When Should You Give Up on Donors?

August 24, 2008

When Should You Give Up on Donors?

Fund raising is filled with myths about what works — and why.

David Valinsky and Melanie Boyd, two fund-raising consultants, write in their book Raising Money Through Bequests that they don’t believe in giving up on people who have not given for a while.

They acknowledge that a lot of fund raisers believe if someone gave money to your organization in the past, but hasn’t done so in a number of years, you shouldn’t bother keeping them on your mailing list.

Mr. Valinsky and Ms. Boyd warn fund raisers not to be so hasty. “Our colleague Wayne tells a cautionary tale,” they write. “He was surprised when one of these lapsed donors, a woman who upon her husband’s death felt she couldn’t continue her annual support, left the organization with a significant bequest. In her mind, she wasn’t a lapsed donor. She was simply delaying her gift.”

Do you have a story of a lapsed donor who was really just delaying a gift? And if so, did that experience change the way you treat people who haven’t made a gift in several years?

— Eman Quotah

Comments

My organization went through some bad times, including a bankruptcy, in the late 1990’s. While we re-grouped, we suspended all fundraising for several years. When we started again, it was a small effort.

I started a year ago and the first thing I did was send out a mailing asking if people were still at their address. I followed up with a “touch” every seven weeks or so.

The upshot was that people who hadn’t made a donation since 1999 came back to us. Each mailing we send attracts more and more “lapsed” donors back to the fold. We raised 87% over the previous year.

My message is don’t give up on supposedly lapsed donors. You never know when they’ll return.

Also, two of those “lapsed” donors requested bequest information.

— Fairfax Aug 25, 02:31 PM #
I’ve heard this same advice before, and it makes sense… But the practical question is, if we don’t think of them as lapsed, does that change how we communicate with them? And what percentage of lapsed members are leaving a bequest? You could spend a lot of time and money keeping in touch with them all, when there are active donors who need to be asked to upgrade. I guess I’m wondering how this idea is practically applied, especially in the smaller nonprofit.

— Molly Kramer Aug 25, 02:31 PM #
I worked for 2 agencies that had not verified addresses for several years. What caught my eye in both cases were the names of deceased people on the active mailing list.

We calculated the costs of sending a mailing first class vs. the notification of non-delivery and for our purposes decided to do first class mailings. Once we cleaned up the list then annually we sent one mailing with the non-delivery notification.

In one instance a donor who had contributed $500 every year for a number of years had stopped. I discovered that she had retired and moved. We contacted her to reintroduce ourselves, but in the meantime she had become very involved with another organization. We received small donations, but I think we had lost out because during the lapse of contact she found another cause to believe in and contribute to.

— annetta Aug 25, 04:28 PM #
One key is determining their gift history. Most donors give only once, so a “lapsed” donor can only be one that has established a pattern of giving and then stops giving for an unknown reason.

Note: some lapsed donors stop for a known reason, such as life transition or changing a membership (e.g., service club, church).

Reasonable people can differ on the efficacy of targeting vs. casting bread upon the waters, but it’s important to know what you’re doing – and why – when addressing this topic, as it affects both costs and evaluation of efficacy.

— Michael L. Wyland Aug 28, 03:58 PM #

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