Donor retention is every fundraiser's goal, and simultaneously a challenge that requires tactful communication. If you run a non-profit, you likely know the importance of donor stewardship, the practice of nurturing your donors to make them feel appreciated and impactful to your mission
Donor stewardship is no small task, and communication plays a big role in both finding new donors and persuading past donors to give again.
Many non-profits are innovating with cloud communications to foster retention, and for good reason. If you're curious why that is, here's an overview of different strategies to leverage modern technology for optimal donor communications.
1. Tell Your Story With Multiple Communication Channels
It's important to use multiple forms of media to communicate your message to donors. Many non-profits will do case studies or success stories of the impact they've had on the community.
You can highlight the stories of community members who have benefitted from your services, donor testimonials, or different projects your organization has successfully completed. Different media you can leverage to tell these stories include:
- Email or Printed Newsletters
- Social media
- Annual reports
- Mail campaigns
A major goal in fundraising is to reach potential donors by multiple different means to keep your non-profit top-of-mind. Through multiple strategic messages, you can build brand awareness and stay relevant and visible to your audience.
2. Create Meaningful, High-Quality Mail Campaigns
A key aspect of mail campaigns is the quality of your prints. You've likely worked hard on perfecting your brand colors, fonts, designs, and messaging, so it's important that you have a printer that produces quality prints.
Different types of printed materials that should have accurate colors, crisp lettering, and professional finishes include:
- Promotional flyers
- Posters
- Year-end appeal letters
- Printed annual reports
- Newsletters
- Pamphlets
- Event handouts
Prints that accurately reflect your designs can help you create a sense of authority and professionalism. These traits can impact how donors view your non-profit, which can lead to higher and more frequent donations.
Learn more about how to increase the ROI of printed fundraising campaigns in our blog: How to Maximize ROI of Direct Mail Fundraising Campaigns
3. Use Modernized Technology to Enhance Donor Stewardship
When you're looking at technology to add to your communications strategy, consider how different innovative technologies will align with your mission and collaborative goals.
Tools such as video conferencing can help foster connection amongst your staff, vendors, leadership, participants, and donors. Face-to-face interaction is a popular choice for projects and initiatives since it offers a more personal feel for conversations.
Meeting over video or even incorporating SMS features can help to humanize interactions as well. These are all strategies to help your donors feel valued, appreciated, and recognized by your organization.
4. Prioritize Donor Privacy Through Robust Cybersecurity
Data security is a major concern for both businesses and individuals due to the potential ramifications of data breaches. Because of this, one way to foster trust with your donors is by implementing strong cybersecurity protections.
Tools like multi-factor authentication (MFA), strong password policies, Zero Trust architecture, and internal phishing training are all best practices to reduce risk. A great avenue to implement these is through managed IT services for nonprofits.
The cybersecurity offerings offered through IT support for non profits can help give you peace of mind while dealing with sensitive data. Especially if you store credit card information when collecting donations or conduct event registration that gathers personal information, non-profit IT support can be a game-changer.
Protect donor data such as credit card information and other sensitive information through secure cloud tools and cybersecurity best practices like MFA, password resets, etc
How to Find Cloud Communications and Managed IT Services for Non-Profits
If you're looking into different fundraising tools and software for your non-profit organization, a managed service provider is a great place to start.
Make sure your provider has experience working with non-profits. This way, they'll have a better understanding of your unique goals and needs. This also ensures they can help you create a tech stack that integrates with any fundraising platforms or cloud-based technology you already use.
If you're ready to explore the possibilities of IT support for charities and non-profits, click the button below to speak with an IT expert about your organization.
