This document provides an overview of principles for successful donor retention and engagement. It discusses analyzing donor data to better understand retention rates and identify loyal donor segments. Key reports and RFM analysis are used to develop donor personas and segmentation strategies. Communication strategies should be tailored to different donor segments using various channels at optimal frequencies. Goals and responsibilities should be set and tracked. Centralized donor relationship management technology integrates these efforts and tracks activities, communications and donations over time. Implementing thoughtful, prompt and personalized donor engagement can improve retention rates.

1. Principles of Fundraising Success:
Unleash the Secrets to Donor
Retention and Engagement
An Educational Webinar

2. Introduction
Alyssa Rodriguez
Resource Development Operations
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
Ryan Erfer
National Account Manager for Boys & Girls Clubs
Arreva
Kelly Yaker
Digital Marketing Manager
Arreva

3. Donor Retention: Why it Matters
• More cost effective to retain donors versus acquiring new ones.
• A 1% improvement in donor retention can result in thousands of
dollars of additional contributions.
• Surveys show that the main reason donors don’t give again comes
down to quality of communication and relationships.
• The recapture rate for donors is an astonishing 5%.

4. Donor Retention: Why it Matters
Perception versus reality:
The average retention rate in the industry is around 45%, yet when
leaders at nonprofits were recently surveyed for a report, over half of
the respondents estimated that their donor retention rates were over
50% (22% believed them to be between 76-100%).

5. Overview
1. Analysis
2. Strategy
3. Engagement
4. Technology

6. Analysis
• Get a clearer picture of perception
versus reality.
• Discover who your loyal donors are.
• Find new opportunities.

7. Analysis: Key Reports
Required
• LYBUNT (Last Year But Unfortunately Not This)
• Donor Retention & Lapsed Donors
• Donor Levels & Trends
• New vs. Existing Donor Comparison
• Three-Year Total Giving Comparison
Optional to identify opportunities for engagement
and retention
• Tribute Gifts/Donors
• Matching Gifts/Donors
• Recurring Gifts/Donors
• Pledge and Solicitor Reports

8. Analysis: RFM
• Recency (R): When was the last time
someone took an action?
• Frequency (F): How often they take
the action?
• Monetary Value (M): What are the
actions worth?

9. Analysis: RFM
How does this apply to nonprofit fundraising?
• 70% of donors will not make a second gift.
• “Heroically” spending money to get them
back drains your resources from mission.
• You must be as efficient as you can in raising
money to serve your mission.

10. Analysis: Donor Personas
• Use data gathered from reports and RFM analysis to
spot trends in giving and demographics.
• From trends, develop personas to define different
donor segments.

11. Analysis: Donor Personas
Personas are created through precise segmentation of customer (or in the case of nonprofits,
constituent) data into designated persona groups.
Data used to create story: volunteer hours, household size, annual income, donation history
Volunteer Veronica
Veronica feels passionately about her cause and wants to volunteer
her time with a nonprofit associated with it. She will volunteer 10-15
hours of her time a week on the weekends, because she is also a
working mother and her weeknights are pretty busy. Due to her
schedule, it is easiest to communicate with Veronica by text message
or email. In addition to volunteering regularly, Veronica will typically
donate between $1,000-$3,000 each year.

12. Strategy
• Turn your analysis into action.
• Create smart, structured outreach.
• Develop clear, understandable goals.

13. Strategy: Segmentation
• Using personas, develop segmentation in your
donor database using tags or building lists.
• Develop unique outreach and retention
strategies for each segment.

14. Strategy: Segmentation
Persona
A
Retargeted
Social
Media
Year-End
Thank You
Card
Donor
Appreciation
Event
Monthly
Email
Newsletter
Persona
B
Quarterly
Campaign
Updates
Hand-
Written
Year-End
Thank You
Note
Donor
Appreciation
Event-Guest
of Honor
Monthly
Email
Newsletter
Guided
Tour of
Facilities
Lunch with the
Executive
Director

15. Strategy: Roles & Responsibilities
• Create a roadmap – follow it!
• Create achievable goals, and specific actions on how to
reach them.
• Decide who will be responsible for implementing the
different aspects of your donor retention strategy.
• Make sure these efforts don’t slip through the cracks.

16. Strategy: Setting Goals
Suggested Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs):
• Increased recurring donor
rate
• Increased frequency of
donors
• Decrease in lapsed
donors
• Increased monthly giving
donors

17. Communication
• Where intention meets action.
• Numerous forms and combinations.

18. Communication : Types
Email Social Media Website Written
Monthly Newsletter Standard Social Posts Educational Blog Posts Thank You Notes
Quarterly Campaign
Updates
Retargeted Facebook Ads Campaign Updates Year End Appeals
Online Donation
Acknowledgements
Facebook Messenger Active Fundraisers
Campaign Announcements Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
Pages
Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers Event & Volunteer
Registration

19. Communication: Frequency
Two methods for determining the right frequency for
your audiences.
• Moderate: Start out slowly and increase the frequency,
measuring the engagement after each email.
• Generous: Begin with an aggressive email campaign and scale
back if you see a decrease in responsiveness over time.

20. Communication: Face-to-Face Fundraising
• Decide what donor levels warrant face-to-face
meetings.
• Choose the type of meetings that you believe
will result in the best retention:
• Facility tours
• Luncheon
• Dinner
• Donors = Friends/Allies (treat them as such)

21. Technology
• Ties it all together.
• Becomes the hub for donor
retention activities, reporting,
and strategy.

22. Technology: Task Management
• Use tasks to keep track of follow-ups.
• Manage relationships in the database.
• Assign tasks for others to engage
donors.
• Keep efforts organized around donors,
volunteers, events, grants, and more by
using tasks!

23. Technology: Centralized Software
• Use software as a hub for all donor
relations.
• Track communications, donations, and
activities of households and/or donors.
• Create segmentation within software.

24. Things to Think About
• Make their first giving experience memorable
• Thoughtful and prompt responses (48 hours)
• Create a donor advisory group
• Engage donors with volunteer opportunities based on
their specific interests, skills and more
• Share success stories frequently
• “Hello Calls”

25. Q&A
About Arreva
Arreva provides industry-leading,
SaaS-based, fully integrated Online
Fundraising and Donor Relationship
Management software solutions that
provide nonprofits with a
transformative ecosystem helping
them focus on their mission.
Thousands of organizations trust
Arreva because of our industry-
leading software, knowledgeable
teams, and dedication to customer
success.
Contact
Ryan Erfer
Email: ryan.erfer@arreva.com
Phone: (954) 839-9714