Everything You Wanted to Know About Annual Giving

Steve MacLaughlin, bestselling author of Data Driven Nonprofits, vice president of product management at Blackbaud, and host of the Fundraising Insights Webinar Series, details four no-nonsense action items to build and measure the success of your annual fund. Ready to transform annual giving at your nonprofit? Let’s take it step-by-step!

1. Get revenue.

Your take-action step: Acquire donors. Reach new supporters and lapsed donors by engaging them with personalized messaging, mission-focused events, peer-to-peer fundraising, and easy online donation forms. How to measure success: donor acquisition rate and new donor ratio.

2. Keep revenue.

Your take-action step: Retain donors. Maintain meaningful contact with recent and at-risk constituents by developing full-picture donor profiles, predictive analytics, and accurate data, such as address and phone records. How to measure success: first-year and multiyear donor retention.

3. Grow revenue.

Your take-action step: Upgrade donors. Increase gift size by identifying capacity and likelihood to give, messaging to segmented audiences, upgrading single gifts to monthly, and increasing recurring gift amounts. How to measure success: revenue per donor growth and upgraded donor rate.

4. Reduce costs.

Your take-action step: Manage expenses. Focus on efficiency by leveraging your board for fundraising and identifying cost-savings, such as switching recurring gifts from credit card to debit card or ACH. How to measure success: donor acquisition cost and donor retention cost.