Donor Acquisition Guide: 10 Strategies to Attract New Donors
The key to effective donor acquisition is a careful balance of costs, donor value, and thoughtful marketing.
Acquiring new donors is a top priority for any fundraising organization. From keeping you on track for continued growth to supplementing lapsed donors, donor acquisition is a building block of your nonprofit’s health, and having a strong plan for tackling acquisition should be top-of-mind.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the fundamentals of donor acquisition, including everything you need to know to build a robust, cost-effective donor acquisition strategy of your own:
Refining your donor acquisition strategy is an ongoing journey, so don’t worry if your current approach isn’t seeing results. Let’s explore the basics and top strategies you can use to improve.
What is Donor Acquisition?
Donor acquisition is the process of finding, attracting, and securing new donors through your nonprofit’s marketing channels.
Acquisition is measured by the number of donors your organization attains in a given time frame, and the way you go about collecting new or potential donors can vary. For example, many nonprofits use both traditional and online channels, with 39% of organizations posting on social media 3-5 times a week in addition to running direct mail and email campaigns.
Whatever channels your nonprofit uses to cultivate new donors, donor acquisition itself is essential to your continued success. Even if you perfectly engage and steward your current donors, you must invest in new donors to keep your donor file size from shrinking and your fundraising streams from drying up.
Donor Acquisition vs Donor Retention
Whenever there’s a conversation about donor acquisition, donor retention isn’t far behind. That’s because these distinct but complementary strategies are the key to creating a stable donor base. The main differences can be broken down like this:
Donor acquisition is heavily tied to marketing and refers to new, first-time donors who are brought into your organization.
Donor retention is all about stewarding and maintaining the donors you already have. The goal is to develop relationships that inspire them to give again and again.
Together, they feed into one another to create a steady stream of support for your nonprofit. Once you acquire a donor, your retention strategies will help you turn that new donor into a long-time supporter. At the same time, donor acquisition supplements your lapsed donors and cultivates new streams of revenue.
Ultimately, a healthy, growing base of support for your nonprofit depends on striking a balance between your investment in donor retention and acquisition.
How to Calculate Donor Acquisition Rate
To determine how your acquisition strategies are performing, calculate your current donor acquisition rate. This metric tells you how much of your donor pool is made up of newly acquired donors at any given time.
Choose a time frame to analyze (such as one year), then use this formula to calculate your donor acquisition rate:
Add the number of first-time donors and re-engaged donors. For example, 100 new donors + 20 previously lapsed donors = 120.
Divide the result by your total number of donors. 120 / 500 total donors for the year would equal 0.24.
Multiply by 100 to get a percentage. 0.24 x 100 = a 24% donor acquisition rate for the year.
Based on this percentage, you can conclude that almost a quarter of this year’s donors are new to your organization.
What’s a Good Donor Acquisition Rate?
It’s difficult to give an exact number that makes for a “good” donor acquisition rate, because what constitutes “good” is entirely dependent on your nonprofit’s goals. For instance, are you pushing to greatly expand your base of support, or do you want to keep pace with donor churn and focus on retention instead?
To determine a good rate of donor acquisition for your nonprofit, establish your goals and keep an eye on retention metrics. These factors will determine what pace of acquisition aligns with the needs of your organization. Ideally, you should balance donor acquisition with retention and long-term donor value.
Other Donor Acquisition Metrics to Track
Donor acquisition rate isn’t the only metric you should analyze to monitor your strategies’ success. You should also keep an eye on:
Cost to Acquire
Cost to acquire is the expense rate for acquiring a particular number of donors. This metric is not only a good value to factor into your nonprofit’s total expenses, but also a measure of success for how effective your acquisition strategies are. You can calculate your cost to acquire like this:
[Net cost of acquisition efforts ] / [Total # of donors acquired] = Cost to Acquire
It’s important to remember that costs will vary between organizations and it isn’t always best to have the lowest cost to acquire. For instance, some acquired donors may have a very low up-front cost, but that is usually coupled with a lower average gift size and very low long-term value.
Donor Lifetime Value
Donor lifetime value (LTV) is a predicted measurement of how much gross revenue you can expect to be contributed from a donor who has been in your files for at least five years.
This metric not only takes gift size into account but also the frequency of giving and the total amount of time that donors will stick with your organization. Donors naturally come and go, but acquiring and retaining donors who will remain dedicated to your cause for years to come provides significant, long-term gains for your organization.
In terms of acquisition, donor LTV also helps you better understand the total return on investment (ROI) of your donor acquisition strategies. While investing in donor acquisition will come at an initial financial loss, LTV reveals what the real net gains and losses of your acquisition efforts will ultimately come out to be.
Calculate your organization’s average donor LTV using this formula:
[Average donor expectancy] x [Average donation amount] x [Average donation frequency] = Donor LTV
Average donor expectancy is determined by your donor attrition and retention rates. If you are unsure of any of these metrics or need help analyzing them, Meyer Partners can help. Our team of marketing and fundraising consultants can help you audit your donor file to determine your rate of attrition and your lifetime donor value.
Top Donor Acquisition Strategies
While most nonprofit professionals have a strong understanding of donor acquisition as a concept, actually implementing effective acquisition strategies is another matter entirely. Let’s explore ten of the top donor acquisition strategies you can leverage to secure more donors.
1. Use Data to Understand Your Donors
To acquire new donors, you first need to understand who your existing donors are and why they give to your nonprofit. With this information, you’ll be able to find and target prospects with similar characteristics and speak to their motivations more effectively.
Beyond the metrics we’ve already discussed, there are plenty of data points you can examine to get a better understanding of current donors. Explore data about your donors’ interests, the type of campaigns they give to most often, which cause areas they’re most passionate about, and which marketing channels successfully drive them to give.
2. Create a Donor Acquisition Plan
Once you understand the type of donors you’re looking for, formulate a plan for how, when, and where your donor acquisition strategies will be put to the best use. Follow these steps to create a thorough donor acquisition plan:
Set goals. How many new donors are you hoping to attain? Take your historical acquisition costs into account, as well as the long-term value that these donors will offer your nonprofit if acquired. Don’t forget to account for the initial loss that comes with investing in new donors. Gains will gradually accumulate as donors remain with your organization and make multiple gifts.
Evaluate your data. Carefully examine your current donor database to assess what channels and strategies will be most effective. For example, Meyer Partners helped the Meals on Wheels Foundation of Northern Illinois by comparing the performances of its past rental lists and initiating a refresh of these package models. In the end, we were able to lower acquisition costs by 68% and raise their average gift size by over 20%.
Build your outreach strategies. Determine the channels and messaging you’ll use to acquire new donors. Then, create segments based on lapsed donors’ past giving capacities, connections with other donors, and philanthropic histories to personalize your messaging and increase engagement.
Test and track your results. Rather than diving headfirst into an uncertain acquisition strategy, perform careful evaluations of new kinds of messaging. Track key performance indicators (KPIs), such as response rate and cost to acquire, and reach out to donors directly for feedback. This will give you a better understanding of how these strategies perform and what steps can be taken to make them as effective as possible.
For even more precision in your donor acquisition plan, consider taking advantage of our modeling tools. Meyer Partners offers an intuitive predictive modeling service that can accurately gauge actionable metrics, including how much a donor can give as well as the times they are most likely to give.
3. Prioritize Direct Mail Donor Acquisition
Direct mail is a timeless fundraising and marketing channel that can engage donors far more effectively than a single social media post or email.
While some nonprofits underutilize direct mail in favor of digital acquisition strategies, partially in the hope of connecting with younger and broader audiences, the reality is that direct mail boasts an open rate of up to 90%. Furthermore, 30% of millennials consider direct mail to be more effective at inspiring them to take action compared to email’s 26%.
To get started with direct mail donor acquisition, consider what outside lists you’ll use to target prospective donors. Most organizations rely on rental, exchange, or cooperative model lists to identify potential like-minded prospects they can send direct mail to. Then, draft direct mail fundraising appeals with compelling copy and images to get prospects’ attention.
4. Optimize Your Website’s Landing Pages
Your website is one of the most important tools in your nonprofit’s marketing arsenal. To better acquire online donors, be sure that online users are immediately engaged with your landing page and can easily navigate through your content.
To accomplish this, consider these web design best practices as a starting point:
Optimize all pages and forms for mobile devices.
Increase page load speeds by compressing images.
Maintain consistent branding throughout the site.
Leverage rich, compelling images to grab users’ attention.
Use white space effectively to balance out images and text.
Include skimmable, actionable headlines and clickable calls to action (CTAs).
From desktop users who enter your website through a blog post to mobile users thumbing through your homepage after clicking on an Instagram CTA, every potential donor should enjoy a seamless online experience.
5. Develop Content-Rich Email Campaigns
Email marketing is a cornerstone of donor communications and stewardship. However, email is also highly vulnerable to poor open and conversion rates, with donors willing and able to unsubscribe or divert uninteresting emails with the click of a button.
To engage potential donors and increase click-through rates, enrich your email appeals with compelling images, nonprofit storytelling techniques, and links to valuable content—such as ebooks, testimonials, and video resources.
6. Create Social Media CTAs
Social media can be a versatile digital donor acquisition tool for nonprofits. Not only can you share photos, videos, and downloadable resources, but you can easily tag and share your posts with relevant communities and accounts that would be interested in spreading your message.
Maximize the effectiveness of your social media campaigns by including clickable CTAs for important functions, namely donating and subscribing to your post feeds. These strategies, and your donor acquisition techniques as a whole, can be especially effective during the period of year-end giving between October and December when many donors are looking for giving opportunities on social media.
7. Improve Your Storytelling
Often, acquiring new donors is all about telling your nonprofit’s stories in ways that help prospects connect with your organization and visualize the impact they can make on your cause.
Include vivid stories in all of your nonprofit’s fundraising appeals and marketing collateral to acquire more donors, keeping the following important storytelling qualities in mind:
Resonance: Ensure stories resonate with prospects by only telling true, genuine stories of constituents and using humanizing details.
Relevance: Use donor-centric language to give the prospective donor a place in the story and clearly show how they can help further your mission.
Respect: Be direct and honest when telling stories. Focus on eliciting positive emotions rather than negative ones like fear or guilt.
Prioritizing stories with these qualities will help prospective donors resonate with your cause more quickly, piquing their interest in donating for the first time.
8. Apply for the Google Ad Grant
The Google Ad Grant program is a charitable initiative run by Google, wherein the company gives $10,000 a month to nonprofits to invest in Google Search advertising. Considering how pivotal Google has become as a global engine people use to navigate their everyday lives, this form of marketing can be a valuable tool for donor acquisition.
Be sure to check your eligibility for Google Ad Grants before applying for the program. For example, your website and featured pages must include prominent calls to action, engaging visuals, and mobile-friendly navigation.
9. Promote corporate sponsorships
Corporations are increasingly investing in corporate social responsibility, and this can be doubly advantageous for your nonprofit. Your organization not only receives support from participating corporations, but you can also reach companies’ employees who otherwise wouldn’t have known to donate. For example, several well-known examples of corporations with philanthropic efforts include:
Google
Microsoft
Johnson & Johnson
Apple
General Electric
Once you’ve secured a sponsorship, promote it across all of your channels and ask the sponsor to share materials on their own pages. This will help you position your cause in front of brand-new audiences, boosting the potential for donor acquisition.
10. Talk to a Professional Marketing Firm
Whether you’re looking for help implementing the previous acquisition strategies or would just prefer the insight of experienced professionals, seeking out a nonprofit marketing agency is a great way to optimize donor acquisition.
If you’re interested in professional aid for your organization’s acquisition and marketing techniques, consider Meyer Partners. Our full-service nonprofit communications firm has served hundreds of nonprofit organizations to help them maximize outreach, boost retention, and increase fundraising success.
Just take a look at a handful of the dedicated services offered by our agency:
Direct mail donor acquisition, marketing, and fundraising
Integrated, multichannel communications
Landing page optimization
Predictive modeling and analytics
Data and donor file audit services
Creative nonprofit storytelling
Whatever your cause and whoever makes up your base of support, Meyer Partners can empower you to better acquire, engage, and retain your donors for long-term growth and development.
Additional Resources
Donor acquisition is vital for keeping your nonprofit healthy and growing your support base. Remember to balance your acquisition efforts with stewardship and retention strategies, and you’ll create a well-rounded approach to generating long-term fundraising success.
Interested in learning more about how you can better engage and cultivate your nonprofit’s donor base? Take a look at a few of our other nonprofit resources:
A Nonprofit Direct Mail Fundraising Guide: How to Succeed. Make the most of the fundraising, marketing, and acquisition potential of direct mail with our top tips, best practices, and providers guide.
Expand Your Reach: Ultimate Guide to Nonprofit Marketing. You can’t acquire donors without spreading the word about your nonprofit. Learn how to craft a multichannel marketing strategy designed to help you boost acquisition.
Donor Stewardship: How to Create & Use a Stewardship Matrix. Once you acquire donors, the work isn’t over. Read our guide to donor stewardship and explore all the ways you can build relationships with your new donors.
