Segmentation and Profiling When Finding New Donors for Nonprofit

Connecting with new donors is crucial to growing your nonprofit’s supporter base and ultimately raising more for your cause. New donors invigorate your nonprofit with a fresh wave of funding and engagement. And, when you properly steward and build relationships with these new donors, they can turn into lifelong supporters of your mission.

In seeking to recruit new donors, it is always best to start with the cheapest source of new donors and work down through the progressively more expensive sources.

Member-Get-Member (MGM) is the cheapest and best source of new donors for most nonprofits. In this scheme, the nonprofit asks its existing donors to recommend a friend to the organization. This approach work well because donors typically know what their friends are interested in, so the response rate from solicitation is high.

Lapsed donors, these are the donors who have given in the past but their support their support has now lapsed. Most of the nonprofits have profiled their lapsed donors, Annual fund donor who send a check each year are referred as lapsed donors if they have not given to the organization in a particular period of time (nonprofit needs to have a policy that will help it to decide who donor is lapsed and who's not).

Here, the nonprofit can reactivate these lapsed supporters by reaching out to them with a variety of ways to continue their involvement, such as your monthly giving program, peer-to-peer fundraising opportunities, or upcoming fundraising events. The nonprofit has to thank these donors for their past contributions and specifically mention their donation amounts and impact to show them the value they’ve already added to the organization.

Individuals who have interest with the organization but have not yet donated. These people might be volunteers, or service users. Sometimes the group might include individuals who have signed up for newsletters and other organization communications. This group has already shown an interest in some aspect of the organization, therefore considering them will bring higher rate of solicitation.

Known Charity Donors, here the nonprofits can consider carrying out list swaps with other nonprofits that are tackling the related issue. Looking at the annual reports, donor recognition lists, and newsletters of similar organizations and asking board and staff members of the similar organization can be a source of information.

OMAR MSONGA
CONSULTANT
Project Management, Strategy, Fundraising & Training
Call: +255 719 518 367
Email: omarmsonga8@gmail.com
DAR ES SALAAM
TANZANIA