retaining your members
DESCRIPTION
It's imperative to have a strategy to retain your members and donors, but few organizations have one. Learn why retention can be more important than acquisition.TRANSCRIPT
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RETAINING YOUR MEMBERS
Why It’s Imperative to Have a Retention Strategy
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• Ryan King
• Channel Marketer for Arts and Cultural
• @Wryan_Ki
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• The State of Donor and Member Retention
• Should I Retain or Acquire to Grow?
• Where Do I Go from Here?
AGENDA
The State of Retention
80
85
90
95
100
105
110
Donors Dollars
New
Lapsed
According to the 2012 Fundraising Effectiveness Report published by AFP, in 2011, for every 100 new donors that organizations acquired, 107 were lost. For every $100 raised from new donors in 2011, $100 was lost due to donors lapsing.
New Donors are Hard to Find
900
950
1000
1050
1100
1150
1200
1250
1300
New Donors
According to research from Target Analytics, from 2001 to 2007, cultural organizations were seeing 5% growth in new donors each year. However, from 2007 to 2010, that number changed to -2% per year! By 2010, you were back to 2004 acquisition rates
Steps to Acquire
Acquiring new donors requires time, energy, and resources. To acquire a new donor you need to identify them, engage with them, and then ask them.
Steps to Retain
To retain members, on the other hand, removes the identify step, often the most expensive step. You already have people’s attention. They recognize your name and so your job moves from “attention getting” to “delighting.” In comparison, these activities are much cheaper than acquisition activities, more rewarding, and often easier to measure, based on how often they are used.
1 Level Set
The first step is to find out where you stand. Ask questions and run reports to see where you are losing members and donors. Is it certain membership levels? Age groups? Gift size? Your donor and membership software should be able to run these reports easily. Spend some time digging around to identify where there is room for improvement. Identify 4 or 5 areas you want to review with your team.
A membership activity dashboard in Altru, Blackbaud’s membership and ticketing software for arts and cultural organizations.
2 Strategize
Get with your team and review your findings. Share the areas that you’ve identified for improvement and prioritize them for the rest of the year. I recommend focusing on two or three of the five segments you identified in Step 1.
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound
Before leaving this step, make sure you define success and set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.
3 Execute and Track
The last step is to Execute your plan and Track the results. Reference your SMART goals as your definition for success and keep track of key metrics that will help you accomplish your goal. Schedule regular review meetings with the team that is working on retention and review your progress.
As with the previous reports, your membership software should be able to easily run reports to help you track your progress. The reports you see here are from Altru, Blackbaud’s membership and ticketing software for arts and cultural organizations.
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QUE S T IONS
For additional questions, contact us:
P: 800.443.9441
W: www.blackbaud.com/altru
Ryan King
@Wryan_ki