If you are a non for profit organisation a key term in your operations is “donor retention.” It is one of the hottest topics of discussion in this sector.  But what is donor retention? And why is it important?

What is Donor Retention?

Donor retention is the measurement of donors who continue to donate after their initial donation. According to  the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the average donor retention rate is 43.6%, which means more than half of most donors are choosing to give to another non-profit or not to give altogether.

Why is it important?

The ability of a non-profit to properly fund its causes and programs is directly related to the donor funds that are paid to it.

When it comes to fundraising, it is easy to think that the best way to raise more money is to simply acquire more new donors. In principle, this sounds like a good strategy, more donors more money, however in reality this can be difficult to achieve.  The competition in the fundraising arena is high and finding new donors is extremely hard.  

The key to continued success is knowing your donor retention rate and having a strong donor retention programme that builds strong relationships with donors who care about your mission and want to continually support and donate to it.

The Donor Retention Challenge…

Donor retention can be very challenging and there can be a number of reasonswhy a donor can stop donating, this can range from a lack of trust in the payment process, the cause or program is no longer aligned with their own philanthropic goals, a change in their financial position or being overwhelmed by so many donation requests.

As an organisation managing donor relationships can be a difficult and time-consuming process, especially when there are limited resources and the processes are very manual. Personalised digital forms and email/SMS campaign automation technology has become increasingly popular as a solution to address these challenges.  

How can you increase your donor retention with EzeScan?

1. By making giving easy.

Digital fundraising forms can reduce the hassles of donating by making the process simple, quick and easy for donors in the comfort of their own homes or anywhere on their mobile device. Digital forms remove the need for a paper process which relies on postal addresses being up to date, donors opening mail, donors filling out the paper work and donors posting back. 

EzeScan helps transform the process of printing letters and forms posted out by snail mail and introduces additional digital channels for a seamless online experience. EzeScan simplifies the donation process for donors through personalised web forms and email message delivery systems. Your organisation can create campaigns targeting specific donor sectors which can be sent quickly and easily to donors via email or SMS. With a simple click, donors can make their donation, update their details and send a message quickly and securely online via a PCI compliant payment gateway. 

2. By Personalising the Donor Experience

To your supporters, their name is music to their ears.   By personalising interactions with supporters you show that you appreciate your donors as people and not just for their money. When donors feel appreciated, they are more likely to give and support your organisation.

With EzeCampaigns you can create personalised forms that can be embedded in your organisation’s website and send the URL link to your donors via email or SMS. From a simple click through, this personalised web form allows your donors to update their contact details and make their donation quickly and easily.

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3. Increasing your visibility of your campaign success.

EzeCampaigns management console allows you to create and manage multiple campaigns, review your donor engagement and success of your campaigns with real time insights into the campaign activity i.e. the number of active or pending or completed forms. EzeCampaigns also make it easy to follow up on pending forms, rejected payments by simply sending an email with a personalised URL where they can update their details.

4. Free up your staff from manually processing forms

At EzeScan we understand that not all donors are happy to move to a digital platform. There are and always will be those who prefer to receive a physical document or hard copy form. We also understand that manually processing donation forms is time consuming and error prone. With EzeScan’s the Raisers Edge NXT Integration you can reduce the amount of time and cost to process donations. EzeScan delivers the fastest, most cost-effective solution to seamlessly and accurately capture both hard copy and electronic remittances into your donation scanning workflows.

 EzeScan can capture your selected donation data values from all your remittance slips using built-in OCR recognition technology and lookup capabilities. These values can be validated against your fundraising data base to ensure data integrity is maintained and errors are flagged. If required, an operator can effortlessly correct any errors on the fly.

Donors are people who choose to invest in your organisation, and, while their investments might come in monetary form, they deliver much more than that.  Donor retention is a commitment to fostering relationships that will last, and that are desirable to all the parties involved.