How To Provide A 5-Star Major Donor Experience
Providing a 5-star major donor experience is important to the success of your nonprofit.
If hard work and belief in a worthy cause were enough, then all nonprofits would easily be successful.
The reality is that furthering a cause takes money, and that money comes from donors.
While the need for donor monies is not news to anyone, what cannot be stressed enough is the importance of providing a 5-star experience for major donors.
What Are Major Donors?
Major donors are the people who give the most money to your nonprofit.
If you are running a smaller nonprofit, your major donors may be those who donate several thousand dollars a year. A large nonprofit might consider an annual gift of $100,00 to qualify as a major donor.
Your nonprofit will determine what gift level is considered a major donation.
While the percentages fluctuate over the years, it is safe to say that as far as a nonprofit’s donations go, 80% of gifts come from 20% of donors.
Others feel that the ratio might even be 90/10.
Whichever percentage is closer, it is still evident that major donors make a major contribution to a nonprofit’s success.
It Is More Expensive To Attract Than Retain
Your nonprofit should have an idea of its donor retention rate.
Attracting new donors takes certain steps to achieve. You need to raise awareness of your cause and build trust in your nonprofit. This takes time and money to do.
The cost of marketing your nonprofit can take up 5 - 15% of your budget.
It can also be difficult to know how to engage new donors.
It has been proven over time that it is more expensive to attract new donors than it is to retain your regular donors.
Why Are Major Donors Important?
The positive impact that major donors have on a nonprofit cannot be overstated.
Your major donors are major cheerleaders for your cause. They are mission-driven and want to feel that they are part of making a change for the good.
Major donors will give to more than one project that your nonprofit has, as they can see the bigger picture, rather than having a niche interest.
Major donors can also have major networks of colleagues, friends, and family. This is where the cheerleading comes in. Their word carries weight with those in their network, and an endorsement from your major donor can be a huge benefit for you, as they have acted as your marketing campaign.
Major donors will also share insights with you that will help to strengthen your nonprofit. Feedback is integral to moving forward and connecting with those who can advance your cause.
Listening to the insights from those who want to support your nonprofit is a win-win situation.
Have A Major Donor Strategy
Our lives are made up of relationships, and we all know how essential those connections are to us.
“How your nonprofit connects with major donors is going to directly affect how much they donate.”
We all have that friend or relative for whom we would drop everything and go lend a helping hand. We also have those who we hear from once in a blue moon, and while we like them, we might not go out of our way for them.
The same holds true for the relationship a nonprofit has with its major donors.
How your nonprofit connects with major donors is going to directly affect how much they donate regardless of whether or not they deem your cause a worthy one.
Create a major donor strategy template that will assist your nonprofit, and use it like a roadmap.
Connecting with major donors and creating a relationship with them should be an essential part of your nonprofit’s retention strategy.
Having a strategy to engage major donors and provide a 5-star donor experience for them should be part of your nonprofit’s game plan. Do not overlook this vital step in creating a relationship and forming a connection with your major donors.
You want those donors to be the ones who will heed the call like they would for a close friend, and not consider your nonprofit the acquaintance that they only hear from when money is wanted.
How To Provide a 5-Star Major Donor Experience
We live in a digital age, and thank goodness for it!
The digital age has made life much better for nonprofits with intuitive software tools like FundEasy’s Attendance, Peer-to-Peer, and Crowdfunding. These software tools help nonprofits streamline tedious tasks in an effective and efficient manner.
These tools also free up time that allows you to establish and strengthen relationships with your major donors, raise more money and change more lives.
While we would not want to turn the clock backward on the digital age, it is still a quality donor experience that will drive and motivate major donors to be part of the success of your nonprofit.
Even In The Digital Age, Real-Time Conversation Is King
Your strategy for providing a 5-star donor experience for your major donors has to include personal communication.
Emails, social media, blog posts, and chatbots are all valid forms of communicating. The most valuable form of communication, however, is one-on-one.
Like most donors, major donors give to people, not to a brand or vague idea. Personally knowing your major donors will give you insight into what motivates them to give and to tap into that motivation.
Pick Up The Phone Or Pop In For A Visit
A phone call or a brief in-person meeting gives your nonprofit the opportunity to create a solid, meaningful relationship with donors. The valuable relationships in your own life are those in which you have spent quality time, even briefly, with one another.
It doesn’t all need to fall on your shoulders. Encourage your nonprofit’s leadership - including your board of directors - to engage with donors.
Yes, we are all short on time and our days are packed. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of connecting with your major donors one-on-one. They are the fuel that keeps the nonprofit engine running.
Personalize Your Major Donors’ Experience
As your nonprofit already knows, there are a lot of worthy causes out there.
Besides feeling good about making a difference, your major donors are looking for a positive donor experience with their nonprofit of choice. If that experience is absent, they will go elsewhere.
When you are touching base with your major donor, make the call/visit about them without an “ask.” Be upfront that you are interested in making the connection because of the shared desire to support the cause. And establishing a relationship means “learning” the other person.
Learn about what milestones have been most meaningful in your donor's life. Knowing their birthday’s are a given, but find out why they are passionate about your cause. Find out what life experience drew them to support your nonprofit and what keeps that cause important to them. Learn their why.
Just as importantly, when establishing a relationship, find out what your major donor’s preferences are for how they like you to communicate and how often.
Respect those preferences and recording important dates regarding your donor on your calendar so that they are not missed will enhance your donor’s experience.
Make Sure You Are Giving Good “Customer” Service
“The single largest reason donors do not continue to support a nonprofit is poor “customer” service. ”
Adrian Sargenat, one of the most respected academics in philanthropy, wrote an article called: Donor Retention: What Do We Know & What Can We Do about It?.
He states that the single largest reason donors did not continue to support a nonprofit was poor “customer” service.
Donors are your nonprofit’s customers.
We know that attracting new donors is costly and time-consuming. Attracting major donors is even more so.
Giving your major donors a 5-star experience helps to keep them engaged with your nonprofit.
Remember that just because you have not gotten complaints doesn’t mean that your major donors are happy. There are two areas in particular where donors can be unhappy with their “customer” service.
One is your nonprofit’s perceived lack of gratitude and the second is because they don’t have a good idea of what their donation accomplished.
If you are regularly keeping in touch and asking for feedback from your major donors, your chances of giving them poor “customer” service greatly diminishes.
Recognize Your Major Donors Both Publicly And Personally
No one likes to feel taken advantage of, even if that is not truly the case.
People work hard for their money and to establish themselves to the point that they are able to give to others less fortunate.
Your major donors want to know that their support is valued and appreciated; this recognition goes a long way to establishing a 5-star donor experience.
Recognize their support both personally and publicly. When you thank them personally, you can express your gratitude and assure them that their contribution was not taken lightly. When you recognize your major donors publicly, it tells others that your nonprofit has your major donor’s “seal of approval” and that is a valuable testament.
Final Thoughts
Maybe your nonprofit has some donors, major or otherwise, that have not participated for a while. This article tells you how to reengage lapsed donors. The link between donor and nonprofit is already there, and re-establishing the connection is worth the time and effort.
We know that our major donors fuel the nonprofit engine.
We also know that it is more cost-effective to retain current donors than it is to recruit new ones.
Your nonprofit lives its cause every day and is thoroughly versed in its positive impact and importance to others.
Giving your major donors a 5-star donor experience enables you to continue to make that positive difference in the world.
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Crystal Hoag
This article was inspired by our customers and written to encourage your fundraising efforts. Although we work with nonprofits and events daily, our team members are not Event Consultants. We encourage you to consult with your event consultant, executive team, and/or affiliate organization before making any major changes to your events.
