10 Ways to Build Stronger Donor Relationships

Strong donor relationships are one of your nonprofit’s most significant assets.

Building good relationships takes time, communication, and continued practice but can reap worthwhile rewards. Most nonprofits with strong donor relationships generate more revenue and support from recurring donations and peer-to-peer fundraising. These organizations also create more effective marketing asks and sustainable fundraising campaigns.

Donor relationships start with the very first contribution, from a $10 gift to a corporate sponsorship. Here are 10 ways to support your ask and build stronger donor relationships with every interaction.

1. Thank Donors

Saying thank you goes a long way in building donor relationships. Every nonprofit can do it differently, and you will likely choose multiple ways to show donor appreciation. However, the most expected – and simple – way is to write a thank you letter.

Text messages and phone calls are a more direct way to say thank you. That outreach won’t go unnoticed and is a solid tactic. You can reserve them for certain donor levels to maximize your staff’s time if necessary.

You can also personalize thank yous by sending cards or emails to donors to mark special occasions such as birthdays, giving anniversaries, or holiday cards.

Your most valuable donors might be better recognized with thank-you events or special swag items that make them feel especially appreciated. Both options help create a feeling of exclusivity for donors, which can result in positive sentiment toward your nonprofit.

Finally, some donors like their donations to be seen by others. If you use a donation platform like GiveWP, use the donation wall feature. It allows each individual donor to note whether their donation shows on your website’s campaign donation page.

2. Improve the Donor Experience

As an indirect thank you, creating a positive and memorable donor experience can strengthen your relationship. Positive touchpoints will help foster loyalty by shaping donor perception and first-hand experiences.

Try these elements to improve the overall donor experience:

• Use personalization: Messages that include specific information, such as the donor’s name, feel unique and tailored for that donor.
• Focus on storytelling: Your thank you should align with brand storytelling to ensure that you continue to reinforcing the reasons the donor engaged in the first place.
• Make it easy to donate: Simplify donation forms and online paths to donating so that the process is quick and easy for every donor. You can even send personalized, automated donation receipts with a quick thank you message.

3. Get and Implement Feedback

Ask donors what they want to see from your organization. Allowing donors to provide direct feedback is a great way to understand what they like and don’t like and what you can do to improve relationships. A donor survey is a great way to receive such feedback and build stronger relationships with your contributors.

Make sure to send a donor survey with a purpose. Consider both the questions you ask and the survey delivery method. Try to keep your survey brief to help you gather more specific feedback. Then, send the survey in a way that donors will appreciate. Email is a common way to send a survey, but phone calls or mailed surveys could be more effective depending on your core donor base.

To make the most of surveys as a donor relationship tool, you must read and implement feedback suggestions. Make a silent promise to donors to implement their feedback. It’ll show, and relationships will improve.

4. Handle Data With Care

Many donors value a culture of trust and transparency. They want to know how your organization is stewarding their donation and trust that you are handling their financial information with care. Do these things well, and your relationship will benefit.

There are a few data security assurances you can make for donors, including the following:

• Clearly explain how you use their data in your privacy policy. Note that privacy guidelines and rules can vary by state.
• Don’t collect – or store – any data you don’t need. Many organizations habitually ask for too much information; keep it simple.
• Use a strong security protocol or plugin for your website. Implement security best practices such as requiring strong passwords for logged-in users, limiting admin access to your website, and creating daily backups.
• Make sure you always get consent before opting donors into communication channels such as email or text messaging.

5. Understand Your Donors

Knowing your donors makes it easier to connect with them. You must understand what’s important to them to build a strong relationship.

Avoid making general assumptions about your donors. Instead, use your own resources. Here are ways to learn about your donors:

• Explore data from your donor database.
• Use feedback from surveys.
• Talk to them directly.

6. Optimize the Donor Cycle

Know where your donors are in the donor cycle to foster relationships in real-time. Donors change over time, and communicating with them at the right time can help nurture your relationship.

The five stages of the donor cycle include:

1. Identification
2. Qualification
3. Cultivation
4. Solicitation
5. Stewardship and Recognition

That last step is where you should focus efforts to build strong relationships. The donor knows your organization, and you have already begun to establish a relationship. Now, you can work on strengthening it.

To accomplish this, use your key methodologies, including thank yous, strong storytelling, accurate and transparent reporting, and donor recognition (public or private).

7. Provide Receipts

A donation receipt provides multiple purposes—it acknowledges the donation, provides a tax receipt, and says thank you!

Every donor will appreciate a receipt for one or all of these reasons. It’s a good plan to send receipts with each individual donation and an annual receipt showing cumulative giving for the calendar year. Providing receipts further builds trust, transparency, and relationships.

8. Build a Communication Plan

With so many communication touchpoints, you need a plan. A calendar or spreadsheet with a planned schedule of communications – from email newsletters to event announcements to thank yous – will keep you organized and ensure you don’t forget about donors.

Most communication plans include elements for interacting with donors across multiple channels—direct, phone, email, social media, and more. Dates in your plan may not be exact. Rather, they are timed to come many days or weeks after the initial donation.

Don’t forget to tailor your messaging and use personalization when possible! The more personal you make each message in the communication plan, the more likely it is to resonate with donors.

9. Invest in Email Marketing

With 48% of donors preferring email as a communication method, it has to be part of your overall communication and marketing plan. Investing in email marketing can build relationships because you can combine storytelling with a medium where donors want to get information.

Communicating through email takes time, and planning is needed to ensure your messages are delivered to inboxes and not the dreaded spam folder.

Start with an email newsletter to provide monthly or quarterly updates about your organization. Include elements of personalization – such as the donor’s name or last gift – to ensure that they feel the email is just for them.

Finally, send using email best practices. Don’t forget the unsubscribe link, clean your list periodically, and remove all no-reply addresses. These simple steps can greatly improve email delivery.

10. Increase Engagement With SMS

Text messaging, or SMS, is growing as a preferred method of communication for short, quick bits of information. While you don’t want to bombard donors with texts, the helpful message here or there can be quite welcome. (If you send texts to donors, remember they need to opt in, just like email.)

The other true benefit of SMS for nonprofits is allowing donors to use this method to contribute. Text-to-give enables donors to contribute via text message. It is a simple and accessible way to donate. It can also be a hyper-targeted method of fundraising that helps you generate donations (often more, smaller donations) more quickly. A solution like the Text-to-Give add-on from GiveWP can help with this.

You can incorporate text-to-give campaigns into social media, signage, or events or use it as a gamification technique to help groups donate with a little friendly competition.

Build Stronger Relationships for Your Nonprofit

Building stronger relationships with donors must be a part of your communication strategy. The donors who feel most connected to your organization are more likely to continue giving and engaging in other ways.

Many of the tactics you need to get started are part of GiveWP, making managing donors and donations easier than you may think. You can send automated receipts, create text-to-give campaigns, and use the robust donor database to keep track of everything and better understand donor preferences. It’s one of the best platforms for nonprofits, and it works with your existing WordPress website.