I hope it is obvious by now that having a donor is not like having a pillowcase or a table. Donors take maintenance. They are living, breathing beings with feelings and attitudes, and they are being sought by more than 1.5 million other nonprofits. Certainly, they gravitate to organizations they believe in, but if they have a choice between two organizations they believe in and one pays attention to them and the other doesn’t, it is not hard to guess where they will send their money. In an ideal, but impossible, world, we would know something about the personal fundraising preferences of all our donors, such as which ones actually like to be called, which ones don’t like being asked more than once a year, or which ones thinks paper newsletters are a waste of money. We would know which donors love us the best of all the organizations they give to and which ones like us well enough but will never give us a bigger gift than the one they are giving now.

Creating categories of donors, called segmenting, means we make our best guess at these and other variables, partly to meet donors where they are, partly to save us time and money, and mostly to continue to build relationships with our donors as best we can.

Segmenting allows us to accommodate donors who make their needs known without falling into the trap of thinking that if one donor says she hates to be phoned, it must be true that a huge number of our donors feel the same. I have known organizations that stopped sending multiple appeals because one donor complained, even though fifty donors sent in an extra gift! Sometimes it is easy to accommodate a donor’s request. For example, if someone sends your organization $35 with a note that says, “I only give once a year, so please only ask me once a year,” code this donor to suppress his name for any other mailing during the following twelve months. That person will not be invited to an event or receive the spring appeal. Similarly, someone who writes on her reply card: “Absolutely no phone calls” should never be phoned, and that information should be in her donor record. In fact, even if you know the phone number (for example, from her check), don’t enter it into your database. If it is not part of your data, you will not be able to make a mistake and call.

The first set of segments is very simple. Donors should be sorted by how long they have been giving your organization money (longevity), how big their gift is (size), and how often in the same year they make a gift (frequency). Let’s look at each of these criteria.

CATEGORIES

OTHER SEGMENTS

In addition to categorizing by size, longevity, and frequency, note which donors only come to events or perhaps only come to one event. These donors should not receive regular appeal letters unless you have evidence that they respond by giving to those as well. If a donor only gives when she comes to your signature event, does so for three years or more, and does not give to any other appeals, that is a sign her primary loyalty is to the event. If one year that donor does not come to the event, then you can send her a letter after the event telling her how well the event did and how she was missed and asking for a contribution.

Note which donors only give to appeals for specific things (get out the vote, organizing campaigns, capital projects) but who never send money in response to general appeals. If you have a specific need, these are the donors to approach more personally for that need. These are often your best prospects for capital campaigns as well.

Identify the people who give several times a year and either send them one more appeal or ask them to become members of a pledge club to see whether you can convert them to monthly donors. All donors should be offered the chance to become monthly donors on all your reply devices and as a suggestion in renewal letters, but donors who give frequently should be offered that option in a special letter about the advantages of pledging. (For more on setting up a monthly donor program, see Chapter Twenty-Two.)

If you have more than one thousand donors or you are very adept at working with your data, you may want to add two more segments:

• Lapsed Donors: You need to make an effort to recapture donors who have given more than once but have not given in eighteen to twenty-four months. (You can go back further than that, but with each additional six months, you will have less and less success.) As long as your appeals are yielding more than 1 percent return, you are ahead of any acquisition strategy. People stop giving for many reasons unrelated to the organization. The two most common are that they move and forget to send you their forwarding address (this is as true of e-mail as snail mail), and they experience some major life change that puts their regular lives on hold. Divorce, death of a loved one, major illness, loss of a job—the list of why people forget to keep giving your organization money is long and rarely includes “I don’t like you anymore,” even though that is often our conclusion.
• Episodic Donors: More and more we see a new phenomenon with donors: people who give sporadically. It is hard to distinguish them from lapsed donors except that they reappear every so often, often in two- or three-year intervals. They will often give when something major has happened to the constituents of the organization. Natural disasters, outrageous sexual misconduct, or complete disregard of human and health and welfare by corporations (such as dumping toxic waste into drinking wells) and the like bring episodic donors out of the woodwork. The only way to work with them is to make sure that you publicize such episodes widely, particularly on social media, where many of these donors get information.

STAYING IN TOUCH WITH DONORS

In times of economic downturn or world instability, loyal donors are not only the bread and butter but also the lifeblood, to mix metaphors, of an organization. Whatever work you can do to build their identification with your organization is critical. Matching strategies of asking with types of donors, as just described in this chapter, is one way to help build loyalty.

Of course, asking for money, even in a way the donor responds to, cannot be the only way you are in touch with donors. You need to make sure you are telling the donors what you do and helping them be ambassadors of your work with their friends. Examine all the ways you are in touch with your donors and put yourself in the donor’s shoes. If all you knew about your organization was what donors receive, would you as a donor feel proud to be a member of this group? Puzzled? Excited? Would you have a sense of the consistency of your organization’s work or would it seem scattered?

Read a years’ worth of communication sent to your donors and see what you would know and not know about your work if that was all you received. You will quickly spot problems and be able to fix them. Further, see whether you can add any personalization to your thank-you notes or contact donors with an occasional letter or phone call to show more personal appreciation of their efforts. A letter that begins “This is the fifth year you have helped us. Let me tell you some things your gifts have helped make possible over the past five years” is a relatively easy letter to create when seeking renewals. Calling to thank donors who respond to a special appeal lets the donors know that you did the work you said you wanted to do. Most of these calls will be messages on voice mail: “Ms Jones, this is Anthony Activist at DoTheGood. Wanted to let you know that our goal to expand our community-based mental health services into the Richmond District is happening, and your gift is part of that. Go to our Facebook page to see more, but meantime, thanks.”

We appreciate all gifts and all motives for giving. But our best chance of getting a donation year in and year out is by building a relationship with the donor—a relationship that goes beyond any of the people in the organization. Segmenting, then deciding how to treat each segment of the donor list, is an easy and important step in building and keeping a broad donor base.