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Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Mission Retainable: How to Inspire Donor Loyalty with Wendy Mercurio of Bloomerang
00:32:00
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- [00:01]
Julia Campbell
Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. This is Julia Campbell. I am so excited to be here with you, whether you're listening to the recording, whether you're listening on the Nonprofit Nation podcast, or whether you're live here on LinkedIn with us today. So the theme of today is donor retention. Now, we know that donor retention is more than just a fundraising metric. It's the key to nonprofit sustainability. But retention rates remain stubbornly, stubbornly low. And so in this episode, I'm going to sit down with Wendy Mercurio, market researcher at Bloomerang, to discuss the findings from Bloomerang's latest report, Mission Retainable Research Backed Strategies to Inspire Donor Loyalty. I will post the link so you can get that report. I will post it into the comments and, and in the show notes for the podcast. And as a former development officer and development director, Wendy draws upon her nonprofit experience to create informative and inspiring content for the Bloomerang audience and beyond. So there's so much to talk about today. Wendy, welcome to the LinkedIn Live. Welcome to the show.
- [01:17]
Wendy Mercurio
Thank you. I'm happy to be back. This is like my, I think my third time on with you. It's always so much fun. Thank you for having me.
- [01:23]
Julia Campbell
Yes. And there's always so many new amazing research reports. So much is coming out from Bloomerang that's pretty exciting. This report, Mission Retainable, can you provide just maybe a quick overview of the new report?
- [01:39]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah. So the synopsis of it is it's called Mission Retainable. And it launched about a month ago. Right. This past February. And we conducted our surveys late fall, early winter. And we had over 1,000 donors, we had over 380 fundraisers. All give their input on donor retention to learn a bit more. Right. We wanted to know what's working and what's not working. And we were really excited to create this research back guide for fundraisers to help, you know, keep donor retention top of mind in the new year.
- [02:11]
Julia Campbell
To keep it top of mind. I think it does kind of get sort of pushed down because of donor acquisition. And we're so focused on getting new donors, getting new donors, you know, creating ads, creating campaigns, creating fundraising campaigns, sending email appeals. So I think that's really interesting that Bloomerang decided to focus on donor retention, which I think is the backbone of any sustainable fundraising program.
- [02:39]
Wendy Mercurio
Right.
- [02:39]
Julia Campbell
So the report highlights several things, just some statistics that I thought were interesting. 63% of donors give because they feel connected to a mission. And even despite that, retention rates remain stagnant. And why do you Think nonprofits struggle to maintain this connection after that first gift?
- [03:05]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, I mean, so many things. I think we've kind of already hinted on it. Right. But limited resources, limited time, this huge pressure for acquisition. I can hear my past board members, right, like asking where the next major donor is, asking where we're going to find more donors. In the survey, we actually had a write in response, which is a lot to go through for me, but it provided a lot of really valuable information. And the common theme amongst fundraisers was we need someone to focus on donor retention full time. We just don't have the resources to make that happen. I really think the TLDR is that donors really need to know the impact that they're having and they're missing that, you know, feeling connected to the mission being a top priority, why a donor is giving. And 65% of donors, we found, are valuing those regular impact updates. And so they want to know the results that they are helping support at the missions that they're giving to. And I think it's not only communicating impact, but it's communicating and using the right channels. Right. And so we found this report that email and social media is not going anywhere. Right. That's always going to be a powerhouse. But we found a pretty big disconnect with texting, which I thought was really exciting from our donors. It was the third most selected channel of communication, so it was number three. Yes.
- [04:30]
Julia Campbell
Wow.
- [04:31]
Wendy Mercurio
And we found only 13% of fundraisers are texting their donors. And so I think kind of like thinking about my past experience as a fundraiser, right? Like sending out maybe it's every Friday, it's the end of the week. A good news text. Right. Julia, thank you so much. Your donation helped us do X, Y and Z. And it's just ensuring that our donors are feeling seen, they're feeling that connection, and we're delivering it in the ways that that's getting to them. Texting has a huge open rate. It's like 95% in the first five minutes. So, I mean, you can't beat that. We have distracted donors. And so to get right into their hands literally is ideal.
- [05:11]
Julia Campbell
How can we overcome our fear of annoying our donors? Now, that's something. A common theme that I hear from my clients, from my students when I'm talking to them about donor communications, whether it's via social media, whether it's via email, or even just old fashioned phone calls or letters, I hear, oh, well, I don't want to inundate my donors. I don't want to annoy my donors. And I think what we're finding with the, you know, first time donor retention rate, which is as low as 19%, we might be doing something wrong here. So how do you, how can we communicate more effectively or how often should we be communicating?
- [05:53]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, I mean, if we think, if we're thinking about really well engaged donors, there's a cycle there, right. It's asking, it's thinking, it's reporting, and then it's repeating that again. And so if we're really reporting, well, that's what donors are engaging with. So if we're focusing on messages of impact, we know that's going to be well, well heard and understood by our donors. I also think it's important to like bring into the conversation that the average American has like a seventh or an eighth grade reading level. Right. And so I see it sometimes in some appeals that I get where it's this great wall of text. Right. And although I'm sure it's like really beautifully written and contains so much love and really awesome stories, it's not going to get red. Right. And so thinking about the impact that we're delivering and in like micro snackable little bites that our donors can just kind of like chomp into and get something quick from it. And so I don't know if there's necessarily a cadence. Right. But I think it's focusing on a balance of communication, different channels to do so. And even, I mean, we had some survey questions around donor surveys. And so using that information, right. We can ask in those surveys, how do you want to be communicated with? And so if someone says email, we can take their word for it. Right? They want to be emailed. Let's, let's communicate with them that way. So yeah, I think it's a multi, multifaceted approach there.
- [07:18]
Julia Campbell
Right. And I think it's important to understand there's really no one size fits all. And really this is a research report that's just showing donor preferences and, you know, things that nonprofits are doing that are working and things that maybe donors want. But for, you know, Mary says our donors don't supply their phone numbers. Well, then potentially they don't want to hear from you via text. Right. So that's fine. Like, I think the whole key here is to increase, you know, transparency, increase the impact reporting. Those are major factors in donor retention. So what are some ways that we can maybe talk to our donors or find out how they want to hear from us?
- [08:02]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, so I talked about donor surveys. I'm amped about Donor surveys right now. Right. In so many ways. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's some skepticism around it. Right. I know a lot of people kind of, you know, aren't necessarily bought into this idea and I would kind of bring forward like to some for profit brands to the table. Right. Like I just got a email today from my pet insurance company. Right. Like, so it's a common practice that for profit brands do and our donors will not be unfamiliar with. They'll know, you know, to participate. And I think also for us, the information we get out of those surveys are beneficial. Right. But even just knowing who's participating is awesome. Right. Like that's a hand raiser saying, hey Julia, I love your organization so much. I'm going to participate in a survey. Right. Like that's really exciting to a fundraiser. And so using that to kind of know, okay, I should probably contact Julia some more and maybe set up a time to chat. And even thinking about surveys is not, you know, a huge thing that's going to take five or 10 minutes of people's time. We can think about it in teeny tiny little chunks where it's one question at a time and to really create a culture of participation in our supporters. Right. If they know when I, when I give or at the end of a newsletter, I'm going to get a question. Right. It just creates that, that muscle in our, in our supporters of participating and providing feedback to us.
- [09:30]
Julia Campbell
Oh yeah, absolutely. I like Jenny's comment. I used to worry about texting donors. Now I started doing it with several. They're very responsive.
- [09:38]
Wendy Mercurio
So yay.
- [09:39]
Julia Campbell
I would say for me, I'm a monthly donor to several organizations and two of them send text messages. But it's very sporadic. It's very, you know, this is a reminder on Giving Tuesday or a thank you or you know, it's, it's definitely not every day or even every week or every month. So I think the, the piece that's missing here maybe really learning about what your donors preferences are and the different generations might have different preferences. Like younger donors might want to receive text messages. Older donors might still really prefer snail mail. And you know, our responsibility to kind of be meeting donors where they are. Do you think, do you think that, you know, how can we best do that with limited resources? Like what are some, what are some practical low cost ways we can improve donor retention without literally physically going through every single donor and calling them on the phone and thanking them? Because I don't think that's always possible.
- [10:45]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah. And I think we can start with knowing our tools really well. Right. Like a CRM has so many capabilities and so much information on our donors. And it can be really overwhelming if maybe you inherit one that you're not familiar with and you have that learning curve, or maybe you inherit a messy database, which is like the worst thing in the world. Been there, done there, got the T shirt. That's the worst thing ever. But, you know, knowing the people behind the tech, right. Like I speak from my, my experience the last few years at Bloomerang and Q Give, Right. Like, we are your biggest cheerleaders and we want you to fundraise really, really well. And so if you're a small team, right. And you're having some trouble with your tech, reach out. Right. Like, we want to support you, we really want to amplify your donor retention rates, your fundraising results. So, yeah, I mean, I would encourage folks to reach out to the CRM. We want to be, you know, part of your team in a way. And then we talked about donor surveys. Right. This is another low lift way that we can create this culture of participation, knowing our donors deeper. Right. That's really where we're going to have those personal relationships that's going to be absolutely paramount.
- [12:00]
Julia Campbell
Mary had a question. I want to know your thoughts. I have some thoughts on this. So software solutions propose automated connection with our donors. But is that really connecting?
- [12:12]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, I think it absolutely can be. Right. There's definitely some really basic automated things that come with a CRM that can feel robotic and cold. Right. To your donors. Thank you for your gift to our organization on this day. And that's it. And so using personalization in tandem with these tech tools, we can know, well, Julia always supports, you know, this campaign or Julia gave to us because of this reason. Right. And we can tailor our communications that are then automated. Right. To donors in that group. And so, yeah, I don't. I think it's a yes. A yes and Right. Yes, it can feel that way, but it doesn't need to. Right. We just need to put a little bit of, of time and effort behind those communications.
- [13:03]
Julia Campbell
I would say if you have the time and ability to handwrite a thank you note to every donor, absolutely do it.
- [13:11]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah.
- [13:11]
Julia Campbell
The other thing I would say is that if I'm an online donor and I'm making a donation at 2 in the morning, I need to get that response immediately after I make that donation. That's what we talk about when we're automating those kinds of connections, getting that email receipt or even I seen, I've made an online donation. I get a little thank you video immediately that is automated, but it's still a way, it's a little more personal. And it's either the executive director or the development director. And it feels a little bit more personal than just getting a receipt. So think about ways that you can automate certain processes because you're not going to be online sending manually sending thank yous At 2 in the morning, hopefully not. But how can you make that automated process a little bit more personal and make it a little bit more of a connection? And that's what people are going to really remember. So these are really, really great questions, people. So everybody keep putting your questions in the chat. So the report, the report also mentions that 42% of nonprofits are open to adopting new technologies for retention. I was kind of dismayed that that number was so low. But you talk about things maybe like predictive analytics and automation, like getting into the weeds. What are some ways, like, what is like a first step to adopting these new technologies for donor retention if you, if you're kind of feeling overwhelmed by all the technology out there?
- [14:55]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, I mean, I think there's really at least, you know, in my experience, there's really quick notifications that you can receive, right, Saying, hey, we have a donor that is at risk of lapsing or this is your lapse donor. Right. And that's, that's a high priority, right. If you have someone that hasn't given in, let's say 10 or 11 months and they're about to fall off, that's the opportunity for you to hop in, right. And have either personalized phone call, tailored communication for that. And so it doesn't have to be like this crazy, you know, digging through data, really intensive, you know, search through your, through your database. It can be, there's a lot of tools that it can do, right. So it can identify your at risk donors, your lapse donors. You could even identify donor capacity, right. Maybe they have, have the ability to increase their gift and you can have some insights on that. You know, also automating routine like donor acknowledgements, receipts, even tax receipts. At the end of the year we can, we can get that automated. And so ultimately the biggest benefit of that is repurposing your fundraising time, right. To have more of those sit down conversations or tours of your organization, or focusing on donor retention in a more personal way.
- [16:18]
Julia Campbell
Absolutely, I completely agree. I think it's all about saving time. It's about taking tasks off your plate so you can spend More time doing things like in person donor visits or phone calls or even crafting like really wonderful thank you letters or appeal letters or thinking about creative campaigns and all of the different things that go into it.
- [16:40]
Wendy Mercurio
So it's really that impactful video that you mentioned. Right. You just said like how impactful a video was that takes time to do. And so.
- [16:47]
Julia Campbell
Right. I mean, this video really was someone just probably with their webcam saying thank you so much for your gift to this particular campaign. You know, we're on track to, you know, we're on track to hit our goal. It was just very simple, but it was, it elevated that thank you a little bit in a way that was unexpected. So I think any way that you can change expectations or you can challenge expectations and do things, you know, not the way that maybe the donor has always seen it or expected it is always really great. Let's see, how do we figure out this is, this is something that this is like goes back to. We have imposter syndrome. We think we're annoying our donors. Right. So Richmond Community Services asks how do we figure out what platform is best to keep them in the loop as the difference in age groups makes it hard to track. Is it okay to send them regular updates via emails or newsletters? How do we keep track of whether it hits home with them or not? And if not, at what point should we stop? A lot in that.
- [18:04]
Wendy Mercurio
That's a lot in that. I'm trying, I'm trying to hit it all here. Yeah. I mean, we know that impact updates, like a newsletter. Right. Are going to be something that is opened and read. Right. That's going to be an impact update that is worth our time. We have found that in many reports. Actually, it's funny, the Generational giving report, which published last August, we found. Yeah. So very relevant for this. I can get you a link too. Very relevant for this. But we found there was a section in there called the Omni Generational Findings and it was eight universal findings. One of them was the importance of a newsletter. And so, yeah, I would start there and you know, keeping track of whether it hits home with them. If we're sending it out via email, let's look at our click through rate and just see how the engagement is there. And I think the word of the day for me is survey right now. But can we send a survey after and say one question and say, hey, Julia, did you enjoy our newsletter? What, you know, what would you like to see? Or what did you enjoy? You know, that information that we get from our constituents is really valuable. And so not being afraid of that is a good way to take a pulse. If that newsletter is landing the way that.
- [19:22]
Julia Campbell
That you want it to, and they're just. They're literally is. No, one size fits all. Okay. So you could send an email every week. 90 of your subscribers could love it. You could get one person that complains, and that's the one thing that you'll be thinking about all weekend. And I know that very well as a marketer and a communicator, and I think we have to put that kind of thing in perspective. So if you're sending a regular email newsletter and you are getting, you know, a crazy amount of unsubscribes, you need to think about it. But if you're getting one or two or three, every email newsletter, I wouldn't stress out about it. I wouldn't worry about it. It's just, people change jobs. Maybe you're just not for them right now. Maybe they still love you, but they just are getting too many emails. So we tend to overthink and think that we're communicating. But as this report is showing and as all of this donor retention information is coming out, donors are not hearing from us enough. They are not hearing about the impact of their gifts. They're not hearing about what's actually going on, and they kind of feel out of the loop. And I think that's almost all generations are feeling that. So I think the way to be communicating with the different generations, you know, I would pick two methods of communication based on your bandwidth. If you have a marketing department, that's great. If you're. If you are a volunteer executive director, there's going to be limitations on what you can do. So taking into account your bandwidth, but also just really, I want to stress that donors are communicating their preferences and saying they want to hear impact stories, they want to hear from us more often, and they want to have more meaningful connections. So, you know, how can we best. How can we best give them that? Right.
- [21:09]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah. I think something too important to note, too, with the unsubscribe rate is to, like, also know where you are at. Right. Like, if you haven't. I'm going to speak from my own experience.
- [21:20]
Julia Campbell
Yeah.
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Wendy Mercurio
I came into an organization after there was no donor retention efforts happening at all. And so any communication that I was sending out, it was the first time these folks were hearing from anyone in a very, very long time. And so unsubscribe at that point is going to happen. Right. Like, that's an inevitable thing to kind of shift, shake off some of the dust that's happened from the last few years. And so also, knowing where your organization is, I think is really important and knowing how. How much you should be taking that unsubscribe rate to heart and taking it home with you. Like you mentioned, Julia. Yeah.
- [21:56]
Julia Campbell
So the. The report suggests that retention should move from being transactional to relational. So what does that shift look like in practice?
- [22:06]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, I think first, like, focusing, shifting our mindset. Right? Shifting the focus. We've talked about, like an acquisition treadmill in a way, right? It's more donors. It's more donors. It's more donors. We're not taking into consideration the cost of acquiring a new donor versus retaining a new one. Going out and finding a donor is going to be five times more expensive. Right. And so this really is such an important thing to focus on. And so, again, if we're focusing on acquisition, retention is never going to be our priority. So finding the balance in our time to nurture our current donors is going to be really, really important. And so if we're, you know, asking, asking, asking, that's not going to be a symbiotic relationship that's going to cause the unsubscribes, which we're talking about. You know, I think about sometimes. You know, I've made a donation the last year, and I was so excited to give this organization, and I never really heard from them again, and it was really disappointing. And then when I get that ask six months later, you're like, what is this? You kind of forget about it, right? And you have to reorient yourself. And so you know that that form of transactional fundraising is not serving all parties, right? It's not serving you as a fundraiser. It's not serving your donors. And ultimately, it's not raising the funds that. That you need it to. And so focusing and shifting the mindset to asking, thanking, reporting in the ways that our donors are going to get and then repeating that cycle, you know, truly, truly knowing our donors and seeing their gifts not just as the means to a bottom line. Right. Or a fundraising goal, but knowing the intention behind their gift and why they're giving. The emotional connection is the way to really have those really powerful relationships with our donors.
- [23:57]
Julia Campbell
I love that. This is an interesting question from Bailey. Have you ever found success in hosting a webinar for your donors and community to learn about your work?
- [24:12]
Wendy Mercurio
That's a great question. I haven't, but I almost wonder if that would work really well. For a really widespread community. Right. If you're maybe a national organization or you have a large territory.
- [24:23]
Julia Campbell
Yes.
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Wendy Mercurio
I'm wondering if that could be really beneficial. What do you think, Julia?
- [24:27]
Julia Campbell
Yes. So I had a client fight colorectal cancer, and they're a national organization and they do advocacy campaigns, a lot of advocacy work. And they also do a lot of research and they do webinars. I mean, they call them like zoom city town halls. And they're just big zooms where the executive director gets on and shares a little bit about what's going on. What are the top three priorities? You know, where do the don are the donations going? Like, what is the research being funded? What is the advocacy being funded? So they had really great success. And I've seen several other sort of national organizations do well with that. If you're a local organization, I think you could try it, and I also think you could record it, put it on your website, send it out. I mean, so people don't have to necessarily be there live, but they can send in their questions maybe and get their questions answered. And they can, you know, it's a resource that you could use for the future. You could also do a LinkedIn Live. You know, you could do, you could do an Instagram live, a Facebook live. You could do, utilize social media channels for something like that. I think the key is just to, I love the idea, like, I love the question, because the thought here is, how are we going to communicate with our donors? And that's, I think, what. What we should be going for. I think that's what we should be going for in this conversation. So I want to pull out another piece of the research and the report. So the research highlights three common traits of high retention nonprofits. So that's nonprofits that retain a high amount of donors, personalization technology and consistent communication. Now, personalized communication was cited in the report as the most effective retention strategy. So, Wendy, what are some ways that nonprofits can implement, like personalization at scale? Because it seems to be very effective.
- [26:38]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah. And so the foundation, I think, for effective personalization is going to be good data. Right. So starting there. And I think there's kind of two parts to this. Right. If you are a little baby organization and you're shopping for software, really figuring out what your needs are. Right. And trying to find one that you're going to be able to grow with, I think is the first part. But then also conducting and regularly scheduling on, on a regular basis, data cleanup. Right. And so you. The information that you're going to pull out of whatever you're using, whatever tools you're using is only going to be as good as what goes in. And so whether it's quarterly or every other month, or it's once a, you know, twice, twice a year, whatever that cadence is that you're doing, that data cleanup is going to be really important. I think that will depend on how fast your organization is growing, how many constituents you have. Right. And finding out what, what feels best there. And then we want to dive into the ways that our donors can be grouped. Right. So what's their given history? Do we know that they support a special event or a campaign each year? Maybe they've responded to our survey and they've given us some information. Are they a volunteer, first time donor, new donor? You know, there's so many ways that these folks can be segmented and then we want to tailor our communications to these folks preferences. We don't need to be rewriting these 10 different times for 10 different segments. We have. Right. We have AI tools and things that can kind of aid in that. And then we want to do it again. Right. Like it doesn't just stop there. It's. It's a continuous cycle of bringing new donors in, finding their interest, really deeply knowing them and then adding them into this, this journey that we've created.
- [28:21]
Julia Campbell
I totally agree. And what are some of the trends, looking ahead that you think will shape the future of donor retention?
- [28:29]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, I think mobile friendly, right. Retention efforts, I think with Gen Z especially liking peer to peer strategies for how to retain them as a peer to peer supporter and then retain the supporters that they're bringing in. We learned that in the generational giving report and we talked about videos. I think short form video content for that acknowledgement for that recognition is going to be I think really, really popular moving forward.
- [29:03]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, no, I totally agree. So how can people find out more about Bloomerang? We know they can get the report. I've been putting the link in there, it's pretty long. I will put the link in to the show notes of the podcast and then you know, I will try to shorten the link and put it in the comments of the LinkedIn. But you can also go to Bloomerang's website to find that. But where can people connect with you, learn more about donor retention strategies and the kind of work that Bloomerang does?
- [29:36]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, head to the Bloomerang website. We have a really extensive resource center. We've got webinars, we've got guides like Mission Retainable we can help you solve any fundraising challenge that you're working on. Head to our socials as well. Bloomerang Social, that's where we're posting all of our new resources like mission retainable, all the things happening with our product and our work. And if you want to reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn, Wendy Mercurio, or shoot me an email. Wendy Mercurioomerang calm.
- [30:06]
Julia Campbell
Okay, same with me. You can find me on LinkedIn and, and send me an email if you want access to any of these resources. And you can always just go in the show notes or go in the comments, but this has been really, really wonderful. Any sort of last thoughts, last tips, some last words of advice for nonprofits struggling with donor retention?
- [30:28]
Wendy Mercurio
Yeah, I definitely encourage folks to go download the report. It really is such an important time. There's so much happening at the federal level that is quite overwhelming. There's a lot of things happening in our sector that I think, you know, now is the time to focus on donor retention. It's sustainability for organizations. I just thank everyone so much for attending and for listening to me. And thank you, Julia, for, for having us. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you.
- [30:54]
Julia Campbell
We did get one more question. This always happens as we're wrapping up a platform or specific short form video vehicle. I mean, for me, it's probably cap cut to do short form video that you can then put on Tick Tock or put on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts. You can also use it for YouTube Shorts. I'm not sure. What do you use, Wendy?
- [31:18]
Wendy Mercurio
Well, I know if you do short form video, I mean, if you're looking to send video acknowledgments specifically, I know if you're using Bloomerang, you can use our app and do it through the Bloomerang app. So that's a good start. But I don't think it has to be anything fancy. Right. Use your phone and send it out that way. Yeah. Keep it. Keep it simple.
- [31:37]
Julia Campbell
I agree. Keep it simple. I think that's a great place to end. Thanks, Wendy. And I hope everyone will find you, contact you, learn more about you. But thanks so much for being on the show and sharing your advice and expertise.
- [31:53]
Wendy Mercurio
Thank you so much, Julia.
- [31:55]
Julia Campbell
All right, see you soon. Bye.