Building Donor Relationships is Hard: Here’s how to make it easier

It used to be so simple.

You called donors over the phone, sent handwritten thank you notes, sometimes met with them in person.

While you can reach more people now thanks to a variety of digital channels, building an authentic, lasting relationship feels harder. There are several reasons why.

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP-BUILDING CHALLENGES

1. The explosion of marketing channels

The sheer quantity of ways you can get in front of donors can distract you from your main purpose. It also makes each communication feel less meaningful to the donor.

2. Quick messages crowd out connection-building initiatives

By leaning more on digital avenues to connect with donors, you trade quick, mass marketing communications for deep, deliberate, individually targeted, long-term relationship-building strategies.

3. Quantity over quality

Because of the ability to get in front of more people, you are less likely to target the right people, trading quality relationships for quantity.

Fortunately, there are tactics and tools that can help you focus on the right channels, messages, and donors to build stronger relationships with your donor base.

1. Focusing on the Right Channels

While phone calls, in-person meetings, and hand-written letters and thank you cards are excellent methods of communicating and building relationships, let’s be honest. You only have so much time in a day and in order to engage your portfolio regularly, you need to rely on digital communications.

Choices abound. While social media is a one-to-many digital marketing channel, direct-marketing tactics like email and text can be very effective at engaging donors. In fact, text messaging has an astounding ROI of $71 for every $ spent. Email marketing has an equally attractive ROI of between $36 – $42 for every $1 spent.

The beauty of direct marketing channels is they allow you to have one-to-one conversations with your donors. These one-to-one conversations are much better at building strong relationships, compared to channels like print or social, because people can have a direct conversation with you by replying to an email or text.

However, in order for email and text marketing to be effective, your messages can’t be sent to the masses. They must be personalized.

2. Focusing on the Right Message

Getting personal is key to building and sustaining relationships in a digital world. A few years ago, it was challenging and time-consuming to deliver personalized emails to every donor in your portfolio, but it no longer has to be.

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