Understanding Your Donor to Fundraise More Effectively

Sad Fact #1: Not everyone is going to be interested in your organization or your cause. It'd be great if everyone cared about everything, but we know that this will never be the case.

​With this unfortunate reality in mind, think about on whom you are currently focusing most of your development efforts. If the answer is "anyone with ears," you are probably wasting a lot of time and resources and not reaching your fundraising goals. 

Every organization is working hard to increase their funding so they can provide a bigger impact and enact change. But instead of working harder, we need to work smarter and set ourselves up to be able to fundraise more effectively. And one of the best ways to do this is to understand your donor.

To create a strategic fundraising plan, you first need to identify your current and prospective donor. Once you understand them, you can create an effective plan that focuses on their interests, needs, and expectations. This will narrow your focus and create a more defined method for engaging with your donors.

Defining Your Donor
In the private sector marketing world, there is a commonly used term called a “buyer persona.” This is a description of the "average" potential customer for a company, and it is a way to make sure all of their marketing efforts are being targeted to the correct audience.

While we don’t have buyers in the nonprofit world, we do have donors. And creating a “donor persona” of sorts can help your organization better fundraise to the people you are trying to reach.

Understanding your donors is important on a general level and an individual level. Let’s take a look on the best way to define both your individual donors and your larger prospective audience:

How to Define Your Comprehensive Donor Base
When defining your donors (which includes current and prospective) for your organization, remember to think general. Define common attributes that will help you find and connect with your prospects.

Characteristics to Consider:

• Interests/Hobbies: Think about their interests that relate to your organization. This helps explains why they would be engaged in your mission and programs/services
• Geographical Location: Is your organization serving a particular area or region? If so, most of your donors will probably be from or currently live in that location.
• Age/Generation: What age range does your organization engage with? Do you have a large age range of donors or does a particular age or generation connect with your mission more?
• Communication Channels: What is their preferred method of communication? If most of your donors are younger, this may mean email or text messages. Older generations tend to prefer phone calls or face to face meetings.

Note: Your organization has many different donors, so it will have many different donor types. Create as many descriptions as you need to encapsulate as much of your donor base as you can. You will never have every single one of your donors defined, but it will give you a better big picture sense of who you are trying to build a relationship with. 

How to Define Your Individual Donors  
Now that you have defined your general donor base,  it is important that you do the same with your individual prospects. At the most basic level, when you are working to understand an individual, you need to define their linkage, ability, and interest in your organization.

• Linkage: How is the individual connected to your organization? Any relationship that the prospect already has with the organization or someone associated with the organization is their current linkage.
• Ability: What is their capacity to give to your organization? Do they have the capability to give right now? And if so, define the frame of their ability as best you can.
• Interest: Most importantly, what is their interest in your organization? This includes general interest in the area you are working in as well as their current knowledge and interest in your programs and services.

Understanding and being able to define your prospective donors will help you focus on the most optimal and strategic fundraising methods for them. Having this information to refer back to can help you brainstorm creative and effective ways to connect with and build relationships with the people that want to support your cause.
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How well do you know your prospective donors? Have you ever created a "donor persona" or something similar? Share in the comments! We also love to hear your questions and concerns so we can continue to make our blog better for you.