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Advanced Donor Stewardship: How to Keep Your Donors Giving Year after Year

by Joe Garecht Advanced donor stewardship Stewardship is one of the most important components of the fundraising process.  Prospecting, cultivation, and asking are certainly important… but in my experience, building a strong donor stewardship system should be your top priority if you want to strengthen your development program. For many fundraisers, this comes as a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donors Tagged With: donor care, donor retention, donor stewardship 2 Comments

8 things you should try next year

8 things you should try next year – if you’re not already doing them. It’s not too early to start planning. Per Vital Signs, a study by Blackbaud, there are more nonprofit organizations and fewer donors giving. Somehow, I doubt that surprises you. (The Agitator gives you a run-down of some key findings here.) But […]

Filed Under: Blog, Planning Tagged With: annual giving, donor communications, donor retention 8 Comments

12 ways you can thank your donors

Saying thank you is a critical part of fundraising. Sometimes, we can focus most attention on getting a gift. But great thanks are key to getting the next gift. Here are 12 ideas of how to thank your donors. 1. A prompt, personal, sincere thank you letter This is the least you should do, of […]

Filed Under: Blog, Thanks Tagged With: donor love, donor retention, thank you 5 Comments

Love your donors? Why you need to care about keeping them

Love your donors? Why you need to care about keeping them Recently, Tom Belford at The Agitator shared information from the latest Fundraising Effectiveness Project Survey Report. Two statements jumped out at me. Perhaps most striking is the performance difference in retention between the top 20% of organizations, who lost on average 14.1% of their new […]

Filed Under: Annual Giving, Blog Tagged With: donor focus, donor retention 3 Comments

Why it’s smart to love your donors for who they are

Why it’s smart to love your donors for who they are Identity matters. So are we letting a few verbs stand in the way of better solicitations? I read an article in the New York Times about the U.S.’s struggles with low voter turnout. One point made was that an experiment showed identity mattered more […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: donor appeals, donor retention, neuropsychology 1 Comment

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