This is more of a reminder than a blog post.
The reminder: spend more time on your major donor fundraising!
Here’s why this is so important: the latest research I saw said that the average nonprofit receives 88% of their “individual donor revenue” from just 12% of their individual donors.
In my experience, disciplined major donor fundraising is the biggest-impact / least-used fundraising tool for most nonprofits.
At this moment, let’s not talk about the reasons why that is. Instead, let’s talk about two simple things you can to do start doing a better job today.
Do These Two Things
Here are two really simple things you can do to “go a little deeper” with your major donor fundraising:
- Subscribe to the blog from Veritus Group. They are the best at setting up internal systems to do major donor fundraising well, and at understanding what major donors want from your fundraising.
- Call one top donor today just to say “Thank you.” The donor you call should be one you haven’t spoken to in a while. And to make it easy, here’s a simple script for you:
“Hi [DONOR NAME], this is [YOUR NAME] from [YOUR ORG] and I’m calling just to say Thank you. Don’t worry, I’m not calling to ask for money. But we haven’t communicated 1-to-1 in a while, and I want to make sure you know how much you are appreciated. You and your generosity have done amazing things! So thank you, and are there any questions you have that I can answer, or anything you’d like to know about what your gift has accomplished?”
I’m pretty sure you can take it from there.
But the trick is to call at least one top donor today. It’s a small step. But a BIG step for that donor.
And you’ll be on the path towards a better relationship and better future fundraising results!