Retaining Crisis Response, Emergency, and Relief Donors

By: Darcy Hofmann

When a crisis emerges, and your organization is equipped to address the need, you act quickly to let the urgent needs be known and donors respond. The new donors that you acquire will know your organization for the emergency situation in which they felt compelled to give. What’s next for these donors? How can your organization retain emergency donors?

Segment Donors

When setting up the emergency campaign, review the data. The goal should be to segment all emergency donors from an appeal, and specifically target new donors. Consider where people are making gifts–you may be getting more social media gifts where you do not receive full donor information. Be sure to use Google Analytics tracking on your appeal links to confirm the donor is in fact replying to your emergency appeal.

Personalize Content

When a donor gives to an emergency, they want to stay updated on the impact of their gift. With a multichannel approach, you can send updates about the crisis. Include as many updates photos as possible to demonstrate how  your organization has had an impact. 

Go live on social media and show the behind the scenes work your organization is doing. Use your existing communications to send personalized content to your emergency donors. Rather than piling on additional sends and potentially overwhelming your email database, create a section in your newsletter for emergency donors with content that only they will see. This can help with email fatigue that may occur in a crisis.

Make a Second Ask

While it may seem counterintuitive to ask donors who just gave, it can impact the longevity of the donor by getting them further invested in your organization. Is the emergency ongoing? What will the impact of a second gift do to help? Target new emergency donors by gift level. Can they match their first gift? Alternatively, introduce donors to your other work. Show how the critical work you do everyday creates change. Use video messages to quickly gain interest.

Automate a Stop Lapse Plan

Take the legwork out of your digital appeals by automating a stop lapse campaign. Target donors based on gift date and encourage them to make another donation. Send emails one month after their gift, three months, and one year. Use criteria to automatically remove those donors who make a second gift.

Work with Doing Good Digital

Do you want to retain more donors? Strategize with us and receive support in segmentation, content creation, and automation campaigns. We’ve helped nonprofits throughout the USA and Canada optimize their digital fundraising strategy. Fill out this form to get started!