A few weeks ago, we looked at some of the ways you might welcome new donors to the relationship. (See How to Welcome Your New Donors so They’re Happy to Stay)

You might call welcoming new donors the first step in a “donor journey.”

From our (fundraisers) point of view, it really does seem that donors – some of them, anyway – go on a sort of journey with us: It starts with their first-ever donation, develops over time as they give again, give more, get more involved, and culminates with a charitable bequest.

I don’t think that’s how it looks to the donors.

They are on a journey. Your organization is just one piece of it. Most likely a small piece.

Every donor’s journey is different, but many of them might go like this:

They go through life, most people want to make a positive difference, to put their values into action. So they do what they do, giving to various charities that they hope will do that. Some volunteer, participate in events, and do their best to do good deeds.

Then, usually some time in their 50s or 60s, they start to take the donating part of their “mission” more seriously. The charitable giving part of their life journey amps up. This is likely where your organization becomes part of their journey.

Some donors will give just once and never again. Some will stay with you and do more. A few will keep on giving and increasing their connection and involvement, all the way to that final bequest donation.

We tend to assume that our organization is a much bigger part of their life than we really are. For almost all donors, we are one of a dozen or more organizations across a variety of causes. This portfolio of giving changes over time, as their lives and experiences change. It might look chaotic to us, but it’s a coherent journey to them.

When we impose a journey on donors that looks helpful and sensible from our point of view, we miss the point of the journeys most donors are really taking. We over-complicate things. We make assumptions that don’t fit their reality.

We spend our time and money being presumptuous and irrelevant.

The best way to really be part of a donor’s journey is this: Do good fundraising.

I realize that may sound too simplistic to be satisfying, but it’s realistic. And it works.

Your part in each donor’s journey is the communications you have with them that ask, thank, and report back.

That’s it.

And the better you do at those things, the more important you will be to more donors.

Let me tell you about a test I was once involved with that made me see donor journeys this way:

It was a very large organization with a huge donor file. We built a tracking test, where we split the file into four groups, each getting a slightly different fundraising treatment for a full year. Results were not final until 12 months had passed. Here are the groups:

• Control: Got 18 appeals per year
• Test A: Got 15 appeals
• Test B: Got 12 appeals
• Test C: Got 12 appeals + 6 “stewardship” mailings

As you can probably tell, our primary goal was to understand the impact of frequency of asking. But Test C group was even more interesting: We wanted to see what would happen if people got the same amount of communication as the control – but with a healthy dose of non-asking. Extra reports and thank you messages meant to make them feel good about being involved.

The results: No real surprise on the question of frequency of appeals. The 18 appeals control raised the most money and had the highest retention of donors. The 15 appeals test raised less and kept fewer donors, and the 12 appeals test raised even less and had the lowest donor retention. (It’s worth noting that tests A and B had meaningful cost savings to the organization, but the overall positive impact was weaker nevertheless.)

I’ve seen similar tests much like this, and that’s the way it goes: Ask more, and you get more. Not just more revenue, but better retention.

The big surprise was what happened with Test C: Our hypothesis was that they would do better than Test B, and maybe also Test A. We thought the extra thanking and reporting would create a more satisfying journey. We expected to see higher donor retention. And maybe also more revenue per donor.

Nope.

Test C donors had the lowest revenue and the lowest retention rate of all.

That extra stewardship didn’t improve the journey. It made the journey worse – or at least less effective!

I’ve pondered that finding for a long time, and here’s what I believe about it: The reality about our communications with donors is that most donors aren’t paying all that much attention to what we’re saying.

Email open rates tell us that a majority of donors (often a large majority) don’t open our emails. It hardly matters what we have to say, they don’t see it at all. We don’t get open rates for direct mail, but it’s reasonable to assume that a lot of recipients don’t open our mail.

They aren’t on the journey we think they’re on.

Our organization isn’t the City on the Hill, the Glowing Goal of their Life Quest as we may envision it to be.

It’s a minor and not-very-important way-station. One among many.

The best way (maybe the only way) to maximize your part in your donors’ journeys is this:

Do effective fundraising.

Thank donors well.

Make sure they know their giving makes a difference.

Create attention-grabbing envelopes and subject lines. Have clear, compelling fundraising offers. Write powerful, readable, emotional copy. Treat them with love and respect. Pay attention to their behavior, and make it easy for them to communicate back to you.

That’s how you create a donor journey that works for donors and for your organization.

Grow your fundraising with just six powerful things. Each one is big, but together they will send your results skyrocketing! Find out how at our free workshop, The 6 Keys to Massive Nonprofit Fundraising Growth. A must-not-miss!

Related Blog Posts:

• How to Put Donor Love to Work in Your Fundraising
• 3 Things that Disconnect Donors from Your Cause … and 4 That Connect Them
• Donor-Centered Fundraising: What’s It About Really?