Many nonprofits utilize digital fundraising to create a catalytic event to drive future donor behavior. A social game or online quiz can be highly successful in terms of acquiring and upgrading donors during the campaign. (Admit it, you took that Chipotle “Friend or Faux” quiz too.)
But the real secret to drive future donor behavior is not just getting tons of email addresses from a successful social campaign. It’s having a premeditated follow-up strategy to create a long-term impact for your fundraising efforts. Without the proper follow-up strategy to translate the new interest and names into increased donor support, the impact of your digital fundraising campaign can only go so far.
Consider these four ways to create a long-term impact for your fundraising efforts.
HOW TO MAXIMIZE A DIGITAL FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN THROUGH STRATEGIC FOLLOW UP
1. The end of a campaign is the beginning of cultivation
The first few post-campaign interactions should serve as a bridge between the experience itself and ongoing cultivation. Send an immediate thank you to any donors who gave during the campaign. If you’re running a social gaming campaign, conducting a survey is a great and subtle way to show respect and appreciation while garnering feedback for future campaigns.
Read this blog post I wrote on 10 Tips to Writing a Better Donor Thank You letter.
2. Optimize behavioral data for your donor stewardship strategy
When viewed as an integrated part of the larger fundraising plan, digital campaigns can become an excellent way to gather behavioral data about your donors. How your organization decides to leverage that data is what makes the difference when it comes to moving them through the process. Rather than simply adding their names into a generic mail stream, implement a strategy to optimize the engagement data you collect from participants for ongoing stewardship.
According to this article written by NPO Info, you can start tracking the following basic information from your donors:
- Name
- Age
- Email address, phone number, physical address
- Employment Status
- Educational background
Click here for the full article on 6 types of data that your nonprofit should be tracking.
3. Leverage engagement to prioritize and identify opportunities to upgrade donors
Digital fundraising campaigns are an incredibly effective way to prioritize the donors in your file. Involvement indicates engagement. If a donor is extremely engaged in a campaign, you now have some behavioral indicators of interest to coincide with the giving data (recency, frequency, monetary value) and marketplace data (wealth and demographic data) you already have. Leveraging observational and engagement data acquired through your campaign is an incredible opportunity to augment mid and major donor reports and further prioritize your outreach efforts.
In order to truly leverage your digital campaign as a way to upgrade donors, you need to realize that turning that engagement into an opportunity will require different areas of your development team to work together as mid and major donors engage in the campaign. For example, your mid and major donor officers should be looking for participants with a high wealth score and higher income score. Even if a prospect hasn’t given a major gift, their interaction with the game can indicate a level of engagement you can leverage to upgrade their giving.
According to Kindful, A donor upgrade can come into play in most donor’s life cycles. In their blog post about “Donor Update,” they mention the following “The upgrade phase is the third phase of the donor lifecycle. To get to the upgrade phase, new contacts must be made, new donors must be acquired (Donor Acquisition), and those donors must be retained after a period of time (Donor Retention). Only then can the organization work to convince those donors to increase their giving amount above what they previously donated.”
Source: Kindful, Donor Lifecycle
I also invite you to read this blog from Bloomerang on Top 10 ways to upgrade nonprofit donors.
4. Develop a long-term strategy for engaging participants
While a digital fundraising campaign can provide a valuable opportunity to engage prospective donors in new ways, the real value is experienced in their long-term commitment to your organization. When it comes to the long-term benefits of the engagement created by digital campaigns, both the short-term and long-term benefits speak for themselves.
An effective digital fundraising campaign begins with creative ideas to connect with potential donors but the secret sauce is really strategic follow up.
To learn more about increasing donors and funding online, download our case study on How Variety BC raised $1M in 15 months using email.
Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by Rebecca Gregory Segovia who is the Executive Vice President, Client Strategy at Pursuant.
With over two decades of leadership experience, Rebecca Gregory Segovia has a strong vision and passion to help nonprofits reach donors and raise dollars to further their mission. Her specialties include integrated marketing, direct response fundraising, and leveraging technology to achieve results.
Have you tried implementing a digital fundraising campaign to reach your donors? See how Variety BC took their digital fundraising to the next level using email.
