Donor acquisition, retention, and upgrades are key drivers of a successful fundraising program. Improving these positively impacts your organization’s overall fundraising performance. In this presentation, Jeffrey Haguewood, Co-Founder of Sidekick Solutions, shares his back-to-basics approach to acquiring, retaining, and upgrading donors and how you can implement 3 simple principles to help your organization raise more funds for its cause.

1. Back to Basics: 3 Principles to Acquire,
Retain, and Upgrade Your Donors
Host: Blackbaud
Presenter: Jeffrey Haguewood, Co-Founder Sidekick Solutions

2. Meet the Presenter
“Real-Life” Jeff
“Sidekick” Jeff
Jeffrey Haguewood
Co-Founder & Sidekick
Sidekick Solutions
@jeffhaguewood
jeff@sidekicksolutionsllc.com
www.sidekicksolutionsllc.com

3. Back to Basics
=
Focus on Core Principles

4. Back to Basics
Core Principles
Sustainable
Performance
Substantial
Growth

5. Donors are Customers

6. Donors are Customers
Exchange of value for value
Acquisition
Retention
Upgrades

7. Donors are Customers
Ø Show donors the value of your mission
through the impact of your programs.
Ø Build relationships with donors and
provide an exceptional donor
experience.
Ø Focus your message and your
relationship on the donor.

8. Donors are Customers (Simplified)
1. Offer a valuable
product
2. Provide great
service
3. Build a donor-
focused approach
3 Core
Principles

9. Webinar Format
What?
Why?
How?

10. Offer a valuable product

11. Offer a valuable product – What?
“Product”
Impact of
Mission

12. Offer a valuable product – Why?
71% of donors who regularly or
sometimes give to new causes or
nonprofits are actively seeking
information about that cause or nonprofit.
As many as 75% of donors use
information about a nonprofit’s impact in
their giving decisions.
Source: Informed Giving: Information Donors Want and How Nonprofit Can Provide It. Root Cause. 2013.

13. Offer a valuable product – Why?
More than 60% of respondents liked
it most when nonprofits shared
stories about successful projects or
people they help.
Source: The 2013 Millennial Impact Report. Achieve. The Case Foundation. 2013.

14. Offer a valuable product – Why?
46% percent of donors stop giving
to a charity for reasons related to
lack of meaningful information.
Source: Burk, Penelope. Donor-Centered Fundraising. 2003.

15. Offer a valuable product – Why?
36.2% of donors cited “I feel that
other causes are more deserving” as
the reason for not continuing their
support.
Source: Sargent, Adrian. Managing Donor Defection. 2001.

16. Offer a valuable product – Why?
Would you rather give to an organization
that is effective at achieving their mission
or an organization that is ineffective?
Show donors you are effective
in your mission!

17. Offer a valuable product – How?
What is our product?
Are we making an impact?

18. Offer a valuable product – How?
It’s no longer good enough
to make the case we’re
addressing real needs. We
need to prove that we’re
making a real difference.
- Mario Morino
Source: Mario Morino. Leap of Reason. A Venture Philanthropy Partners Publication. 2011

19. Offer a valuable product – How?
Are we making an impact?
1. How do we define our impact?
2. How do we know if we are making an impact?
3. How do we communicate our impact to others?
4. How do we evaluate our impact?
5. How can we increase our impact?

20. Offer a valuable product – How?
Productize Your Fundraising

21. Offer a valuable product – How?
Example #1: Generic Giving Levels
How much would you like to donate?
$5
$10
Other
$50 $100 $250

22. Offer a valuable product – How?
Example #2: Productized Giving
How would you like to make an impact?
$5
$1,000
Plant a tree
Keep a youth off the street
$10
One meal for a Senior
$350
One day of camp for cancer patient

23. Offer a valuable product – How?
Productize Your Fundraising
Tangible
Comparable
Specific
Quantifiable
Generic or General

24. Offer a valuable product – How?
Productize Your Fundraising
Step 1: Define your results
Step 2: Attach a value to your results
Step 3: Position your “mission products”

25. Questions?

26. Provide great service

27. Provide great service – What?
“Service”
Build
Loyalty

28. Provide great service – Why?
53% of donors leave due to a
charity’s lack of communication.
Source: Bloomerang “Nonprofit Donor Loyalty Primer” Infographic via Sargent, Adrian. Managing Donor Defection. 2001.

29. Provide great service – Why?
Only 10% of donors were very
satisfied with the service quality of the
organizations they supported, but
donors who were very satisfied with
service quality were 2x more likely to
make a further donation than those
who were merely satisfied.
Source: Sargent, Adrian. Managing Donor Defection. 2001.

30. Provide great service – Why?
Donors staying with the organization
for longer periods (more than one
gift) cite issues of service quality,
particularly communication, as their
primary reason for lapse.
Source: Sargent, Adrian. Managing Donor Defection. 2001.

31. Provide great service – Why?
70% of donors would increase their
philanthropy if they received what
they needed from charities.
Source: Burk, Penelope. Donor-Centered Fundraising. 2003.

32. Provide great service – Why?
Almost one in three donors
said they are less likely to give
again to organizations that are
late in acknowledging gifts.
Source: The Burk Donor Survey. Cygnus Applied Research, Inc. 2013.

33. Provide great service – Why?
Total nonprofit donor retention is
39%, new donor retention is
22.9%, and repeat donor retention
is 60.8%. It is more costly to
acquire new donors than to retain
existing donors, yet attrition is
substantially high.
Source: 2013 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report. Association of Fundraising Professionals. The Urban Institute. 2013.

34. Offer a valuable product – Why?
Would you rather have a relationship with an
organization that is responsive, attentive, and
courteous or a relationship that is unresponsive,
inattentive, and ungrateful?
Serve donors as customers of
your mission!

35. Provide great service – How?
Be Responsive
Be Attentive
Be Positive

36. Provide great service – How?
The Golden Rule
“Treat donors the way you would
like to be treated!”

37. Questions?

38. Build a donor-focused
approach

39. Build a donor-focused approach – What?
“DonorFocused”
About the
Donor

40. Build a donor-focused approach – Why?
Nearly 60% of Generation Y, 50%
of Generation X, 37% of Boomers,
and 33% of Matures agree that
the ability to directly see the
impact of their donation would
have a significant bearing on their
decision to give.
Source: The Next Generation of American Giving. Blackbaud. 2013.

41. Build a donor-focused approach – Why?
75% of donors list “information
on results achieved with their
gifts” as their top requirement to
motivation for future giving.
Source: The Burk Donor Survey. Cygnus Applied Research, Inc. 2013.

42. Build a donor-focused approach – Why?
Response and click-through rates
in email campaigns declined by
16% and 18.7% respectively from
2012 to 2013. Declining response
rates illustrate a saturated channel
with non-differentiated messaging
and campaigns.
Source: Online Marketing Benchmark Study for Nonprofits. Blackbaud. 2013.

43. Build a donor-focused approach – Why?
93% of donors would give a
second gift to the same
organization if its fundraising
were donor-centered.
Source: Burk, Penelope. Donor-Centered Fundraising. 2003.

44. Build a donor-focused approach – Why?
69% of individual donors say none of
the nonprofits they support call them
without asking for another gift. 61% of
donors say they’ve received a
request for a second gift with their
thank you and this has offended 81%
of those donors.
Source: [2011 FEP Donor Retention Supplement. Association of Fundraising Professionals. The Urban Institute. 2011.
“Quotes from Penelope Burk in “Donor-Centered Fundraising” in Ken Burnett’s book “Relationship Fundraising.”]

45. Build a donor-focused approach – Why?
Would you rather be the focus of the
giving process or be a secondary
component to the giving process?
Focus on donors’ needs, not
your own!

46. Build a donor-focused approach – How?
Create a value statement
for donors
“You” Statements

47. Build a donor-focused approach – How?
Donors are people not
transactions

48. Build a donor-focused approach – How?
Provide a personalized,
customized, and
individualized
experience

49. Build a donor-focused approach – How?
10 Ways to Segment Donors
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Communication
frequency
Communication
method
Types of
communication
Program interests
Generation
demographic
Affiliation
7.
Entity type
8.
Annual giving level
9.
Year-over-year giving
status
10. Preferred giving
channel
6.

50. Questions?

51. What’s Next?
Manage performance to
desired outcomes

52. Performance Management Process
Set Goals
&
Define
Strategies
Improve
Measure
&
Analyze

53. Set Goals and Define Strategies
Set Goals
&
Define
Strategies
Improve
Measure
&
Analyze
Set Goals
Benchmark
Define Strategies
How-to achieve goal?

54. Measure and Analyze Data
Measure
Improve
Set Goals
&
Define
Strategies
Select Metrics
“Show” w/Evidence
Analyze
Measure
&
Analyze
Evaluate & Review
Requires Discipline

55. Continuously Improve Performance
Improve
Set Goals
&
Define
Strategies
Improve
What did we learn?
Should we change?
Measure
&
Analyze
What works & what
doesn’t work?

56. Back to Basics Blueprint
Step 1: Apply Three Principles
1. Offer a valuable product
2. Provide great service
3. Build a donor-focused approach
Step 2: Manage Fundraising Performance
1. Set Goals and Define Strategies
2. Measure and Analyze Data
3. Continuously Improve Performance

57. Back to Basics Blueprint
Step 1: Apply Three Principles
Step 2: Manage Fundraising Performance
Acquisition
Retention
Upgrades

58. Questions?

59. Contact the Presenter
“Real-Life” Jeff
“Sidekick” Jeff
Jeffrey Haguewood
Co-Founder & Sidekick
Sidekick Solutions
@jeffhaguewood
jeff@sidekicksolutionsllc.com
www.sidekicksolutionsllc.com