Soapbox Engage Blog

It can be difficult to find new donors. Every person has their own unique tastes, and more importantly their own reasons to be interested in your cause. There are many things going on in a potential donor's head that could either favor your appeal or cause it to be ignored. In addition, today's society is increasingly individualistic and fragmented, turning everyone into special snowflakes. It's become increasingly less useful to send out blast communications and expect people to follow through. So what can you do then to drum up support or increase the amount of money raised through each donor? Targeting your donors can be the answer. Here are some ways to do precisely that with the help of nonprofit CRM software:

Each person has his or her own donor preferences. How will you target them?

1. Segment your current donors

With most people having very distinct preferences as to how they give and receive communications, you'll want to tailor your strategies so that each person feels just the right level of appreciation. HubSpot suggests that segmenting donors based on their inclinations can help improve your response rates. On the most basic level, you can allocate resources and time based on certain demographics. But you can get more granular than that. For example, you can segment based on how often patrons want to hear from you. Some are overly excited to see a newsletter in their inbox on a weekly basis, while others may just be perfectly content to hear when the next major fundraising drive is happening.

2. Personalize the donation experience

Alongside donor segmentation, there is the option of making your donation drives personal. That doesn't mean getting up in people's grills and invading their privacy, however. Instead, donors should be able to promote what they're doing for the cause on their own terms. You should have tools in place that allow them to talk about the cause in various ways, including their own reasons why they would want to contribute to your mission. Giving them a personalized Web page is a good way of doing this, according to the Nonprofit Technology Network. You should be able to let patrons speak about the cause, upload photos of themselves and interact with other members who have contributed. By making the experience personal, you can bring in more funds.

3. Direct giving

One other way of targeting people to donate is to give them options with how their money is spent, also known as directed giving. Instead of a donation that is sent to fund all aspects of the nonprofit, you could have it focus on specific missions. For example, if you have a campaign happening in more than one country, you can have patrons send money based on the country, with added metrics to show how much has been raised in the wake of the drive. The University of Southern California has a similar system in place, where a supporter can choose to send it to specific school or program. He or she may want to contribute money to the Keck School of Medicine, or to the English program. By giving your contributors something to target, they become more likely to make significant donations. You can better manage these donations directly through CRM software, as well as how donors send it.