Nonprofit organizations invest a lot of time, money, and effort to acquire donors and retain them. This makes sense given that most nonprofits rely on donor contributions to stay up and running to meet their goals. But there is a very important metric of nonprofit success that is often overlooked and that is donor engagement.
What is Donor Engagement?
The term ‘donor engagement’ can mean a lot of things, all of them equally important. From a very basic point of view, donor engagement can be defined as the extent to which your donors interact with your organization.
How Do You Measure Donor Engagement
‘Engagement’ goes beyond just contributing financially, though that definitely plays a part. Some of the ways non-financial donor engagement can be measured through studying the following signs;
1. Number of Events Attended:
If your donors stop attending events, it may signal that they are no longer interested in engaging with your organization and therefore, are less likely to contribute in the future.
2. Their Response Rate to Communication;
This includes surveys, questionnaires and emails. Is your donor actively responding to your organization? If a donor isn’t contributing significantly financially but has high response rates, it could show that there is potential for them to help your organization in other ways such as gathering flag bearers.
3. Number of Hours Spent Volunteering
Nonprofit’s need volunteers as much as they need financial donations sometimes. An organization with a high level of donor engagement will have to spend less time looking for volunteers for their missions if they know they have a dedicated donor base willing to get involved.
4. Level of Interaction on Social Media
Likes and comments may seem inconsequential, but the fact of the matter is that the level of interaction between an organization and its donor on social media speaks a lot. It shows that your donors are interested in keeping you as part of their feed and read through the content you post. This may increase the likelihood of them sharing this content and getting more people on board.
5. The Amount and Frequency of Gifts
Of course, we can’t rule out financial contributions entirely. One of the quickest and easiest ways to determine donor engagement levels is to monitor the frequency and the size of donor gifts. This can show if your donor’s engagement with your organization is stagnant, in decline, or growing.
Measuring donor engagement allows organizations to predict future habits and plan accordingly. If there is a high level of donor engagement from a particular donor, organizations can adapt their communication to maximize the use of resources on donors they know are interested instead of wasting it on other partially involved or interested donors.
Another way measuring donor engagement can be useful is by helping organizations identify potential donors who can be prospects for major gifts and advocates for recruiting others to join the cause.
Awni Shamah
Ashraf Samhouri