The 4 Major Benefits of Your Nonprofit Donor Database
Nonprofit organizations like yours are always looking for best practices to improve fundraising. After all, funding is the backbone of how you’re able to make a significant impact for your constituents. It’s impossible to host events, buy supplies, and do what you need to fulfill your mission without it. So, what’s the best way to take your fundraising a step further?
Donor databases are the cornerstone of any smart fundraising strategy. Here at GivingMail we specialize in nonprofit fundraising. We equip organizations like yours with suggestions for using your donor database to your advantage, so we can help them succeed in making a difference in their communities!
We’ll help your team learn how your nonprofit donor database can work for you. With this tool, your marketing and fundraising efforts will target the right people at the right time, on the right platforms. It’s time to increase your marketing ROI and reach potential and recurring donors. Specifically, we’ll discuss how leveraging your donor database can help you:
Increase your major gift revenue with prospect research
Develop long-lasting donor relationships
Improve your nonprofit outreach efforts
Provide valuable nonprofit analytics and insights
Let’s get started with the essential benefits your donor database can provide your nonprofit!
1. Increase your major gift revenue with prospect research
In the early steps of the fundraising process, your team will likely be conducting prospect research. To grow your donor base, it’s an essential process to undergo. In essence, this research is simply identifying worthwhile donor relationships that your organization should pursue. You can use it to research multiple types of potential supporters, but in this case, you’re looking to increase your major gift revenue. Doing so can be challenging, but that’s where your donor database comes in handy.
Keeping an active and accurate donor database is an effective data management strategy, and can be helpful when conducting prospect research.
Let’s create a hypothetical situation to better understand how it works for you. Imagine you’re a school looking to build a gym. After your team engages in prospect research, you find someone who had donated large gifts to education-related projects in the past. After contacting them, you can input additional data points based on your conversation. Then, store this information in your database for future personalized outreach, which can help you make more thoughtful, compelling asks for even larger gift amounts.
After you’ve done your research on new potential supporters, be sure to choose people to reach out to for major gifts based on your prospect research information. Your stored data can look like this:
Communication with your organization
Past major contributions
Company affiliations
Demographic and personal details
Wealth markers
The information you collected in your donor database will help your team determine which donors can and want to support your mission. You’ll be able to make informed decisions about who can make a major gift to help propel your organization forward.
2. Develop long-lasting donor relationships
As we’ve emphasized, your donor database helps you keep track of interactions and engagements with donors. This does more than just help you find potential major supporters; it helps you focus on strengthening valuable relationships in your overall community of donors.
The most helpful ways that you can use your engagement data to build your relationships with your donors is by:
Consistently thanking them. This goes a long way when it comes to showing appreciation for those who contribute their hard-earned money to your cause. Send a thank-you note after each donation or volunteer time they put into one of your events. They’ll feel acknowledged and be more likely to continue their relationship with your organization.
Keeping them updated on fundraising progress. When a donor devotes time, supplies, or money to your cause, they become invested in the success of your fundraiser! Be sure to keep them in the loop when you hit a goal, and inform them on how you’ve used the money to help your mission!
Personalizing their communications with details. When sending communications to your donors, be sure to make them as personal as possible. They’ll feel a true connection to your organization, and will continue to feel your appreciation. Addressing them by name and recognizing their past efforts are great ways to start.
Showing appreciation by using the details about a donor’s engagement with your organization in your communications can go a long way. Be sure to make them feel appreciated and remembered in order to ensure a strong, long-lasting relationship.
3. Improve your nonprofit outreach efforts
Use your donor database to help you plan your marketing strategy. How you leverage your fundraising appeals can make the difference between a successful campaign and an unsuccessful one.
Sync your donor outreach strategy with your donor database to send automated emails and donation requests to prospects. You can even use it to create targeted marketing campaigns and segment your audience. In this way, it allows you to optimize identifiers such as donor profiles, communication and giving history, and fundraising data. Here are a few other best practices for improving your outreach by leveraging your donor database:
Group donors by their characteristics. As mentioned prior, when you categorize your donors into groups based on the data you’ve collected, they’re more likely to respond well. When your donors respond to your segmentation strategy and push your mission forward, you know you’re on the right track. For more information on how to organize your data, check out DNL Omnimedia’s segmentation guide.
Alter your asks based on their interests. Based on your donor’s characteristics, make requests that appeal to each group’s interests and abilities. For example, if you have a subsection of donors who give their time, rather than money, you’d ask them to volunteer at a fundraising event, not make a large gift.
Piece together donor data. You’ve done a ton of hard work in making specialized appeals, but you’re not quite done. Make sure you seek the results of your hard work. Be sure to take into account how your segments are responding to your communications. If needed, your team can adjust their segments or ways of reaching out depending on the responses they receive.
Your organization’s donor database will help your team communicate effectively with all types of supporters. Your communication strategy becomes that much more successful with the support of your software and collected data.
4. Provide valuable nonprofit analytics and insights
A dependable nonprofit donor database provides you with a comprehensive look at all of the important metrics and engagements for your organization. Compile reports and compare trends to get a better understanding of how your nonprofit is succeeding and the areas where you could improve. For example, you can use your database to answer the following questions:
How successful are my outreach efforts?
Has giving changed after we sent appeals?
Are donors segmented in the most effective way?
How has giving changed over the course of our campaign?
What are realistic goals to set for the future?
Based on your answers, alter your marketing plan according to the success of your efforts. There are a variety of ways to leverage your donors’ responses for helpful insights going forward. For additional information, be sure to refer to this resource for nonprofit databases.
Wrapping Up
Your organization’s donor database takes your marketing efforts to the next level. With the right tools, you can strengthen your engagements with donors, as well as your relationships with them going forward. Be sure to leverage your data in each step of the planning and execution processes, as well as while reviewing how your organization did.
Author: Grant Cobb
Grant Cobb is a fundraising specialist with over 6 years of experience in the nonprofit space. Currently the head of marketing and analytics at GivingMail, he is a huge proponent of data-driven decision making and the push to bring high-level analytics and fundraising to all.