As we become increasingly tethered to technology, nonprofits need to meet donors where they are: on the Internet. In recent years, online donor numbers have only continued to grow. In 2020, nonprofits saw a 26% increase in monthly online donation revenue, and this trend will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
Whether you’re new to establishing an online presence or looking to move beyond your standard donation page with fresh fundraising ideas, we have four tips to help you find new donors and retain your existing ones. You’ll want to focus your efforts on making your online engagement:
Personal: Use a CRM to track and target donors.
Interactive: Host online event opportunities.
Regular: Engage your donors on social media.
Reciprocal: Show donors your appreciation.
Your donor landscape will naturally evolve and shift over time. The COVID-19 pandemic made online interactions a primary method of engagement that will last for years to come. By engaging supporters online, you’ll respond to these changes—and deepen interest, participation, and engagement. Let’s dive in!
Personal: Use a CRM to track and target donors.
When email marketing accounts for over a quarter of nonprofit online revenue, you must make these campaigns as effective and persuasive as possible. But receiving too many emails can also cause supporters to become annoyed and lose interest in your cause. Therefore, contact your supporters with emails tailored to their specific experience to maintain their interest and encourage additional engagement.
Your constituent relationship manager (CRM), also known as your donor database, can aid you across the stages of your donor engagement, from cultivating new donors to stewarding existing ones—particularly in your email outreach strategy. With a CRM, you can easily track, organize, and analyze your donor data, and then tailor the content of your emails to appeal to your specific audience.
Rather than writing separate emails for each of your supporters, make donor segments to create lists of donors according to common traits. Create segments in your CRM according to:
Demographic information
Geographic data
Previous donation history
Level of engagement
Shared interests
Once you develop these segments, you can use your CRM to easily personalize every virtual interaction you have with each of your supporters. For instance, you might create a segment of donors who live within 50 miles of your organization and invite them to in-person meet-and-greets. Further personalize your interactions by leveraging the data stored in your CRM to auto-populate messages with:
Your supporters’ preferred name, title, and pronouns. Nobody wants to receive a generic email that begins with: “Dear Supporter.”
The last activity/event in which they participated. Remind them why they care about your cause!
Their personal and professional interests. Mentioning their current job or hobby shows you’re paying attention to their lives.
Include a digital signature from a member of your organization’s staff. This will let them see you as a group of driven human beings rather than a faceless organization.
Personally connecting with supporters makes them more likely to deepen their involvement with your organization. But sending messages one-by-one can be a huge time-suck for your nonprofit. Instead, use the tools built into your CRM to track your supporter’s recent engagement and automatically send personalized emails based on these activities. For example, with some solutions, you can program your CRM to thank a donor immediately after their gift is received.
Interactive: Host online event opportunities.
Today, it’s entirely possible for your organization to reach people across the world. But it can be difficult for many of these supporters to feel involved when they can’t attend traditional events in person. While in-person events can be great for donor engagement, they can often exclude supporters who live in different geographic areas, work full-time, have limited abilities, or are chronically ill.
Online events can engage this segment of supporters and help them feel more connected to your cause. When this is the case, potential donors are more likely to give and existing donors are more likely to increase their annual giving.
Online auctions. To directly raise money for your cause, an online auction can be a great option. You can keep the auction open for several weeks to make it available to as many bidders as possible and allow them to bid on their schedule. An online auction can attract people from across the world who aren’t yet acquainted with your organization but are interested in the products/experiences being auctioned. Make sure to remind them of your mission and the value of their participation. The hope is that you can also acquire new supporters in the process.
Free virtual events. Hold a regular “lunch and learn” session where sector leaders share their knowledge and experience. Or host a “book club” where supporters can meet to discuss an article, book chapter, or podcast. Since not everyone will be immediately ready to invest in your cause, you can use these events to engage donation-hesitant supporters as well as current donors, growing your relationship with both.
Ticketed online events. Strategically implementing these events can be incredibly successful. Target your event to a particular population to have the most impact—and sell the most tickets. For example, if you’re a school or university trying to fund a specific project, you might run a virtual craft night, watch party, or food tasting. This can be great for families to involve both parents and children.
Since you can easily record many of your online events, these can offer continued value to your organization. Upload recordings of your free events to your website or YouTube, and share clips of paywalled events to increase social media engagement.
As your organization grows, so will your audience. Even though you might not see them as much in person, let them know they’re important to you, and give them a way to feel actively involved in your mission.
That said, investing in your online donor engagement doesn’t mean you have to stop your in-person engagement. Hybrid events with both in-person and virtual components can be a great middle-ground that appeals to all your supporters.
Take, for example, a shoe drive fundraiser. This easy, community fundraising event involves asking your supporters to donate their gently worn, new and used shoes, which they can drop off in person or donate through a contactless pick-up! This ensures that every one of your supporters can get involved and give in whatever way best suits their needs.
Regular: Engage your donors on social media.
When over 295 million Americans are on at least one social media platform, we’d be remiss not to mention its importance in engaging donors. Used correctly, social media can help you build community and awareness through regular and direct touches with the public.
To make the most of your social media tools, you’ll want to use features beyond posting the occasional updates:
Respond to direct messages and comments on a timely schedule. Don’t leave your supporters’ questions and comments unanswered!
Use time-sensitive stories to keep supporters returning to your profile. Consider spotlighting notable recurring donors in a Facebook or Instagram post.
Encourage existing donors to leverage their social networks as peer-to-peer ambassadors. Donors are usually proud of the support they offer your cause. So, allow them to champion your nonprofit and share their passion with their peers. In fact, this will likely attract new donors to your cause. 54% of first-time donors say they contributed to a cause they wanted to support because of the person who asked them.
Create a weekly poll or survey to ask questions and engage with your audience. These can be as simple as “What are you reading this weekend?” and as complicated as “What new programs would you like to see from us?”
Host special events such as challenges and social media takeovers to drive continued engagement. Funds2Org’s collection of nonprofit fundraising ideas recommends asking a trusted public figure to “take over” one of your accounts for a day, adding to your credibility and expanding your reach to their own followers. As a result, you’ll likely gain new online engagement and, in turn, new donors. If you’re in the midst of a fundraising campaign, make sure they encourage or solicit donations during the takeover.
Update supporters on new opportunities to give back. For example, suppose your nonprofit hosted a shoe drive fundraiser with both a live event and shoe drop-off locations across the city. You’d want to let your followers know how to donate their shoes and then keep them updated on the overall progress, including photos of all the shoes you collected!
Your social media account shouldn’t be just a message board where you post an update a few times a year. Instead, along with the other tools in your fundraising arsenal, use your online accounts to build relationships with your supporters via small, daily encounters. When it comes time for them to give, they’ll have you in mind.
Reciprocal: Show donors your appreciation.
Unfortunately, donor engagement fades with many organizations once a donation is received. Fewer than 20% of new donors will become recurring donors after their first donation because they don’t feel recognized for their contribution.
Thus, donor engagement doesn’t end once you’ve received a donation. In fact, this should be just the beginning of your relationship with a donor. Luckily there are a variety of virtual ways you can show donors your appreciation and maintain their engagement:
Thank you letters. Sending a thank you is the bare minimum you can do to acknowledge your donors. As we mentioned above, you can use your CRM to automatically send personalized thank-you emails. To avoid reinventing the wheel with each email, use a template, like those suggested in Fundraising Letters’ guide for donor thank-yous, to make sure you include the key information for each letter. These should be further personalized by auto-populating personal information (names, date of donation, gift amount, etc.). Make sure to call attention to the amount they gave and the impact their contribution will have on your nonprofit.
Donor-specific events. For certain tiers of donors, you can host in-person or online celebration events where donors can meet others who share their passion for your cause. For instance, an appreciation luncheon for your mid-level donors or event sponsors is a great opportunity to show them you care while providing networking opportunities.
Recognition walls. A donor recognition wall for major donors can serve as a lasting reminder of their gift. Walls can come in many different styles and forms, but they generally include donor names and contribution levels. Because of their permanence, walls can create an ever-lasting tie with these donors.
However you choose to thank your donors, you can amplify your appreciation with donor shout-outs and spotlights in email newsletters and social media posts. Of course, as a best practice, always get a donor’s permission before making their contribution public.
Ultimately, even if your online donor engagement is personal, interactive, regular, and reciprocal, you’ll want to continue trying new methods of engagement. Likely, your donors will fluctuate and change, and you’ll want to accommodate these changes. Moreover, it can be exciting for your long-term supporters to have new ways to get involved in your cause. As you take steps to grow your support, make sure to measure the effectiveness of new engagement strategies against your existing ones.
Wayne Elsey is the founder and CEO of Elsey Enterprises (EE) and a member of the Forbes Business Development Council. Among his various independent brands, he is also the founder and CEO of Funds2Orgs, which is a social enterprise that helps schools, churches, nonprofits, individuals and other organizations raise funds while helping to support micro-enterprise (small business) opportunities in developing nations.