We’re currently in a time of much uncertainty due to the pandemic humanitarian crisis and the resulting economic downturn. Therefore, it’s more important than ever for your nonprofit to effectively organize and manage your internal affairs to the best of your ability. 

This means that your organization should take full advantage of your available resources in order to maximize your use of your technology, your fundraising, and (last but not least) your data. 

Maximizing your use of resources and information requires your nonprofit to practice effective donor management strategies. 

Effective donor management will help your organization ensure everything in your donor database is clean and organized, is used effectively to reach supporters, and can help you reach your overall goals. More than ever, reaching out to the right people, with the right information, is important.

We’ve compiled a list of six top tips that nonprofits can use to put effective donor management strategies into practice during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. These strategies include: 

1. Investing in an effective database 
2. Maintaining proper data hygiene
3. Showing appreciation for your supporters
4. Communicating effectively
5. Providing relevant opportunities
6. Reporting on progress towards your goals

Ready to get organized and maximize your effectiveness? Let’s get started. 

1. Invest in an effective database 

First things first, without the proper tools on your side, your nonprofit will have trouble getting organized and accomplishing your goals as efficiently as possible. As the central resource used for donor management, your nonprofit CRM has to be the right fit for your organization. 

But what makes an effective nonprofit CRM? 

The best way to answer this question is to first go over what makes an ineffective CRM for nonprofits. An ineffective CRM might have one of the following issues:

• It might have many functions and tools available that your nonprofit isn’t using or planning to use. 
• It might not have the right tools or functions that your nonprofit needs, forcing you to put together a piecemeal solution of different software to accomplish your goals.
• It might not integrate with your other software solutions, forcing your team to use a lot of valuable time to manually transfer information between platforms. 
• It might cost more than the technology is worth given limited functionality, technological issues, or an unresponsive support team. 

If your nonprofit is running into any of these issues, you may save a lot of time and money by beginning the search for a new nonprofit CRM solution. 

According to Salsa’s nonprofit CRM buyer’s guide, one of the first steps you should take when investing in a new solution is to set your priorities. Consider your daily activities, what you’re currently accomplishing, and any future goals. 

By doing this first, you’ll make sure you have the tools you need (and don’t overpay for those that you don’t) for both now and in the future. The process of setting priorities before entering the market will help you not to get overwhelmed by the fancy bells and whistles that you’ll encounter for each platform. You’ll know exactly what you’re looking for. 

Next, we recommend looking for software that offers built-in integrations and connections. Salsa’s CRM and fundraising and marketing platform, Salsa Engage, is one such example.   Salsa’s applications are built around Smart Engagement Technology, giving today’s nonprofits the ability to make data-driven decisions. By embedding best practices, automation tools, and extensive reporting, your team can work faster and smarter!

Finally, make sure your software doesn’t break the bank. Set a budget for your investment ahead of time and be sure to keep an eye out for any hidden fees such as implementation and service expenses. 

2. Maintain proper data hygiene

Once you have the best software for your nonprofit, you’ll need to manage the upkeep of the solution. This means you’ll need to maintain proper data hygiene by effectively cleaning up any errors in your data on a regular basis. 

Accudata’s explanation of data hygiene defines dirty data as, “data containing errors, whether it’s outdated, incomplete, duplicated, or simply incorrect.” When you practice good hygiene, you regularly clean up any errors in your CRM and develop processes to limit the number of future data errors. 

To keep a clean database, here are some process tips that your organization can consider: 

• Run data inquiry queries (DIQs) regularly and frequently. These should help locate and fix any missing data points like no email address or an incorrect zip code format. While the ideal frequency depends on the nonprofit, you can find and decide this frequency by running them every week, then moving to every two weeks, then moving to once per month, etc. until you know how often your organization needs this type of maintenance. 
• Set database policies to ensure everyone treats data in the same way. All of your data should be keyed in the same way for consistency across the grid. For example, you may choose not to abbreviate the streets in addresses. Otherwise, you might end up with both 123 Nonprofit St., and 123 Nonprofit Street, in your database, which can become very confusing to those working with direct mail.
• Run your data against NCOA (National Change of Address) data on a regular basis. This can help you identify when supporters change their address or pass away, helping you make the best and most appropriate decisions for each situation. For example, you don’t want to bombard the family of a deceased supporter with additional fundraising requests. Instead, you may choose to send a sympathy card to show respect for the family of your supporter. Many nonprofit CRM systems offer NCOA processing as part of the application.

Without effective data hygiene, your nonprofit runs the risk of sending improper communications, overwhelming people with too many fundraising asks, or sending incorrect information to a supporter. None of these has a good outcome, so avoid it with proper data hygiene!

3. Show appreciation for contributions 

One of the most easily implemented donor management tips is using your data to show appreciation to your supporters. This is especially important during these difficult times. As donors may be more financially stretched, their donations are even more appreciated. And as social distancing guidelines and additional safety precautions are shown, volunteer hours (especially for those on the front lines) are even more precious. 

Your nonprofit should show your supporters just how important they are and how much you appreciate them going above and beyond for your mission. 

Use the data in your donor database to show the impact of the gifts given and contributions made to your organization. For example, you might tell a donor: 

Your contribution of $100 has helped provide meals for 50 school children in your community this week. With schools closed, children like Sandy often worry about where their next meal will come from, but your donation has ensured that they’ll get a nutritious meal every day.

Exemplifying impact helps supporters realize that their gift had a true impact on your mission, which not only shows your appreciation but also makes them feel good about the difference they’ve made. 

You can show impact by including specific details from your nonprofit’s data. In the above example, there are details such as the donation amount, the number of children helped, the location where the funds were used, and the name of a specific child who could have been directly affected by the gift. 

4. Communicate effectively 

Just as your nonprofit should use your data to share appreciation and impact of contributions made by your supporters, you should also use data to ensure all of your communication strategies are up-to-par. 

Communicating effectively requires you know something about the individuals with whom you are conversing. The best way to use your data to ensure this is to segment your supporter audience into groups. 

When you create these segments in your donor management software, keep in mind that you’re doing so to personalize communications with supporters. Then, you can create groups according to the qualities and information that will make the messages appear most personal. For instance, you might create segments according to: 

• Donation level. Chances are, you probably talk to your low-level donors very differently than you do your major donors. With major donors, you might email them specifically and individually, including information regarding your past conversations and their past campaign input. However, with low-level donors you may decide to email an automated thank-you message after their contributions to make the process faster and easier. 
• Communication platform preferences. Communicate with supporters based on their preferences for how they want to be communicated with. For instance, some supporters may prefer email communications while others may prefer talking on the phone. Understanding these preferences allows your organization to reach more supporters. 
• Contribution type. If you’re talking to volunteers, to donors, or to advocates, your message might appear very different. For instance, you might explain upcoming volunteer opportunities to your past volunteers, future campaigns and projects to your donors, and legislation progress to your advocates. 

Open and ready communication is important during tough times. By proactively having discussions with your supporters and maintaining honest and open lines of conversation, you’ll show them that no matter what’s going on in the news, keeping up the relationship you have with them is still at the top of your priority list. 

5. Provide relevant opportunities 

When your data is well-organized, your nonprofit can use it to create relevant engagement opportunities for your supporters to participate in. Having saved data from your past campaigns and engagement activities, you can make informed decisions about which supporters will be most interested in your new initiatives. 

For example, among your younger supporters, you might find great success in a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign in preparation for a virtual 5K event. However, your older supporters may prefer to get involved with a direct mail giving campaign. You may even identify certain types of campaigns that are not of enough interest to your supporters to make them worthwhile repeating. 

Having this type of data can help your nonprofit decide which campaigns will be most successful among your supporters and around which groups of supporters. 

In order to draw these types of conclusions, you’ll need to draw on data in your donor management or CRM system and any other fundraising or marketing tools that you are using. Plus, all of that information should be formatted in a way that allows for easy comparison between each type of campaign. This is why a multi-faceted fundraising tool can be incredibly useful for collecting and analyzing campaign data. 

This article explains how multi-faceted fundraising software, especially that which offers fundraising, marketing, and analysis tools can be used to your strategic advantage. Plus, it offers suggestions as to the top providers your organization could consider. 

6. Report on progress towards goals

When your nonprofit sets fundraising and philanthropic goals, it’s important to regularly check in on your progress toward each of them. By regularly checking in, your nonprofit can be sure you’re hitting benchmarks and objectives that will ultimately lead to the success of the overall goal. 

Make sure that when you set your fundraising goals, they’re directly related to your prospective philanthropic initiatives. Raising money simply for the sake of raising funds is not a compelling reason for your donors to give or for your fundraisers to ask for funds. Backing it by a philanthropic goal is the first step to ensure motivation that will help you achieve success. 

Next, you’ll need to recognize which data is most important and relevant to your goals. Consider the following data points: 

• Donation frequency for your annual fund: You may schedule pushes for your annual fund throughout the year. It is likely, for example, that the frequency of your donations increases around Giving Tuesday or other giving days. If you don’t see as big of a spike around these times as you expected, you may need to adjust your marketing for these campaigns. 
• Average gift size: Your average gift size tends to increase when your donor retention rate increases. This is because people feel a greater attachment and a stronger relationship with your organization, leading them to contribute more. If you’re focusing on increasing the average gift size, you may want to shift your focus to retention strategies. 
• Email open and click-through rates: If you’ve been focusing on improving your marketing campaigns, email rates are very important to keep an eye on. If your open and click-through rates are low, it may show that your organization needs a more intriguing subject line or a stronger call to action. 

As you can see, the analytics you pull can directly determine your organization’s next step to strengthen strategies in order to reach your goals. Create a strategic plan that prioritizes specific goals and then identify the metrics that you’ll use to measure your progress. If this is the first time you’ve tried this process, it may be worth it to consider investing in a strategic consultant to help you set goals and check-in points for those goals.

Effective donor management is key for your nonprofit to create and maintain relationships with your supporters, especially during these difficult times. Collecting, maintaining, and using your data effectively will help your organization to reach any goal that you’ve created regarding fundraising and stewardship strategies. With these six tips, you’ll be well on your way to creating a great strategy for the rest of 2020 and onward!

Gerard Tonti is the Senior Creative Developer at Salsa Labs, the premier fundraising software company for growth-focused nonprofits. Gerard’s marketing focus on content creation, conversion optimization and modern marketing technology helps him coach nonprofit development teams on digital fundraising best practices.