Creating Donor Loyalty

The most effective and efficient way to grow your non-profit base of support is to keep your current donors. It is estimated that it costs 10 times more to get new donors than to keep existing donors. I encourage you to think about what you are doing to inspire donor loyalty.

Niels Teunis discusses this in a recent blog post about what the Obama campaign can teach non-profit organizations. His points on maintaining donor loyalty are universal and in my experience are what makes the difference between an average organization and an exceptional organization.

From Niels' blog:

How to maintain donor loyalty?

The answer is still out there, but one thing I am pretty sure of.

We should stop looking at donors as donors. Instead, focus on building a movement and make people part of it. Let them contribute in many ways, not just by giving money, and give them a voice in the process. Yes, that is a HUGE lesson from the Obama campaign, and one that we ignore at our peril.

Incidentally, remember that book Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits? One of six ways that nonprofits are successful is by inspiring evangelists. Don’t just use supporters as cheap volunteer workers and pocket books. Make them part of a movement, your movement.

Of course, you better have a very good story, a story that tells how you are going to change the world and how I can be part of that movement, how I need to be part of that movement.

And one last thing, for today. The Obama campaign used their website to listen to people, to learn what was important to them.

What can you do to stop looking at your donors as only donors and incorporate them in building a movement?