You may be like me and take a little time at the end of the year to reflect on the previous year and look forward to the next year. As I reflect on 2019 and prepare for 2020, I’m reviewing my goals and see a need to take things back to the basics. You likely have many goals you must accomplish this year to consider it a success, but I suggest you focus on these three crucial fundraising goals:
- Acquire more donors
- Engage your lapsed donor audience.
- Expand a specialty fundraising program such as monthly donors or mid-level donors.
Why these three goals? When you do these three things well, you’ll grow your fundraising revenue. You’ll also increase the frequency of gifts or average gift amount with a monthly or mid-level donor program.
1. Acquire More Donors
First, you need to acquire more donors. Many nonprofits are stuck in what I call the “donor attrition death spiral.” These nonprofits are losing donors at a higher rate than they’re acquiring them and don’t know it. When you don’t know how many donors you’re losing each year (and aren’t replacing them or reactivating lapsed donors), you could be on a path to a situation where you stop generating enough revenue and don’t have the funds to invest in fixing the problem.
In 2020, focus on activities that help you acquire more donors.
2. Engage Your Lapsed Donor Audience
Second, engage your lapsed donor audience. Lapsed donors are ones who haven’t given a gift in some time, usually 12+ months. These are people who have given before, so at one time they had an affinity for your cause or organization. Since they’ve given in the past, theoretically, they are “easier” to convert than a cold audience who has never given before. I’ve written about how to get lapsed donors to give again and how to reengage lapsed donors in email.
3. Expand a Specialty Fundraising Program Such as Monthly Donors or Mid-level Donors
In 2020, spend time investing in a new fundraising program (or revamped) such as monthly or mid-level donors. Monthly donors provide a recurring source of income to help even out your revenue throughout the year, increases your average total giving per donor, and provides value to donors. A mid-level donor program helps move mass donors into greater giving, increases average income per donor, and provides a pathway into your major donor program.
When you invest in these three important goals, you’ll increase your revenue to do more good work to help more people in 2020.
