Host: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Go Beyond Fundraising podcast. Today I’m sitting back down with Ryan Carpenter and Trent Ricker to continue our conversation on donor experience and specifically, how as nonprofit organizations we can guide new donors and existing donors along the right pathways to get them to the right relationship that you want them to have with your organization, depending on their affinity and capacity they have with your organization. 

Ryan, I’d love to go to you first. Summarize what we talked about in the first part of this conversation to get us up to speed on where we want to go next, which is looking at those donors who we have identified as being prime for a kind of closer relationship with your nonprofit. So, that could be a sustainer relationship, mid-level or some other kind of upgraded ask. So, if you could just get us up to speed on where we left off, I think that’d be a great place to start. 

Ryan: Yeah, thanks. Our last podcast, we talked about new donors and their opening experience with your organization. What are the appropriate steps to take to make sure that new donor becomes a continuing and key multi-year donor? And that was really talking about the nuts and bolts behind a sound welcome series and also recognizing what the ultimate value is and what kind of experience you want to provide these donors. And so that’s where we’re segueing into this podcast today — talking about the optimal donor experience, because you want to understand who the right people are for the right experience. And that’s going to have a benefit both to your donors and the way they feel value about your organization, but compressing the time to realization and time to value about what these donors can become to you as a supporter, how they can support you, how they want to support you and what the ultimate potential is. 

Host: Thank you so much for setting us up really well there. So, Trent, I’d like to go to you next to riff on this topic of donor experience and compressing that time to value. A topic that you brought up as we were preparing for this conversation was the idea of precision marketing or precision fundraising. And it’s playing into that idea that Ryan introduced of compressing that time to value so that the people that you need to have crucial conversations with, you can have those conversations sooner, while they’re perhaps the most kind of activated and passionate about your cause. 

Trent: Yeah, there’s been a few things over the last several months as we’re evolving in the engagement with our donors that are becoming evident. We’ve been doing this for a long time. Both at the agency level and got a lot of folks at AGP that have served on the client side. And we continue to see evidence that acquiring donors in traditional fashion is becoming increasingly challenging. We have to be more resourceful. We’ve got to be a bit more innovative, and we hit on that in our last episode. So, when we do target and acquire new donors, we steward them effectively. And now we’re taking it to the next level, which I think is really important. 

So, a few concepts we talked about in the last podcast — how retention is the new acquisition, so to speak. And that really led to the importance of strategic segmentation so that you can maximize the lifetime value of those supporters that are most aligned with the mission of your organization. And then I like what Ryan’s talking about here as it relates to this compression of the time to value. So, if we’re talking about lifetime value, there’s a first-time gift. We want to lead to that next engagement. And I think in this day and age, it’s moving beyond mass communication. I think for quite some time, our market has felt like we’ve had a calendar-affected campaign structure. The new donor might then be dripped into a newsletter campaign. Maybe, dripped into some campaigns as it relates to fundraising. All are important, but what we want to get across today is aligning the donor signals of wealth screening, behavior, interests. 

When we know about the supporter who’s now become a donor, how do we align that with mission moments and drive intentional growth? How do we educate them to get that next desired action? And this concept of precision marketing has been out for quite some time. We’ll weave in some of those stories. We talked about them in our last episode related to “If you bought this, you might like that.” Amazon did from way back. Netflix does a wonderful job. If you like this sort of show, you might like that sort of show. That’s all technologically driven content, as it relates to precision marketing to get you to do something else and to stay engaged. And our nonprofit friends need to, I think, adopt that. 

I’m a big fan of an old book. I can’t remember the year it came out, a very long time ago, Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing. The premise of Permission Marketing was threefold. You want timely, relevant, and personalized communication with your customers. And Godin’s instance is kind of the advent of email. I think it’s more important now than ever because of the ability to do that technologically. I think that donor expectations in general are rising. In alignment with what the consumer expectation and experience that they have. They have limited attention span. And we also have some economic uncertainty as well. So, the relevant offer connecting what we know about this new donor relative to the mission of the organization is really important. 

And Ryan, I’m thrilled to have you lead this charge for AGP, leading our donor engagement. And let’s talk a little bit. Ryan, I want to throw it back to you. What are some examples for our audience that relate to the next desirable sorts of actions after that first gift that we might want that new donor to be taking? 

Ryan: Yeah, I know. This is what I love to do and what I’ve been doing since I’ve been working with nonprofits for well over a decade now is really understanding who your donors are. And it’s not only for the benefit of the organization. We all want to raise more, but really, I work primarily with mid-level programs, and I’ve always felt very strongly that they were underserved and they weren’t being appreciated to the level that they should be. Look, if you’re giving $1,000 to an organization each year, you’re not going to get a name on a wall or anything like that, but that’s really meaningful. And so, for me, it always was important that we are treating and respecting these donors the way they should and deserve to be. But meanwhile, that then has the outcome of helping your organization because they feel like they’re being heard, and they’re valued. And guess what? That’s going to make them want to support you at a greater level. There’s also other factors that go into that though, such as when a new donor comes on file and I’m working with a number of our clients on a variety of programs through donor engagement — whether it’s identifying sustainers, identifying mid-level or planning giving prospects — these are all just a handful of examples. 

We have the benefit of having our fundraising intelligence platform, GivingDNA, which allows us to blend our clients’ donor data with our own external, “third-party data”. It’s external insights. And that allows us to really understand who our supporters are. And they’re not all the same, right? And so, they’re not all the same. We don’t want to treat them all the same. We don’t want to communicate and offer them the same opportunities to get involved or give at various levels. Again, rather than back in time, when everybody would get the same pieces of mail every month, we can’t do that anymore. The expectation is higher. To your point, consumer expectation is higher. And now donor expectation is to have a personalized offer to give to them. And that’s going to make them want to communicate with you more. And so, we’re trying to recognize as people who come in the organization, who are those most likely to convert and then become sustainers. 

And there’s a lot of indicators through either augmented intelligence, along with just tried-and-true strategy, that our experts here that have been managing sustainer programs for decades know that’s a key insight that this person is likely to take you up on that offer. And so, for something like a sustainer ask, rather than sending out the remit form and everybody has a little checkbox to make that gift monthly, that’s fine — you’re going to get some small uptick on conversion. But if you are able to identify a subset of your donors that, based on their giving patterns to other organizations and some other demographics that we use, are more likely to convert to sustainers and then have a more targeted message that you’re actually talking to them about the need and the benefit to both the organization and to you, Mr. and Mrs. Donor, to be giving on a recurring basis, right? For some people, it’s just much more efficient. They prefer that. They don’t want to forget about you, and the organization, obviously. We’re losing donors every year, at least since 2019, year-over-year. We want the best way to retain them is through getting people to give on a recurring monthly cadence. And so, that’s just one example of the approach we take. But we also do it for a variety of different strategies, identifying that next mid-level donor because mid-level there that’s your most loyal donor that the natural transition from annual to mid to then major, right? 65% of your major donors started at annual. We’re trying to elevate them in a natural way but it’s all about targeting the right people with the right ask. 

Trent: Let me back you up on that a little bit here, Ryan, too. We talked about this a little bit, and I want to remind our audience. So, let’s talk about the importance of that second gift. What does the data tell us about the lifetime retention or likelihood of having a more loyal donor when we get to that second gift? 

Ryan: Yeah, it’s a pretty big increase, right? Every year, historically, the average retention across the board is around 43%, at least if I refer back to the last couple of Giving Institute reports and FEPs. So, right there, the expectation is if you’re around 40-45%, you’re doing pretty average. However… That’s driven by your key multi-year donors. First-time donors typically only retain at 20, 22%. Right, one out of five donors. However, If you get a second gift from your new donor, the retention triples to 65%.So now you’ve dramatically increased. You’re going from 20% to 65%. And that’s why it’s so important to have that well-thought-out welcome series, providing them with a meaningful experience. And that’s just step one to building that relationship. But getting that second gift then triples the likelihood of retention. And again, the reality is we’re all losing donors as an industry. And so to your point, retention is the new acquisition, and we want to retain and upgrade as quickly as we can. 

Trent: And this is where I want to push back on, I think, a narrative that data can tell a falsehood if you’re just doing business as usual, right? So to the argument, if only one in five give a second gift, if we relied upon that data, we would say that four out of five are really not loyal and are not aligned with our mission. There’s a fallacy in that. That’s based upon what you’re currently doing to cultivate those donors. 

By the way, let me say, episodic donations are not a bad thing. We welcome them. If somebody is giving a gift through an event to the niece who’s in the event and it’s a one-time gift, there are episodic gifts that I think are going to be fantastic. We should take those donations and put them to good use. But I think it’s a fallacy to just presume that business as usual is that people would give one gift and that four out of five wouldn’t be retained. To your point, there are things that we can do to drive towards that second gift. 

You talked about the event of the second gift tripling the likelihood of them being a loyal, longer-term donor. I’ve also seen, and I think for many of our clients, the time by which that second gift happening creates even more exponential longer-term return. So, for instance, if that second gift happens in the first 30 days, versus the next 30 days or 60 days. Versus 90 days versus later than that, then the longer that goes, which makes some sense, right? So, that makes — going back to our first episode — cultivation and stewardship after that first gift is critical. Would you agree with that? 

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. The sooner you get the second gift, the better, to your point. A lot of organizations will get the second gift throughout the year, and they may wait until the end of the calendar year. So, whether you made a gift in April or June, it’s not coming until October, November, or December. And that’s going to lessen the likelihood of them retaining. You want to get the second gift as soon as possible. So, whether that’s in 30, 45, 60 days, that’s really the sweet spot for it. 

And just going back to one thing you said earlier, I love disrupting business as usual because just because that’s the way we’ve been doing it, doesn’t mean it’s the way we should be doing it or the way we can. And so, when I work with our clients, I really want them to stretch their limits and try new things that are proven, but not necessarily something that we just came up in a meeting, but things we’re seeing being used both here at AGP or other great examples out in the industry. And if you have the capacity, give it a try because these strategies, combined with all the new data resources we have, can allow us to be much more intelligent and nuanced the way we communicate and segment our donors out. 

Host: Something that occurred to me, Ryan, about along those lines of getting that second gift is really a great opportunity to put an offer in front of a new donor that is more relevant to their interests, right? So, let’s say somebody gives a gift to your organization because they’ve come in through various channels and you’ve been able to learn a few things about them in the process of that first gift. And then in that second gift, if you’re able to put something in front of them, whether it’s a program that you offer that seems to be more aligned with their interests or even an ask amount that is more in line with their capacity, that could potentially make that donor giving that second gift feel more seen and known and help cement that loyalty. 

Ryan: Yeah, it’s not just that welcome series. This is an ongoing strategy and approach to ask and understand from your supporters who they are, what they care about, to then continue to tailor that experience. And it’s not going to be a one-to-one for your 10,000 active donors, but it’s going to be a one-to-several different tracks and cohorts. So yes, it begins with the welcome series. Part of that is surveying them and asking them why they supported you. If you have a level of capacity to reach out and personally steward and engage with those high-value new donors, which is a strategy we employ. We know you can’t reach out to every new donor if you have a thousand of them a year. But what if we could tell you who the 50 most philanthropic and wealthy were, to reach out to them and take that time to better understand what they care about.  

That process is just going to continue. Once you get the second gift, we’re going to recognize who are the sustainer prospects. We’re going to do that through data that we’re receiving on them, external data, but also those people that are making the second gift relatively soon, that’s part of it as well. The frequency of giving, right? Not all old strategies are wrong. RFM is a great tool. We like to use that in addition to all the other newer resources we have. We’re constantly recognizing, okay, you’re part of our donor file now. Recognize what you care about. Either you told us directly, or we have information that tells us what type of programmatic work is most meaningful to you, and then it begins, understanding what is that value to the organization and also the experience. 

So, the experience to me is twofold. It’s the experience that the donor most wants to receive, right? Both from a cadence and a channel, but then also the experience of as an organization, do we recognize that they are more likely to be inclined to become a sustainer? Let’s really focus and double down on that and target this group of donors with that. Or are these our next mid-level donors and we’re going to really begin to personally and a personalized approach, nurture and cultivate and get them to — sooner than later — join our mid-level, whether we have a giving society or not. 

Trent: Yeah, I think that’s important. I think what we’re talking about here in donor engagement is moving the donor to a subsequent gift, hopefully becoming a sustaining giver — whether that’s through a formalized monthly giving program or someone who regularly gives. If you do not have a sustaining giving program, you should. That should be an option that, again, from consumer behavior, people have an expectation that if they want to be able to support you, they should be able to do that regularly and easily. And then moving them from that component to mid-level is very important. And that’s where a lot of your experience is, Ryan, as it relates to that. 

I want to come back to something that you said. If we go to the cursory way of what had been the longstanding strategy has been RFM, recency, frequency, and monetary size of the gift. So, many campaigns are built on, boy, we’re going to send this campaign to donors that have given to us in the last year or two years or we’re going to send this campaign to those that have given us up to $250 we’re going to suppress those that have given more because we’re going to do a different campaign. I think those are familiar to most people in our audience. 

But let’s go back to how Ryan, maybe you can describe for our audience how in GivingDNA we take the donor campaign data, very important, right? Extremely important donor data. We can take campaign history, the responsiveness of that. We go get third-party data, as you referred to, and that’s becoming more accessible and less expensive, so it allows us to reach further data points where we can refine. Now, I think we’ll come back to this in a minute because we could go down a big rabbit hole on this, but I think for us at GivingDNA, there’s so much data. Determining which data points from that third party are most relevant for nonprofit organizations. 

Ryan: Absolutely. 

Trent: Giving, philanthropy, and then the type of organization is something that we’re constantly evolving with. But there’s a third element that you hit on and I want to talk about because I think it’s very important related to true donor engagement, cultivation and lifetime value. And that is these behavior interest profiles or the response behavior. What are they interested in? We don’t, it’s not giving data. It’s not something we can go by from Experian or Axiom or something else, but it’s the relevancy of somebody who might have a relationship with your organization or the mission of your organization. Talk to me about some of the examples of those data points, where we get them, and how we can capture them so we can apply them effectively. 

Ryan: We have a variety of interesting data that comes in that tells us, for instance, what types of causes they like to support based on a variety of information that we uncover on these people. We can tell you people that are more likely to become volunteers because they’re involved in their community and local charities. On the flip side, which of your peer-to-peer donors are actively philanthropic and respond to mail? What you said a few minutes earlier about there are periodic episodic donors. We’ve all worked with international relief organizations and disaster donors are a real thing. They come in when they’re most needed. But what if I could tell you that we can now understand which of those disaster donors or peer-to-peer donors are actively philanthropic, they have an affinity for causes like your own, and they may be worthwhile to incorporate into your direct marketing campaign on a consistent basis. That’s being efficient and taking advantage of this insight so you don’t just sit there and say, I can’t mail any of these peer-to-peer people. They’re just giving out to their aunt or I don’t even know why they would support. That’s going to be a waste of money. Mail is expensive. Now we can tell you based on interests, external giving behaviors, what they like to support, the channel that they’re most likely to respond to. Here are people that you can target for these communications or bring into your direct response campaigns going forward. 

Trent: And so we add to that too, I think, how people respond in surveys or in particular campaigns? We’ve done a lot of campaigns where there might be videos and vignettes of videos that would have an inclination of the type of interest that somebody might have. So for instance, I know we’ve worked with some hospital organizations. The donor might be interested in supporting research. They might be interested in hearing something. They may be interested in better care for those that have been diagnosed. Those pieces of information are very relevant. They can give us insights as to how we may be able to communicate with them. Back to this concept of precision fundraising, the more that I can communicate with you on a relevant basis, the more likely you’re going to respond positively to my communication and hopefully continue to give gifts in a loyal fashion. 

Ryan: I mean, I could go like three, four different ways with this, but I’m going to try to stay within the vein of what you’re talking about. So we had worked with a few years ago, working with a community hospital, and we did a test based on what we know about your donors and what other causes they actively support, rather than sending all of them, I think it was just about brain cancer research. We have this subset we know have veterans living in the home and support veterans related causes. Let’s message them about the work you do to support PTSD and help vets come in. And that worked really well. And it was just a good example of understanding who these people were. Their families were, what they care about, what they give to. So at a hospital, I don’t care if it’s in a large national org or community hospital, you have a variety of programs, great work you’re doing. But if you’re going to talk about something that maybe they really don’t care about versus something that’s very important to them and close to home, think about how they’re going to respond to that. And they did respond extremely well. I don’t have the metrics off the top of my head, but it resonated much further. So, it’s that type of tactic. 

And then one other thing I’ll say about that is channel preferences. So one of the things that’s really cool and I think unique to GivingDNA — but I was doing this way back in the day, based on how people were giving to the organization — is understanding where you’re going to meet them. 

And so 12 or 13 years ago, I was looking at the channel they made a gift through, then making a determination — was it omnichannel, was it email, was it mail — and then we’re going to make sure we hit them with the pillar campaign through this channel. Or if we had budget constraints, these people weren’t going to get the mailing. Now we get data that tells us where people are transacting, right? Where they’re buying things or where they’re making gifts. And the rate at which they’re doing so tells us based on their behavior, where you’re most likely to meet them. And this works wildly successfully. 

We’ve had response rates through the mail over 25% because we knew the people that were most likely to receive a mailing and respond. That was for one of our hospitals, again, this past calendar year end. We’ve helped mid-level programs increase their connection rate on the phone by 40% because we knew these people responded to the phone, whether it was telemarketing or calling up after a DRTV campaign. And it’s really powerful stuff. And it helps us in this day and age with a proliferation of channels to understand where we can meet these people, where do they want to be met? And where is their behavior telling us that they’re going to be met? 

Trent: Yeah. I think for our audience, I was thinking about one example that made people might be familiar with Spotify when you think about how they collect information, right? They don’t take six months to figure out your taste. It’s been a long time since I’ve signed up, but I do have a recollection of when you first sign up, they ask a lot of questions right away to try to create your initial profile, if you will. And this is a kind of a relevance that we want our nonprofit audience to think about. If you think about it, and help me out with this, I think with Spotify, if I remember right. What types of music do you like? Rock, pop, hip-hop, and then some specific artists so that it gets you a taste profile pretty soon. Do you remember the same way? 

Ryan: Yeah, and not only that but — I use it and I have it open right now — it’s based on your listening history. It’s always updating. You’ll get emails from hey this group that you either listen to directly or to your point are similar to the groups or singers that you like, they’re having a concert in your area. 

Trent: So it becomes more advanced. It’s relevant. And I think your point of just building a more rich, robust profile on the constituent is critical. In that first phase, it’s like asking the donor, for instance, what they care about. Food insecurity, medical research, education. What are the sorts of things that you care about? And then tailoring communications from that. And your point, we can be direct in surveys by asking some specific questions the way Spotify does that earlier. But then they begin to actually watch what we would do that the same way and tracking email opens, event participation, donation frequency, those sorts of things. So Spotify might look at, you know, what songs are you skipping or what are you, I think there’s a heart icon or a thumbs up very much back to the day that Amazon did it. If you like this, there’s a high likelihood that you’re going to like that. They have lots of data on their listeners, right? So they’re using machine learning and personalization in a very high and way. 

For non-profits, what we’re asking you to do is to consider beyond just the RFM segmentation. Using tools like donor personas, GivingDNA, providing some engagement, scoring and some modeling to do the same. Evolving as the donor interacts with you more to create more relevance. And I would argue that AI has been a quantum leap for us to have much more specific precision messaging that was harder to do. Not impossible, more expensive and more difficult to do related to the iterations that we might otherwise write in an email or a text or a letter. It’s a lot easier now, isn’t it? 

Ryan: Yes. And I want to be clear on that. We’re talking about Spotify and Amazon. I don’t want our listeners to say, gosh, that’s not me. That’s not my organization. 

Trent: Good point. Not everybody has those budgets. But we can take some of the takeaways about how they’re engaging. 

Ryan: Yeah, let’s think about that. Say you have — I don’t know, three to seven programs, really key pillars — understanding which of those programs your donors care about. Now you’re not creating a thousand different messages to a thousand different donors, but if you can bucket them into who cares about this program, who cares about this, who’s in who cares about advocacy and then making sure you understand which of your donors are in those buckets, either through directly asking them on a periodic basis or relying on the external data available to you, which you probably are using. And if you’re not, it’s out there. So, it doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. Just creating a few different tracks of communication based on what you are learning directly from your donor and what else is out there, that’s going to give them a better experience. And then continuing that kind of flywheel with periodic checks and periodic outreach is going to only further strengthen that relationship. 

Trent: Just to put a cap on that, because I think for our nonprofit audience, it isn’t about having significant resources like Spotify might otherwise do. I think there are better practices. And we talked about in our first episode related to welcome series. Rarely are we just confronted with some commonsensical questions that relate specifically to the organization. Let’s say I gave to a cancer organization for the first time. Rarely am I then confronted pretty quickly to say, hey, what drove you to give today? And then I’ve got choices that might say a friend asked me. A friend or family member was recently diagnosed. I have been recently diagnosed or in honor of a family or friend that has gone through successful treatment. I’m just using those as an example. Wouldn’t that tell us something about how we would communicate? 

If the follow-up questions were something like, what do you care most about giving to cancer? Is it research? Is it cure? Is it treatment? Again, those two questions with multiple choice type, select as many as you care about. We can scratch our CRM database or put it into GivingDNA, and we can begin to segment in a way to provide more relevant communication that should lead to a more timely gift more quickly that leads to a compressed time to value and an increased lifetime value. And I think that’s what donor engagement is all about. 

Ryan: No, it’s not hard to really begin taking this donor engagement and elevated donor experience approach. To your point, how often are you getting something back in the mail after making a gift and asking you those questions? Those are things that we’re really promoting and recommending on a daily basis. Unfortunately, not everybody takes advantage of it, but you can start today. 

Trent: And I think the reason why people aren’t doing it, the most common excuse that I’ve heard that I think we need to overcome. One, most of our listeners would say, yeah, if I could do that and I could apply it, I don’t argue that I would get better results. All right. So, for our listening audience out there, what is the friction that’s preventing you? The most common answer that we get is, I don’t want to ask those questions because I don’t have enough bandwidth or dollars or time or resources to do something with it. So, I don’t want to ask questions and then continue to have a shotgun approach. 

Fair point, but how can we challenge that business as usual thinking to say what would have to change with either our internal processes or our partnership with our agency in order to have some more sub-segments related to those particular interests. And I’m here to tell the audience that it’s becoming a lot more accessible — finally, and inexpensive to do that as it relates to, I would say, multivariant copy in order to speak more relevant to the cohort that gave a gift. They gave their first gift last week as a result of having a family member diagnosed with cancer, and they care most right now about treatment. 

How would you then cultivate differently so that individual stays engaged with your organization such that they give multiple gifts to you and you become a philanthropic priority of theirs? Nobody would argue on this call that in the cancer space, it’s pretty competitive, right? So, it wouldn’t be uncommon for somebody to give a gift to the American Cancer Society or maybe City of Hope or MD Anderson or a local hospital that might be doing something related to a cancer awareness. So, it wouldn’t be uncommon to give to multiple organizations. How do we move that loyalty into a particular organization that’s going to be best suited? And that’s where data comes in and the more relevant strategic segmentation does as well. 

Ryan: Absolutely. And I should say more people are beginning to hear this and do it. So, you don’t want to be left behind because from a donor perspective and a donor experience, I’m getting more accustomed to getting more of that personalized touch. It’s not happening every day. Certainly isn’t. But it is growing and I feel like you said, Trent, with the tools and resources at our disposal, it’s going to become more commonplace. So, if you’re not at least trying to think about strategies like this, it could be at a detriment. It certainly could be. 

Host: When we brought up Spotify earlier, it sparked a thought for me, and it’s something that I think is relevant for the nonprofit space, especially when it comes to these topics of being more personal and relevant in our communications with donors. And that is at the end of every year, Spotify launches their Spotify Wrapped feature, which is where their algorithm puts together a kind of impact report. 

Trent: I love that. 

Host: Yeah, I love it. Everybody looks forward to it every year. When I go on social media, everybody is sharing on their story about what their top listened artists are, what their top songs were. And sometimes it can be a little bit embarrassing if you found you listen to nothing but one artist the entire year. Or like me, it’s like you listened to calming piano for the background for however many hours. 

Ryan: My Spotify rap number one artist was Taylor Swift in 2024. I have two daughters in grade school, so sharing that story. 

Host: Yes, I think T. Swift was on the top of many Spotify Wrapped in the last few years. But yes, and what’s so powerful about it, though, is it’s so personal, even though it’s an algorithm generating it on the back end. And I’ve seen other apps fall in line doing a really similar kind of end of year roundup, for example, Strava, which is a workout app, they’ll deliver at the end of the year, how many steps you took, or how many mountains you climbed and all this kind of stuff. And it’s really impactful. And it encourages you to be more loyal to the app going forward because you maybe want to see something different next year or you want to maybe branch out and explore new artists because maybe your Spotify raft is repetitive. 

And so, tying that back to nonprofits and the loyalty conversation, I think being able to deliver actual numbers of impact to donors and maybe not all of your donors. But if you have specific donors that you want to target with an upgrade, ask, whatever it is. I think being able to quantify what their impact has been and what it could be is really powerful. 

Trent: That’s great. It was 20 years ago. I worked with a large multi-affiliate cancer organization, one of the largest that there is. And they were trying to do what they called the Constituent Engagement Home Project. And this was back in the day when it was more of a destination on the website. But Ryan, you’ve supported us for a long time. Thank you for your loyalty-related to your volunteer work. You’ve been a captain of our event. You advocated, you’ve given X dollars. Thank you so much. And they were trying to figure out there’s a lifetime value that goes beyond just the dollars, right? We have those that are connectors. Somebody who might be a team captain could actually be the conduit to raise tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and we want to treat that person with the same VIP level as we might somebody who gives a fifty thousand dollar gift, if you actually think that through a little bit. 

But Leah, how cool would it be if at the end of the year we got an email that was just like that for Spotify. Hey Ryan, thank you so much for supporting us this year. Your 22 hours of volunteer work, your donations made this much of an impact. And we were pulling that together and almost honoring you and the impact that you made as part of our community. To your point, the loyalty that is felt to that I am part of a community. When I get that from Spotify, I always think throughout the year, I’ve got kids that might be listening to things, whatever else. But there’s this thought about, I don’t know if I really want to put on Pandora or Apple Music because then that might not be tracking the same way. I become much more loyal and focused with that platform, even though I might still have subscriptions. I’m not an active user on some of those other platforms anymore as my loyalty has increased with Spotify. And part of that’s because Spotify has done things like that. 

So, are they increasing the lifetime value of me? You bet they are. They’re monetizing that in different ways as well, to Ryan’s point, in the sense that they probably have partnerships. If I do go click on that link to buy concert tickets to go see John Mayer or whatever else, I’m guessing that Spotify is going to get a piece of that action or they’re selling that advertising, knowing that I’m a relevant listener of that particular artist. So, again, bringing it back to the nonprofit space, I really want to challenge today when we’re talking about donor engagement. In today’s day and age, for us to truly go deeper and have a higher lifetime value as opposed to what otherwise might have been, old-school acquisition. I’ll rent a list. I might have a front-end premium. I might get a gift, but it might be because the little old lady ran out of address labels and I’m not quite sure. Might’ve been an episodic gift. And then I would try to get that second gift and I would try to acquire more and I would try to increase my loss through a coverage ratio and all sorts of things that we talk about with our supporters. 

The donor engagement is critical. And in 2025 and beyond, the way that we engage in a relevant fashion to instill that loyalty is more important than ever. And we want to become — let me make this really clear — because it’s another part of my soapbox as it relates to becoming a philanthropic priority. How do you become a philanthropic priority of that supporter? People give to multiple organizations, but they have very few. You could count them on one hand where they have philanthropic priorities and some of them are set and forget. I still give very regularly to Compassion International and have over many years, having sponsored four children. That adds up over the years when you think about that. But I’m not as actively engaged with Compassion anymore as my own children have grown up 

Where else are my philanthropic priorities then as I’m growing older? The things that I care about evolve. Where are you then connecting with me so that I’ll become a more loyal supporter? 

Ryan: Yeah, and just thinking about that. Philanthropic priorities, you’re not going to be a priority for all of your donors, right? There are the episodic ones. But recognizing sooner than later — going back to what we started this podcast — recognizing sooner than later where those donors are and beginning to give the appropriate experience is critical, right? So, you know that you should be communicating with this group of people through the mail because they do care about you. The other group’s never going to respond because they don’t care about mail. And you know what? You’re very low on the list. You’re not a priority or you’re a one-time thing. 

So, I think that’s critical both for the donor’s own experience and as an organization to continue to grow. Because it’s getting harder to acquire these new donors. You got to retain the ones that you have, really put the focus on that. 

Trent: Ryan, let’s dive in, into mid-level programs and some of your experiences as they’ve been very calculated. You brought up recognition societies earlier, but there is an old school way, which can still work. But I think that let’s first define mid-level giving for our audience. We all know what it is. It’s different from organization to organization because in some organizations, a mid-level donor might be someone between a thousand and $5,000. A hospital might define a leadership annual giving or something in that area. And a true mid-level might be $20,000 to $100,000 before they get a major gift officer. That’s not uncommon. But let’s talk a little bit about how it’s evolved over the years and what your kind of current thinking from a strategic standpoint is to cultivate and then graduate into a mid-level program. 

Ryan: Yeah, mid-level programs are full of your most loyal supporters. They really are. If you look at retention amongst your different giving levels or giving programs, mid-level is always going to be the highest. Even if you’re not giving the most personal or personalized experience, those are people that have been on file for a handful of years, anywhere from three to 10 years. And through that, just a natural upgrade, now they’re all of a sudden giving between 500 and 5,000 or the very common one to 10,000. The reality of this is they are super important for a couple of reasons. One, your annual fund. We all have annual fund budgets. Guess what? Your mid-level makes up, I don’t know, about 20, excuse me, probably about 5% of the annual fund population, but a third of the revenue, right? So that’s a small group of people producing a big amount of revenue that helps you hit your annual fund number every year. 

Also, they are the next best prospects to major giving. However, say, as an example, you have a thousand mid-level donors every year, right? You don’t have the capacity in many organizations to reach out to all thousand of them to begin to develop that personal relationship, particularly because most of them aren’t going to be able to make a major gift, right? And so the programs that I have run have all been around donor advancement. And it’s understanding that amongst that pool of 1000 donors, who are the ones that I should be personally cultivating because they have the affinity for my organization, the strongest affinity and the capacity to not only go from 1000 this year to 7500 next year, but to one day in the next year or two, become a major donor. And we want to be proactively identifying major donor prospects. Gone are the days of waiting for that $10,000 check to come in and all of a sudden you’re assigned to a major gift officer. We really have to be smarter than that and proactive. 

And so, the approach has been mid-level is important. As I’ve said, I really believe that as a mid-level donor, I don’t care if your mid-level starts at $500, that’s a meaningful amount to give to an organization. You’re telling them that you care about the organization. And so, making sure you’re personally stewarding all your mid-level donors, you have to do it. That’s really, it’s easy to do as long as you can take the time each week to pick up the phone and call those people. But beyond that stewardship, you also want to recognize where is the value? Who, if I personally engage with on a consistent basis, am I going to learn more about? Am I going to give them the appreciation and the stewardship that they deserve? That’s going to grow that relationship. And eventually, make a major gift. That’s the approach. We’re all about being really strategic about who we’re focusing on. We’re also making sure we’re treating all of our mid-level with an appropriate level of value and stewardship. 

Trent: I think it’s important to note that in this day and age, people feel comfortable giving — those that can afford it — $1,000 through the mail or a credit card. They don’t always. In fact, some don’t even want a personal relationship. They would prefer to stay a little bit arm’s length from the organization. So, talk a little bit about the ask or raise. Where have you seen some of the upper limits of the ask as we start to move folks into that mid-level area? And again, knowing that our listeners might have mid-level programs that are anywhere from $500 to $5,000 or so, what sort of gifts do we see coming in unsolicited above the gift ask array and where are your recommendations as it relates to upping the size of that ask based upon what we’ve learned about the prospect. 

Ryan: Here’s the secret, right? The personal attention is all about stewardship and cultivation. You are not going in expecting to ask a mid-level donor that gave $5,000 last year to say I’m reaching out because I want to talk to you and then ask you for a bigger gift. That does not work. We’ve worked with clients, clients we still have that we still work with. When they switched over to the approach that we recommended about personally stewarding and cultivating these donors and strengthening the relationship, the next mail appeal that went out, you would see a gift upgrade from that donor. It’s all about building the relationship with these donors. And you can see every time I’ve done it, those donors at mid-level that we’ve personally spoken with, exchanged emails with, they upgrade their giving compared to those that were unable to reach. 

So it’s not about asking them directly. No, they came in through the mail and email. They want to continue with that. Unless they tell you otherwise, they like getting the mailers. They like getting the emails with the information. Now you may want to intersperse some higher touch impact reporting. I always like to do that. Take it from your major gift team. That’s the stuff mid-level donors really crave. But the focus should be on building a relationship, understanding what they care about, thanking them in a really honest way. And that is going to make them feel more valued with your organization. And then you don’t have to ask them directly. They’re going to make the gift, the larger gift. And yeah, we see them all the time. You’ll get it. You’ll have a donor going from 1000 to 7500. We’ve had donors that were in that 1-10K mid-level call in directly and say, hey, I want to make a gift. 

In fact, now that you got me thinking, we had an organization a couple of years back. They were in a very wealthy area in Texas. They had no mid-level program to speak of until we kicked off our mid-level accelerator, which was all about identifying the opportunity in mid-level. So what did they do? First email they sent, the director of leadership giving sent an email just saying, Hey there, donor. Really appreciate all your support. I’d love to hear from you personally. Respond, give me a call. Here’s my number. Here’s just a few things that we’ve been able to do through your support. It was four bullets. One was a news video that came out in the local news, a couple of other links to articles. 

Within a month, actually, first week, they got a $100,000 gift from somebody that had never given over $2,500 a year. None of these donors had given over $2,500 a year. Within a couple of months, they were then receiving five $100,000 gifts from four families. That’s pretty. Pretty impressive, right? So, we targeted the right mid-level people. We gave them a personal experience. The director of leadership personally emailed, had some links, thanked them for their support. Want to show you all about the great work we’ve handled thanks to you. And because we targeted the right people, they responded. We got an immediate $100,000 gift. And then over the next month or two, they have four more $100,000 gifts. 

Trent: That’s amazing. So to summarize some of that, what we’re talking about here is an intentional mailing or campaign or mid-level. So you’re mailing to that cohort that we think has a high capacity to give and an alignment with mission. We can find that through the data that we have. We can find the relevance to the mission through not just that third-party data, but some of the survey-type data. We want an offer that’s very compelling, urgent, emotionally resonant. And I think that’s what you’re talking about, Ryan, in the example that you were giving. Personalizing is very important. Upgraded format, smart storytelling. The other thing I think is critical as it relates to these kinds of larger gifts. You talked about this a little bit more to the high-capacity supporter that might give a larger gift through the mail. Combining it with that personal note or leadership involvement, some donors still use the mail to write these larger checks. It has not been uncommon for us to see these $25,000 plus checks come in from somebody who’s had no cultivation. 

And what kind of disturbs me at times is other organizations that wait for somebody to give the gift through the regular annual fund that’s greater than $2,500, then we’ll put them into a different segment and will treat them differently or assign them a leadership annual giving officer or something of the such. That’s important once people do that. What we’re talking about is proactively having the sorts of aspects that have premium formats, maybe some lift notes, some handwritten elements, some heavier stock, the sorts of aspects. I have a high-end credit card that has some premium benefits for travel. When they send me that package, it’s a premium package with it. The user benefits and the actual box that it comes with, when we think about these premium formats, are really important to drive those sorts of gifts. And the last thing I want to emphasize is something you talked about, being a part of a recognition society. Talk a little bit about that, because I think when we say join other leadership supporters like you that give $1,000, people feel like, this isn’t a reach and other people are doing it. I’d like to be a part of something. Talk a little bit about. 

Ryan: I’m glad you brought that back up because that was something you mentioned earlier and I wanted to talk about it. There’s a lot of power in having a society or a community of supporters and really not just having a logo that is slapped onto an email or a mailer. You have to reinforce that you are a member of this community. You are highly valuable to us. Because of you, we are able to further our mission in a really impactful way. And there’s a little psychology behind that because you’re telling them without you, we may not be able to do this. And so that’s going to subconsciously or consciously, they’re going to know they have to continue to give. And it’s just something that I think is really powerful because otherwise, if you don’t have a giving circle or society, what’s the community? “Mid-level” is just an internal term that we’re using. And then the donor themselves, they don’t really have anything to really grab onto or you share with them about. 

Trent: That’s why I really like the proactive approach of a mid-level strategy that is almost inviting you in. Hey, Ryan, we’ve appreciated your support so much in the alignment with our mission. Thank you. And because of your support, we’ve been able to do A, B, and C. We’d like to offer you a special invitation to join the legacy group here at XYZ Organization. Supporters like you who give more than $1,000 a year make this sort of impact. And together, all is possible, blah, blah. Now, when Ryan gets that and he feels like he’s been identified as first of all, the organization recognizes his past support. Second, he’s been identified as somebody who can do more. And if he does more, he can make a bigger impact. And by doing more, he’s part of an exclusive elite group. That’s a very important psychological element of giving. 

Host: I had a thought that I wanted to share, but I don’t know if it’s relevant. I was looking at some stats on giving as a proportion of income. And what I find really interesting is that folks who are in the lower income area actually give a larger percentage of their income to charity compared to people who are quite a bit more wealthy. And the reason I bring that up is because I don’t think that when we’re having conversations about mid-level, those are not necessarily the same groups of givers. But it drives home the fact that typically people are willing to, the less income they have, actually the more generous they are as a percentage of their income. And so, the point that I think is important for us to ponder as we wrap up here is that a gift means something different to the person who’s giving it than it necessarily does to the organization. 

And I think cultivating that curiosity about what is behind a gift and how somebody wants to interact with you is really important rather than just looking at the actual dollar amount of the gift itself, because someone’s life changes and their circumstances may change over the course of their relationship with you. But getting at the heart of why someone gives to you is really important and not something to lose sight of. 

Ryan: Yeah, just to confirm that for you, I had done a webinar a few years back with our colleague Whitney Norman. And one of the points I had researched was mid-level donors are giving a larger percentage of their income to nonprofits compared to major gift donors. That doesn’t mean major gift donors don’t care about the organization, clearly they do. In most cases they’re writing a large check. But for mid-level donors that’s partly what makes them so loyal — they are giving a larger percentage of their disposable income to your organization. And that’s where I get really bullish on the fact that you should be stewarding them and honoring them in a respectful way in the appropriate level that they deserve. 

Trent: That’s a good thing to end on, I think, because I’d like to challenge the audience to think about some of your messaging to this mid-level around sacrificial giving. It’s delicate, but I think if you tap into the purpose and the urgency, then there’s a meaningful gift beyond it. And how is your storytelling going beyond just the mission over money or the impact of the donor’s support, right? This is a moment to do something extraordinary, even if it requires sacrifice. You’ve made that choice in the past. We’re asking you to make it now. Also, acknowledging the cost too, because I think for those, it might be that they could always have easily afforded $500 or a thousand or $2,500. It’s okay. And in those cases, if people are writing a bigger check and they can afford it, for them to still feel like you’re appreciated in sacrificing. 

But on the other end of the spectrum, as we’re cultivating a kind of philanthropy and the next generation, or it really is a step up, I think some of those things are good in the mid-level ask, right? This isn’t an easy ask, but this isn’t an ordinary moment, right? Some of our most generous donors aren’t the wealthiest, but they’re the ones that gave something up because the mission mattered more. 

Those sorts of feelings in the mid-level program, I think can bring out quite a bit more, particularly if we have a bigger ask, right? That’s sacrificial. I like seeing the ones that balance, you don’t want to be exploitative. You don’t want to be insensitive, but when you ask, what would you give up to save one child. Put that way, suddenly the dollars aren’t the same. You could then from that say, for only $25 a month, you can do this. That’s a sustaining ask or from a mid-level, you could do more. 

So I really like how we’re framing this. I really like how we can think about the opportunity. I think in closing, Ryan, any advice that you could give our audience, if you don’t have a mid-level program, what advice would you give? And when I mean don’t have a program, you probably have one that’s reactive based upon the certain size of gifts and what you might do with it. I’m talking more about a proactive mid-level campaign strategy. What advice might you give to get somebody started today? 

Ryan: So one, you have to assess what the size of your mid-level is, and then your capacity to personally reach out to these donors. Not everybody’s going to have the same, but I would challenge you if you’re listening to look at how many of your donors in mid-level are coming in on a weekly basis. Can you pick up the phone and call and thank them? Start there. 

And then secondarily, look at what portion of your mid-level, you can make a really concerted effort to engage with and cultivate on an ongoing basis. That will be easier if you have third-party data to recognize what the wealth and giving potential is from these donors. But even if not, just look, hey, if I have a mid-level of 1,000 to 10,000 annually and I have 1,000 donors, can I personally cultivate the top 50 on an ongoing basis, and quarterly engage with them? 

And then make sure you’re personally steering it. Personal, outreach and then personalized — we can get into that with email that looks personal. That’s really going to have the lift. And then throughout those conversations that you have with them, recognizing what are the key themes and messages that are telling you, hey, this person might make a major gift. And again, if you don’t have the third party data to use, just hearing what they’re saying, then maybe have them qualified by a major gift officer or just meet to have a cup of coffee with them. Kick your mid-level into gear and help identify major donors rather than sitting around being reactive and waiting for that gift to come in. Because that could take a while.