{"id":15456,"date":"2019-10-16T09:27:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T13:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qgiv.com\/blog\/?p=15456"},"modified":"2023-08-31T10:07:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T14:07:17","slug":"improve-donor-retention-re-engage-lapsed-donors-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qgiv.com\/blog\/improve-donor-retention-re-engage-lapsed-donors-email\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Improve Donor Retention and Re-Engage Lapsed Donors With Email"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is a guest post from Kaitlin Westbrook, a Nashville-based content writer at\u00a0Campaign Monitor<\/a>. She covers business, email marketing, and creative content. You can find her on X @kaitwarren.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re part of a nonprofit, you know how important donors and volunteers are to your organization\u2019s cause. These contributors are vital, especially as your nonprofit attempts to reach its goals.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to keep those members coming back, especially if you\u2019re not varying your means of communication. When people fail to come back, retention suffers, and donors stop giving, which puts your organization in a bind.<\/p>\n

So how do you both improve your organization\u2019s donor retention and<\/em> re-engage lapsed donors?<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s no way to keep every donor coming back, you can improve your odds with the consistent, trustworthy communication offered through email. Email can be the retention-friendly resource your organization has been missing.<\/p>\n

Read on to learn how you can increase your nonprofit\u2019s chances of success when it comes to donor retention (plus, you\u2019ll get a glimpse at some of our original nonprofit research<\/a>).<\/p>\n

5 ways you can use email to improve donor retention and re-engage lapsed donors<\/span><\/h2>\n

Email provides a complex variety of options when it comes to nonprofit retention and re-engagement. But, before you start sending campaigns, it\u2019s important to make your donors feel like they\u2019re in control.<\/p>\n

1. Provide a preference center.<\/span><\/h3>\n

What\u2019s the best way to give your donors a feeling of being in control? Providing a preference center. In addition to providing clear unsubscribe options, emails should provide a preference center that allows subscribers to choose email type, frequency, and more.<\/p>\n

You may feel wary about giving subscribers the power to receive fewer<\/em> emails, but, in fact, it could keep them subscribed for longer. For instance, did you know the most common reason people unsubscribe is related to receiving too many emails<\/a>?<\/p>\n

By giving donors the power to decide how often they hear from you and what they want to hear from you, your organization can provide a sense of control that isn\u2019t available with ads or social media.<\/p>\n

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The Sundance Institute does a wonderful job of directing subscribers to the preference center by creating an email all about it. Even the CTA is centered around getting subscribers into their preferences for more specific campaigns.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Keep donors in the know with a newsletter.<\/h3>\n

Campaign Monitor recently conducted a study comparing nonprofit and donor perceptions<\/a>: what nonprofits think about donor communication vs. what donors think. When donors were surveyed, we found that email is their top preferred channel when it comes to hearing from nonprofits.<\/p>\n

This means donors not only want to know what\u2019s happening with their nonprofit of choice, but they want to receive this information through email. How better to send consistent information than through a nonprofit newsletter?<\/p>\n

What should your nonprofit newsletter include? First, you can easily improve your newsletter with simple tricks<\/a> like clever subject lines, video additions, and more. But your content is the true star of the show, so make sure your newsletter includes updates your donors care about.<\/p>\n

This newsletter from Habitat for Humanity is a perfect example of how an organization can update subscribers about news, partnerships, and more.<\/p>\n

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But what if your organization doesn\u2019t have global news or partnerships to share? According to our original research, here are some of the top pieces of information donors are looking for:<\/p>\n