In Spring 2014, when a Whitworth University supporter gave after not contributing for several years, he received the standard acknowledgement by mail and e-mail. But the donor was upset by the acknowledgment, and said so during a fundraising phone call. He thought he should have received a more personal thank-you message for contributing after some time away.
Kelsey Bumgarner, assistant director of donor relations at the Spokane, Wash., university, had been thinking about this for some time, but the donor’s comments prompted her to take new actions to treat donors based on their behavior.
“We have our first-time donor program, we have our loyalty program for our consecutive-year donors, but we had this little gap for other people who made a gift after not making one in a couple of years,” Ms. Bumgarner says.
So with minimal cost or staff effort, the university began sending “welcome back” postcards, encouraging donors who had given after a lapse to keep on giving. The idea was that donors who earn notice for a change in behavior might be less likely to stop giving again and more likely to become loyal supporters of the university, who are recognized after two consecutive years of giving.
Ms. Bumgarner wrote a paragraph for the back of the 5-by-7-inch postcard and selected a photo before submitting a design request to her in-house team. She then determined how many donors from the previous year had made a gift after two or more years of no donations. Based on that number—370—the department ordered 1,000 cards, which cost $220. Ms. Bumgarner hopes that first order will last through the next few years of the program.
The time commitment is minimal; Ms. Bumgarner estimates she spends about 30 minutes each month on the mailings, beginning the minute she receives the previous month’s list from the department’s database team. After checking for any inconsistencies and whether any of the donors are being cultivated for major gifts, she prints the names and addresses on the cards, applies stamps, and drops them in the mail.
This effort supplements the university’s standard acknowledgment, which includes a tax receipt and a letter hand-signed by a staff member, mailed within two days of receiving the gift. While the effort is too new to track its impact on donor retention or to measure financial results, the development team has high hopes.
“This postcard is part of helping keep our lapsed donors who return to us back in the fold,” Ms. Bumgarner says. “We’re definitely looking forward to seeing what may come of it.”
By the Numbers
Proportion of donors who had lapsed before giving in 2013 who then gave again in 2014: 26 percent
Cost: 1,000 postcards for $220
Time: 30 minutes each month
