Finding Donors During Crisis
When a crisis hits, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic or an economic crisis, nonprofits can feel the effects of damage in many ways. Nonprofits may see swaths of smaller gifts wane away or nonprofits that did not receive many gifts but raised funds through ticket sales may see loss there (especially in a pandemic). When these revenue sources are lacking or a crisis hits so hard that nonprofits just need more funds to offset lost assets, seeking out sizable gifts from crisis donors are ideal solutions to the issue.
While an organization may have continued support from long-term, small to midsize donors that are essential, they likely do not fully sustain a budget on their own especially when extreme factors impact the economy. When times get tough, many nonprofits would benefit significantly from finding the right crisis donors and focusing resources on them. Before seeking out crisis donors, it is imperative that other donors are not forgotten; retain those loyal supporters throughout this process. The process of finding crisis donors begins with evaluating on-hand donor data in order to establish an understanding of your organization’s philanthropic capacity. With a firm understanding of your donor data, sort it into categories. Identify your crisis donors and divide them into near-term versus long-term prospects, prioritizing them based on timing, engagement, and value. When trying to find donors that can provide immediate and essential funds, a donor that historically gives a large gift annually but gave that gift two months ago is not the best prospect to expend resources on compared to an annual, large gift donor who annually gives in the coming two months or so. Using data on the history of time-specific annual giving, the former should take second priority over a more likely prospect. It is essential to select prospects that are quality candidates and will maximize your return on invested time and resources.
With preliminary prospects established, it is time to do your homework and not throw a halfhearted invitation to donate to these donors. These are likely individuals or companies that have supported your organization in the past with significant gifts; treat them as such. If your organization has the capacity, assign a team member to manage each prospect or at least, minimize the number of prospects being managed by each team member. In this way, time and personalization can be devoted to each prospect. Personal and honest communication is key. These are high-value donors with a history of supporting your organization. While devotion is important, overcommitting time and resources to a low-capacity low-engagement, high capacity low engagement, or slow-developing prospect can devastate the effectiveness of specifically pursuing crisis donors. That donor might give in the future but spending too much time on a currently low-engagement donor can leave your organization in a worse position with less time.
In order to avoid these wasted efforts, research must be thorough as well as dynamic; reevaluating throughout the process is essential to maximize efforts. Approach every decision with an ROI filter. Pushing forward with a prospect may bring in a gift six months in the future but expending that much time during a crisis could diminish ROI if there are other quality prospects. When timely donations are needed, finding the correct balance between value and engagement in the pertinent time period is essential. Evaluations of prospects must be ongoing from selecting those prospects, through the invitation process, all the way to securing a gift.
Navigating a fundraising crisis brought on by an external economic disaster, health crisis, natural disaster, or other, uncontrollable factors can be frightening and challenging, but by applying these strategies and focusing on return on investment, nonprofits can succeed at securing crisis donors. The core factors behind all of these strategies are focusing on return on investment, dynamic reevaluation, and using realistic facts (data), not wishful thinking. These can help mitigate wasted time and maximize focus when an unstable world is challenging your nonprofit.
The keys here are simple and executable:
Data
Segment
Personalization
With our 30+ years of nonprofit executive experience, the NMBL team can help nonprofits of all sizes maximize their return on investment and increase their impact on the world. Learn more about what we offer by reaching out to NMBL today.
