You may know that we at Moceanic really love a certain type of donor survey we call the Supporter Connection Survey.

• They are the best-known generator of planned giving leads.
• They can effectively uncover “hidden” mid-value or even major donors from among your supporters.
• They help you find monthly donors.
• They give you meaningful insight into the motivations and potential future giving of those donors who complete the survey.
• There’s even evidence that just fielding the survey at all helps improve donor retention and revenue.

But there’s another thing this survey can do: It can form a foundation for a significant chunk of your yearly fundraising activities … and improve your results while you save time.

To build your survey-supported plan, start with the end in mind. That’s how you set up the timing.

So let’s start at the end and work backward:

Step 3: The Big Campaign

That final step of a survey-driven plan is your strongest fundraising campaign of the year. Year-end, Holiday, Tax, whatever is a proven winner for you. This plan will boost that campaign. You may be tempted to use the leverage to “rescue” a weak campaign. Don’t. That’s not a good use of the added energy.

This campaign can be a single mailing, but better yet can be two or even three mailings, all with the same call-to-action. These are sometimes called Wave 1, Wave 2, Wave 3. Put these campaigns two to three weeks apart.

Whatever this campaign is about, in this plan it now has a match. If it already has a match, make it a bigger match – donors’ gifts are tripled, not doubled. Bigger match multipliers sometimes (though not always) drive higher response.

Step 2: Getting the match

About six weeks before step 3 More than that is okay; less might be a problem!

Here’s the fun part, where you firm up matching funds from your own current donors.

You go to your midvalue and near-midvalue donors (roughly your top 20% of donors by annual cumulative giving) and ask them to make a special donation (see Step 3).

This is largely a telephone campaign, but it may also include a high-end direct mail piece if you have time for that in the schedule. The offer: By helping create a matching fund, you lead and inspire others to give more for our major campaign. We’ve seen that matching funds increase giving by around 30%. (Use a figure that you can stand behind!)

Step 1: The Survey

About four to six weeks before step 2.

This is where it gets fun.

One of the key questions in the Supporter Connection Survey is something like this: We are planning a major campaign to [do something specific and exciting – the offer of the big campaign in Step 3]. We are looking for friends who can make a special donation to create a Matching Fund to encourage our donors to give to make this possible. Would you be interested in boosting the campaign by making a donation of $1,000?

That amount should be significantly higher than the donor has ever given before – four to ten times higher. The purpose is to uncover donors with higher giving capacity than they have shown before. And it works: You’ll likely get a handful of midvalue (or even major) donors come out of the woodwork for this appetizing challenge.

These people will be highly responsive to the offer in Step 2, because you’ll be able to say, In our survey that you recently answered, you let us know that you might be interested in making a special donation to create a Matching Fund to encourage our donors to give to make this possible. Would you be interested in boosting the campaign by making a donation of $1,000?

It works remarkably well when you remind them what they told you before in the survey.

But note: We’ve found this step works so well, there’s no reason to limit yourself to people who answered that question. That’s why we recommend your top 20% for this part of the campaign.

That big-donation question is just one of the valuable pieces of information you’ll get from the survey. There are also questions about:

• Bequest/legacy giving. The revenue potential of this question alone is HUGE. Bigger than the big-gift question. But the money will take five to twenty years to come in.
• You can also include a question about joining your monthly giving program. Not as many takers to this one, but it’s usually worth including.
• There are also questions about the donor’s motivations and values for donating to you. This is information you can say back to them in future campaigns (like the big one in Step 3) to remind them why they give.

So to put these in chronological order:

• Step 1: The Survey
• Step 2: Getting the match
• Step 3: The Big Campaign

The whole thing takes a significant portion of a year. Clearly, you still need to do other fundraising activities, but this multipart, multimedia campaign is a powerful framework for a better year!

Want to know more about the Supporter Connection Survey? Inside our Supporter Connection Survey course, you’ll learn exactly how to build and deploy this game-changing approach, backed by expert guidance and time-saving tools.

If you’d like a sneak peek download our free ebook: 5 Easy Steps to Your Game-Changing Donor Survey and see what’s possible.

Not a Moceanic member yet? Join the waitlist to access the survey course, plus an entire library of templates, checklists, and expert-led tools — all designed to help you save time, reduce stress, and raise more money.

Please share your experience by leaving your reply below. We’d love to learn from your experience.

Related Blog Posts:

• How the Supporter Connection Survey Transformed This Fundraiser Forever
• This Breakthrough in Donor Surveys Can Unlock a Treasure Trove of Bequests
• 4 Types of Surveys for Fundraisers – 3 Are Good, One is GREAT