5 donor management tips for nonprofits to supercharge your fundraising

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A lot of smaller nonprofits often find themselves unable to manage their donors with the same efficiency as that of bigger organizations. It is perhaps the biggest challenge that any organization can face in its infancy. The reason for a lack of structure can be due to the budget constraints and a smaller group of people working for the cause. You may be inclined to believe that building out a cohesive and strategic donor management strategy is reserved for the future.

However, you might need to take a look at your current organizational structure and rework the process. There are a lot of ways your organization can function efficiently. In this article, we shall take a look at five tips to help with nonprofit donor management. 

Five crucial nonprofit donor management tips

Let us look at five essential tips and strategies that can be extremely useful for all types of nonprofits.

Choose a platform designed for nonprofits

Often, you will see smaller organizations struggle because they are trying to patch in management software across various systems. The software may not even be designed for nonprofits, but a lot of smaller organizations will put in the effort to port it and make it work.

Instead, organizations should look for custom software that is dedicated to nonprofits and they will find a lot of options. Here is what they should look at:

1. Good customer relationship management: A good platform should have dedicated technology that keeps track of all donors and the data that is collected. 
2. Analytics on donors: The platform should come with analytics that can help you identify your best donors. 
3. Giving capabilities: An ideal platform also helps in streamlining the giving capability of your website and helps you gather donors.
4. Email marketing capability: Good donation platforms know the power of email marketing and come with email marketing capabilities to cater to your supporters.

Build customized profiles

The best donor management platforms come with customized donor profiles. They understand that the information derived from data can serve nonprofits better than almost any other metric. It is for this purpose that you should look at platforms that prioritize gathering and organizing data. The right information on your donors will help you conduct better research on donors and organize fundraisers that are actually appealing to them.

You should choose a platform that helps you learn as much as you can about your donors. When you are organizing the next fundraiser you will be able to reach out to your donors in a manner that is appealing to them.

Sort your communication on the basis of the data you gather

So you have opted for a platform that is giving you ample amounts of data, but what if you are not using that data. The ideal way to use the data is to use it to segment the communications between you and your donors.

The distinction you will receive through data will help you establish an effective communications channel between you and your donors. It helps you send out specific information that is catered to the likes of the donor.

Use SoPs

Implementing a good platform will have no use if it is only operated by a single member of your organization. You do not want one person to have all the strategies and instead you are going to want to standardize the operating procedure for using the database.

By enabling multiple people to use the platform you are empowering them to be more effective in their roles. You only need to ensure that they follow the same standard operating procedure that has been set up. It is one of the most effective ways to get the best out of data and the platform itself.

Clean out duplicates

As you work on implementing the new platform for your system, you will have to go through a ton of old files. You will likely find a lot of redundant files. Check which files contain the latest information on your donors before you decide to merge them with the software. Cleaning out these duplicates will only increase the efficiency of your platform.

When organizing fundraisers, you will find that the clean and organized data can help you yield much better results than before.

Conclusion 

For smaller nonprofits that can follow the above strategies, you will not only get your data and information organized, but you will also get analytics that can help you look at new ways to entice your donors. A robust platform like Donorbox can help you improve your donor management, all the while helping you make the most out of any future fundraisers.

Suggested Resource: The process of forming and maintaining nonprofit corporations can be tricky, no matter which state you’re located in. Fortunately, there are great resources that take a closer look at nonprofit formation in 50 US states.