GUEST POST // 4 Donation Tools to Maximize the Donor Cultivation Cycle

Guest Post

Aug 25

By Peggah Azarvash of iATS Payments

The donor cultivation cycle is a model that represents the continuous process of identifying new prospects, turning them into donors, and launching stewardship strategies to retain them and bring them closer to your nonprofit.

Essentially, donor cultivation is an exercise in relationship building—and the art of effective relationship building depends on a variety of tools and best practices. For example, a robust donor communication plan is one of the cornerstones of donor cultivation and, subsequently, continued success for your nonprofit.

Fortunately, you don’t have to tackle the tough task of donor cultivation without help. There are plenty of software solutions you can leverage. In particular, we’ll focus on the following donation tools that will help streamline cultivation for your nonprofit:

Nonprofit Payment Processor
Online Donation Page
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
Matching Gifts Database

These donation tools will allow you to more effectively bring in online donations. Additionally, you can leverage their unique benefits to strengthen your cultivation strategies, steward donors, and retain support.

Nonprofit Payment Processor

Your payment processor is an incredibly valuable software solution for your nonprofit, facilitating the transfer of funds from your donors’ bank accounts to your nonprofit’s account. It is essential for virtual fundraising, as every purchase from your online store, digital event payment, and online donation is made possible with this software.

Beyond that, nonprofit payment processors can also play a pivotal role in the donor cultivation cycle. These systems collect precious payment data and donor information that can be used to create more effective outreach. For example, you might use past donation amounts to send more persuasive fundraising appeals or use donors’ names and personal information to tailor your messaging to them.

For best results, be on the lookout for an integrated payment processor. With integration capabilities, the payment processor can easily transfer and organize important donor data into your CRM. This saves time and money for your staff and helps keep your data accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible as you craft your stewardship strategies.

Additionally, be sure to research the security features of your payment processing tool. To keep donor data safe and maintain public trust in your organization, you need a donation processor that can prevent fraud. In particular, the iATS Payments guide to nonprofit payment processing suggests investing in a PCI-compliant donation tool with dedicated anti-fraud features, such as BIN and CVV2 verification.

Online Donation Page

Like your payment processor, your online donation page is a critical donation tool that allows your nonprofit to carry out virtual fundraising. The way your donation page is constructed can have a significant impact on the online giving experience and, thus, the overall cultivation of donors.

A disorganized or poorly-designed donation page can frustrate donors and even drive them away from engaging with your organization. On the other hand, an aesthetically pleasing, functional, and fully-optimized donation page makes it easy for new or returning donors to continue supporting your organization.

In particular, consider these web design best practices and page elements to maximize the value of this donation tool:

Optimization for mobile devices
Recurring gifts
Suggested giving amounts
Social sharing tools
In memorium dedications

For example, consider the Days for Girls donation page. Not only is this page easy to navigate, but it incorporates all of the aforementioned widgets so each donor has a streamlined giving experience that’s completely customized to their unique preferences.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform

In our modern age of digital communication and networking, virtual peer-to-peer fundraising has become a powerful strategy to acquire new donors and engage your supporters. From social media challenges to walk-a-thons, peer-to-peer fundraising is a flexible campaign style that invites donors and volunteers to take a more active role in the fundraising process.

Furthermore, peer-to-peer fundraising software can maximize the power of your campaigns by allowing you to better reach, communicate with, and cultivate donors. An effective peer-to-peer platform should:

Allow participants to easily customize and share their donation pages
Offer engagement tools such as leaderboards or fundraising thermometers
Automate donor thank-you messages and acknowledgments

As with your other donation tools, we also recommend opting for peer-to-peer software with integration capabilities. An integrated system ensures important donor data is automatically transferred into your CRM, streamlining future donor outreach efforts.

Matching Gifts Database

Matching gifts are a form of corporate philanthropy in which companies offer to “match” their employees’ donations to eligible nonprofits. This is where matching gift databases come into play. This tool allows donors to access a centralized system of information on thousands of matching gift programs and more easily submit their own requests for matching gifts.

This is not only a great tool to enlarge the size of the donations your nonprofit receives, but it can also encourage donors to give to your organization and engage with you in the first place. In fact, according to 360MatchPro’s matching gift statistics, 84% of donors say that they would be more likely to donate to a nonprofit if a match is offered.

To increase your incoming revenue and better steward online users into becoming loyal donors, opt for a matching gift database that can be embedded directly into your donation page. This makes it as easy as possible for donors to search for their employer, identify their employers’ matching gift programs, and submit a request—all without leaving the comfort of your online donation page.

Donor cultivation will always be a hands-on process, calling on your nonprofit’s team of staff to juggle many different strategies and projects to maintain rich donor relationships. However, the right tools and software solutions can go a long way to make your job easier and optimize your ability to inspire and engage your donors in new and exciting ways.

This guest post was written by Peggah Azarvash.

Peggah is a passionate iATS Payments’ Sales Executive with 10 years of experience, providing payment solution support and guidance to nonprofits.

Sherry Quam Taylor

Sherry Quam Taylor works with business-minded Nonprofit CEOs whose Strategic Plans require expansive budgets and larger amounts of general-operating revenue for growth. To become investment-level ready, Sherry helps leaders see their revenue potential and helps them see what may be blocking donors from giving in this way. Sherry’s clients know how to attract larger donors by solving the funding challenges at the root of the issue.

As a result of learning her methodology, Sherry’s clients become sustainable, diversify revenue, and know how to add significant amounts gen-ops revenue to their budgets. But mostly, their development departments and board have transformed into high-ROI revenue generators – aligning their hours with relational dollars and set free from the limitations of transactional fundraising.

Sherry attributes the success of her business to her passion for modeling radical confidence to the future CEOs in her house - her two college-aged daughters.

https://www.QuamTaylor.com