By Mike Bacon, CFRE
Your most loyal donors are those who support your cause consistently, year after year. If you haven’t already run a list of donors who have given to your nonprofit every year for the past five years, stop now and run that list. Now compare it to the subset of donors have given every year from the past 10 years. How much did the list shrink? Do you know the handful of donors who have given the most consecutive years?
These are your loyal donors. Whether it be five years, seven years or more than 10 years, this short list of individual, foundation or corporate donors is your most valued resource. If you steward them wisely, they could become your life long donors.
Most of us are familiar with a pyramid of gifts. When you build a gift pyramid focusing on donor consistency, it looks something like this:
Planned Gift Donor
Major / Capital Donor
Consistent Annual Donor
Periodic Donor
First Time Donor
Let’s focus now on the consistent annual donor. We can see how valuable they are, not only in terms of sustainability (being able to count on their support every year) but also because these are often the donors who will eventually make both major gifts and planned gifts. They are the core of your pipeline for significant support. And far too often, this core of donors is taken for granted.
Now you have a list of those key supporters in your hand. What are you going to do with it?
For starters, you need to be certain that you (or someone in your organization) know them personally. With all the transition in the nonprofit sector, chances are good that some of these people are just names on a list. Whoever once knew them on your Development team could be long gone from your organization. If you are new, you have a great opportunity to reach out to these loyal donors and introduce yourself.
What will you talk about when you call or visit your most loyal donors? This is the time when you need to go beyond the light “touches” of sending them just a newsletter or an event invitation. First of all, share your gratitude for their generosity. Make sure they understand how unique they are to your cause. “There are so few individuals who have given a gift to us every year for the past seven years.” Here are a few great questions to ask:
- Why are you so loyal to us?
- What has been the emotional connection to our mission for you?
- What benefits do we offer that you actually value?
- Have we kept you informed of how we are using your gifts to serve our clients?
- Is there anything you want to know about our work that we haven’t shared already?
You know this already but make sure this contact is not an ask. The purpose of the call or visit is not “what can we do to encourage you to give more.” If that’s your approach, you may actually turn off these loyal donors.
Go create your list and have fun making your calls and visits. In her book, Donor-Centered Fundraising, Penelope Burk discovered that 94% of donors surveyed say that the charities they support never or hardly ever call them without asking for another gift. 98% say that charities never or hardly ever pay them a visit without asking for money.
Your connection to your most loyal donors is one of your greatest assets. Taking the time to visit or call them to sincerely express your gratitude will pay dividends for years to come.