Donor Churn

Too many charities are undermining their own efforts to address donor churn by treating customer service as a burden and assigning value only to quantitative data, according to a new paper by the donor experience and relationship company Donor Voice.

The paper, entitled Donor Churn: How to stop it before it starts and why current approaches prevent this from happening, states that non-profits are not putting enough emphasis on providing a service to their donors, with many having phone numbers that are difficult to find, often on purpose, and having highly scripted conversations with donors when they speak by phone.

It states that charities are running themselves like assembly lines in collecting data from donors that comes in only on pre-printed forms and disregarding handwritten notes and other feedback that does not fit into this format.

The paper advises charities to be more proactive in soliciting donor feedback, for example, by running surveys that people fill in when leaving charity websites, which can then be acted on at the individual supporter level as well as providing data for quantitative analysis.

The paper states that charities can stop their donor service operations departments being a place where "relationships and donor lifetime values go to die" by making it easier for donors to complain.

The paper also criticises charities for thinking they can fix problems with donor satisfaction after donors have already lapsed, stating that they should have better awareness of the effectiveness of their welcome kits, their charity magazine content and their brand messages on donor loyalty.

It also states that charities should stop believing that sending loyalty letters to supporters is an effective way of keeping them, because in most cases these actually have the opposite effect.

To read the report visit www.slideshare.net/kschulman14/how-nonprofits-can-stop-donor-churn-before-it-starts.