As a nonprofit, continuing to grow your donor base is quite possibly your first and last concern. There’s no such thing as having too many donors, and the task of retaining established ones come with a separate set of challenges. There are all kinds of ways to reach new donors, but do you really know what your current donor base looks like? Are you targeting the right donors at the right time? If you’re not sure how to answer, you may want to read on. Or, if you’re just curious, you may continue to read on as well.
Two South Florida food banks were getting ready to conduct their annual acquisition mailings in October to solicit potential donors for the Thanksgiving holiday. The goal was to get more funds for their “set an extra place at the table this year with your donation” campaign, which feeds the hungry in multiple counties in their region. Food banks depend on these donations in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving in order to provide thousands of meals for people in their communities throughout the year.
Originally, one of the food banks wanted to mail 100,000 pieces to the nearest zip codes in order to build its donor base and raise money. With the mail piece being their biggest push of the year to bring in additional funds, it was suggested that the food bank utilized Snapshot. Available through AlumniFinder, Snapshot is a descriptive profile that uses intelligence within your database to better target prospective donors.
Based on the demographic profile provided, AccuData produced a targeted list of approximately 70,000 look-alike prospects who were more likely to respond to the food bank’s donation plea. One South Florida food bank saw 400 new donors within the first week of the mailing and more than 800 donors responded by the time Thanksgiving neared. By using the Snapshot service, the food banks were able to focus their campaign efforts to the right targets at the right time and improve their response rate.
Simply put—knowing more about your donor base gives you the advantage of discovering who your best prospective donors are and their propensity to give. If you’re looking to profile and better understand your donors, Snapshot provides a quick, easy-to-understand report with details on demographic attributes that portray your best donors. Read the complete Case Study, or call your AlumniFinder representative for more ways to increase your response rate and add more donors.
