Recruit New Donors

S I S T E R D I S T R I C T S U M M I T

About Me

👋 Haley Bash (they/she)

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💛 Founder/Executive Director, Donor Organizer Hub

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🛠️ Began as volunteer fundraiser

Goals

Will Do

Learn frameworks and practices to recruit new donors for your group

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Share follow-up exercises for your group to do together

Might Do

Hear recruitment ideas from participants

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Answer questions live

Won’t Do

Give quick fixes (if only they existed!)

Recruitment Types

Think of a cause you’ve made a donation to for the first time recently.

What’s 1 reason you donated?

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Share in the chat!

Reasons People Donate

• Someone asked them
• Reinforce their identity as a principled and generous
• In some cases, prestigious/important
• Be part of community bigger than themselves
• Feel emotional relief: they feel guilty/anxious/angry
• Help themselves/loved ones: they feel directly connected to an issue

Sources: Kim Klein, Fundraising for Social Change; Bluem Ventures, 10 Reasons Why Donors Give

Source: Turnkey, Peer-to-Peer World: Community & Identity

Self-Validation Feedback Loop

1. We seek out groups of other people who share our values, ideas, interests

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• If this group is a good fit for us, these interactions reinforce our identity

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• The result is called self-validation feedback loop

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• This feedback loop builds trust, which makes us more likely to support the community and its goals (like donating and fundraising)

Communication Types

In order of impact on identity (lowest to highest):

1. Organization to donor (newsletter)
2. Donor to organization (reply to newsletter)
3. Donor to outsider (forwards newsletter to friend)
4. Donor to donor (community)

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When you focus on #4, you’re going to raise

more money and bring in more people.

Source: Turnkey, Peer-to-Peer World: Community & Identity

When donors know other donors:

• Their lifetime value increases as much as 4X-5X
• Their giving is resilient during economic uncertainty

Source: Joshua Birkholz, CEO, BWF

Example: Flip the Vote

• Raises funds for BIPOC- and youth-led orgs through Zoom and in-person house parties

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• Facilitates small group sessions for hosts to meet each other and share hopes and anxieties

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• Each house party generates 2-3 more house

parties

Case Study: Saddleback Church

• Built a church from scratch up to 20K members per week (8th largest in the U.S.)

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• Focused on “bridge” events that met people where they’re at and moved them up an engagement ladder

Source: Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Grow Your Message Without Compromising Your Mission

Define Your Target Donor

Become an expert on your target donor!

• Geographically
• Demographically
• Culturally
• Level of commitment to the issue

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Learn through 1:1s and surveys

Source: Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Grow Your Message Without Compromising Your Mission

Before People Donate

They want to know:

• Are they actually needed?
• What is the benefit in donating for them?
• What is expected or required of them if they donate?
• Will they make friends?

Source: Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Grow Your Message Without Compromising Your Mission

Growing Your Donor List

• Create an atmosphere of acceptance
• Monitor effectiveness on a regular basis by asking first-time donors to give their frank, honest first impressions
• Offer something they can’t get anywhere else

Source: Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Grow Your Message Without Compromising Your Mission

Take-Home Resources

• Reflection Prompts
• Empathy Map Exercise
• Recruitment Exercise

Reflection Prompts

• Who is your target donor - geographically, demographically, culturally?

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• What is their level of commitment to the issue you are raising for?
• Directly impacted and/or knows a lot
• Knows a little but not a lot
• Does not know about issue at all
• Knows about issue but does not care

Empathy Map

• Tool for teams to develop shared understanding/empathy for target group

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• Focus on one target person’s “Before” and “After” contact with your group

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• Enable stronger decision making in donor

recruitment process

Recruitment Exercise

People don’t have enough time to research/resources to donate.

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People don’t think they’re “ideal” donors (stereotypes of white, wealthy, “well-connected”).

Donors don’t feel they’re making a difference.

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People forget they committed to donate.

Barriers

Problem

Recruiting and retaining donors is challenging for grassroots organizations.

Recruitment Exercise

1. Brainstorm
2. Design Telephone
3. Share Out
4. Data Collection

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Minimum needed: 3 people, 15 minutes

Thank you!

Got questions? Contact: haley@donororganizerhub.org

Donor

Engagement Ladder

S I S T E R D I S T R I C T S U M M I T

About Me

👋 Haley Bash (they/she)

​

💛 Founder/Executive Director, Donor Organizer Hub

​

🛠️ Began as volunteer fundraiser

Goals

Will Do

Learn whats and whys of donor engagement ladders

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Overview activities, tracking/goal setting, and potential roles for developing a donor engagement ladder

Might Do

Answer questions live

Won’t Do

Give quick fixes (if only they existed!)

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Dive deeply into any one donor engagement ladder step

In 1-2 sentences:

How did you become a leader/member for your group?

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Share in the chat!

Donor Retention/Upgrading

Major

donors

Mid-level

donors

Small-dollar donors

Transactional/surface level/relationship based

Intention/ mission-based

Loyal/

identity

based

Source: The Funding Seed

Traditional Donor Pyramid

Dollars focused

Donor Engagement Pyramid

Commitment focused

Donor Engagement

• How attentive and involved donors are with your organization

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• Key to donor retention/upgrading and volunteer leadership

Transactional/surface level/relationship based

Intention/ mission-based

Loyal/

identity

based

Donor Engagement Pyramid

Commitment focused

Engagement Mindset

• We rarely know what a dollar means to a donor

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• People who give “small” donations often have unseen financial capacity

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• Transactional fundraising does not build movements or create meaningful change

Engagement Ladder

Newsletter signup, social media following, webinar/event attendance

First intro to your group (website, event tabling, etc.)

Forwards/shares updates from your group

Donates

Volunteers, brings friends/ideas to the table

Takes leadership role in group

Journal: Which step(s) are people getting stuck in your group?

Newsletter signup, social media following, webinar/event attendance

First intro to your group (website, event tabling, etc.)

Forwards/shares updates from your group

Donates

Volunteers, brings friends/ideas to the table

Takes leadership role in group

3 Psychological Needs for Well Being

🧰 Autonomy: To perceive that we have choices

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👨‍❤️‍👨 Relatedness: To give and receive care from others

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👩‍🔬 Competence: To feel effective meeting challenges

Source: Is Human Autonomy a Western Ideology or a Basic Need?

“I’m Too Busy”

• People don’t always say yes to our asks right away

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• “I’m too busy”/”I don’t know” can transform into yes if we understand why someone is hesitant

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• Example: “I’ve never fundraised before.” -> “That’s not a problem! We expect that this will be most people’s first time. We’ll

train you and answer any questions you have. Do you

have a specific thing you’re concerned about?”

Base Building Activities

1. Strengthen group relationships
2. Bring new donors into your group
3. Strengthen existing donors’ identity with your group

Base Building Activities

• Cultural events
• Political education events
• Listening sessions/focus groups
• Lunch and learns
• Happy hours
• Trainings
• Half “action parties,” half social time
• Friend bank, phone bank, letter writing

Source: Momentum

Scale of 1-5:

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What would you rate your group’s experience with base building activities? Share in the chat!

My group has tried NONE of these

My group has tried ALL of these

1

5

Example: Force Multiplier

• Hosts point of entry events without fundraising

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• Makes 3 asks of attendees:
• Host a point of entry event
• Become a Multiplier
• Join email list for invitations to Zoom fundraisers with candidates and orgs

Tracking & Goal Setting

• What do/will you use to track donors’ progress?
• Start small and improve over time

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• What are 3 most important metrics? (Review progress on them weekly together!)

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• Where are people getting stuck?

Potential Roles

• Recruitment Lead
• Welcomer
• Data Lead
• Fundraising Coach

Take-Home: Efficacy Primer

• Efficacy: an individual’s belief in their capacity to reach specific goals
• Self-efficacy: They are capable of helping.
• Response efficacy: Their voice will be heard.
• Collective efficacy: Acting together is more effective than acting alone.
• Collective response efficacy: The solutions we're pushing for will solve the problem.

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• Prompts that support building donors’ sense of efficacy

Take-Home: Journey Map

• Tool for teams to represent

supporters’ experiences and

emotions within the organization

• Initial awareness -> taking on a

leading role

• Includes touchpoints with the organization, pain

points, and emotions

• Helps understand supporter’s perspective and

identify areas of improvement

Journey from viewing newsletter to becoming relational fundraiser

Gets forwarded email from a friend

Attends group virtual intro session

Donates

Gets follow-up from volunteer to set up 1:1 for answering questions and sharing volunteer opportunities

Joins fundraising team: takes role as relational fundraiser

Takes a break from making dinner to check email, sees it’s forwarded from friend and clicks link

Sees a group of volunteer leaders confident in sharing their story and group. Listens with shyness

Clicks on donation link in follow-up email from event and gives $25

Gets an email from a volunteer. Asks how they decide which candidates to support. Learns about different teams in the group

Commits to raising $1,000. Gets connected to a buddy. Gets invited to a follow-up meeting

“I’ve never really seen myself as an activist. Thank God they’re doing all this work!”

“I don’t know who is in charge. I’m confused about what I can do to help. I’d like to support in ways I can.”

“I’d like to support what these committed people are doing, but I don’t have the experience or time to help.”

“Who is this person? Finally, I can ask the questions I have. Maybe I can help.”

Can I do this? I’ve never done this before and they have so much experience. I wonder what my friends will say.

Anxious, overwhelmed

Guilty for not doing more, grateful

A little relieved, a little less alone, but still unclear if making a difference

Shy, relieved, I matter, some nervousness

They believe in me. Supported. Nervous about talking to friends and family

Include testimonials of current donors/volunteers so people look relatable to them

Allow people to share intros in the chat and share why they joined in breakouts. Create a sense of why–why is this group different?

Follow-up email that shares ways to plug in/stay updated. Thank you call from volunteer.

Person conducting 1:1 must feel relatable - concerned community member like them.

Buddy system to help people prep for fundraising asks to friends and family. Small group support meetings about how to make fundraising asks and get support.

Share in the Chat

What’s one thing you’re taking away from today?

Peer Coaching for Volunteer Fundraisers

• 3-month cohort (Apr-Jun)
• Application open through Monday, March 11

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donororganizerhub.org/peer-coaching

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Questions? Contact: haley@donororganizerhub.org