the positive aspect of donating. 

Check out this nonprofit annual report guide that conveys the story of The Johnsons and how their impact was communicated to all contributors in an end-of-year report.

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Notice some key aspects of this example: 

- It shows a picture of The Johnsons

- The text uses a statistic showing the impact their contributions made

- The text is framed to put all of the emphasis on the Johnsons rather than on the efforts of the organization

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These aspects are some of the most important things to remember when you communicate the impact of specific donors. Generally, on annual reports such as this, it’s your major donors that you’ll highlight. However, you can still use these strategies in emails, letters, phone calls, and other methods of communication to show any supporter that they’ve made a difference. 

Building donor relationships is an incredibly important part of the fundraising strategy at your institution. Therefore, even as you explore all of the new and exciting ways to communicate and engage with them, don’t forget about the basics. Form a strong foundation for your donor relationships by using these tried-and-true strategies. Then, continue to cultivate and build these relationships to watch your fundraising soar!

About the author

Jay Love

Co-Founder and current Chief Relationship Officer at Bloomerang

He has served this sector for 33 years and is considered the most well-known senior statesman whose advice is sought constantly.

Prior to Bloomerang, he was the CEO and Co-Founder of eTapestry for 11 years, which at the time was the leading SaaS technology company serving the charity sector. Jay and his team grew the company to more than 10,000 nonprofit clients, charting a decade of record growth.

He is a graduate of Butler University with a B.S. in Business Administration. Over the years, he has given more than 2,500 speeches around the world for the charity sector and is often the voice of new technology for fundraisers.

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