Last week, I received a membership card from a nonprofit I’ve been supporting over the years. It said “Member Since 9/5/2001”. I’d been giving to this organization as long as I’ve been married! I had no idea.
Had I been giving every single year for the past 20 years? Hard to say, but honestly, not important. This nonprofit informed me that I’d been a loyal donor over a twenty-year period, and that their mission was as relevant to me then as it is now.
This is a deep connection, and this nonprofit cleverly let me know it.
Donors aren’t tracking their donations to your nonprofit as carefully as you are. Your CRM database is a powerful tool that you have and they don’t, and this very information can help your donor feel even closer to your mission if you use it right.
This is a particularly automation-friendly way to build a relationship with mid-level donors using the mail merge capabilities of your database. It turns the mirror back on your donors so that they can reflect on their support for your mission over the years. An opportunistic nonprofit can then invite this donor to make a deeper financial commitment. Either way, it’s a strategy that results in loyalty, growth, or both.
