7 Proven Ways for Nonprofit Membership Retention and Growth

Having a detailed donor membership program is an excellent method that nonprofits have started to incorporate to increase their donor retention rate. Nonprofit organizations depend heavily on these programs to ensure that they have a steady source of donations for their noble cause. However, while implementing a nonprofit membership program, you have to focus on reducing lapsed donors while acquiring new donors. In this article, we help you with the 7 proven ways for nonprofit membership retention and growth.

1. Understand what your donors want

Before starting your nonprofit membership program, know what your donors want. To achieve this, you can conduct a complete survey. Through this survey, you can understand what your donors want.

This will help in boosting your donor retention and donor acquisition rate. You can use survey services like Google Forms, Type Forms, or SurveyMonkey to get feedback from your donors. Based on this data, you can strategize your nonprofit membership program. 

2. Offer incentives for lapsed donors

Have you come across instances where you check out some product but fail to complete the purchase? In this case, the company will offer you some discounts to motivate you to complete the purchase. You can apply the same technique to retain your donors.

Start the process by preparing a list of donors who were once your regular donors but later on stopped donating. Now, prepare an attractive offer that they cannot refuse. Here are some suggestions:

• One month free membership
• Limited-time free access to your resources
• A free invite to a fundraiser

Offering a simple thank you note can play a huge role in retaining your donors. You can also send an email on how their contribution has made an impact on the beneficiaries. This will encourage them to make more contributions.

3. Create a multi-tier membership program

While creating the membership program for your nonprofit, you should realize that “One size fits all” never works. Every donor is different, and you cannot assume that one common tier is sufficient for all your donors. Hence, you have to create a multi-tier donor membership program.

You can leverage the information you collected through surveys to design the tier structure and the pricing of each tier. This will increase your chances of closing more sign-ups and ensuring long-term fund generation for your nonprofit. Further, you can also provide more options to choose from. For instance, along with offering monthly memberships, you can provide an option to sign-up for quarterly or half-yearly plans. 

4. Host donor-only events

When you are running a nonprofit, you have the chance of coming across several people who are keen to network. As your donors join your membership program, you can conduct several members-only meets or sessions. This will give an opportunity for your interested donors to network with new people who share common interests. It might even open doors for new opportunities for these donors. This kind of meeting also motivates them to continue their membership. 

Hence, conduct a members-only session at least once a month so that your interested donors will continue donating. 

5. Incorporate streamlined communication

Another tactic you can implement to retain your donors is to send targeted emails. For this, segment your audience into different groups. You can segment them based on their age group or the type of cause they prefer donating. Once your donors are segmented, you can prepare campaigns for each segment separately.

For instance, you can send an email to those donors who are interested in a particular cause. This will motivate them to continue with their membership program. 

With GivingX, you can create custom fundraising campaigns that will help you to design and launch your emails right away.

6. Automate the renewals

According to stats, adding auto-renewals to the membership program can increase the retention rate of your donors, and there is an increase in the probability of them continuing with the donation. This will also prevent any kind of glitch in their noble cause. Hence, we recommend renewing the membership of your donors automatically. 

The auto-renewal option also helps in avoiding lapsed donors. It will also save you time when you have to remind your donors continuously about the membership and focus more on the priority tasks. 

7. Award your donors

When conducting a survey, you need to collect information on their interests. This information will help you in rewarding your donors. You can offer targeted discounts to your donors based on their interests. It can be anything! Just send an email rewarding them with a discount. It can even be a discount to a community library. 

Your donors do so much for your cause. Even a little attempt to reward them will make them happy and encourage them to donate more. This will increase your donor retention rate, and there are higher chances for your existing donors to refer your organization to others. 

About GivingX

GivingX is an online fundraising software that assists nonprofits in accumulating funds for their cause. With GivingX, nonprofits can effortlessly track all the metrics associated with a fundraiser. The stunning custom fundraising software automates nonprofits’ tasks and helps them to shift their focus to more significant tasks. We understand that every dollar counts where it could change the lives of someone. So, our fundraising platform costs 1.45% of the Platform Fee for using the software. 

Features of GivingX

• Create an online donation page and build custom donation forms that you can embed in your websites.
• Digitalize your system so you can create contact and volunteer forms that are embeddable on your website.
• Free unlimited integrations where you can integrate with more than 5000 third-party applications through Zapier.
• Launch custom landing pages to make it easy for your donors to go directly to the donation page.
• Manage everything related to your donors and record every interaction with donor management CRM.
• Make it seamless for your donors to donate for a cause now through 125+ secured payment gateways.
• Expand your nonprofit’s visibility by enabling automatic language translation. Through this, your donors can understand the cause in their native language and make contributions.
• Effortlessly import, export, and manage all your database from one place.
• Start your crowding now with the most flexible and affordable fundraising software.
• Increase recurring donations by implementing a detailed recurring donation program.

Wrapping Up

As a nonprofit, we understand the challenges that you face while acquiring new donors or retaining existing donors. GivingX eases your work by providing all the tools you need to streamline your interactions with donors and all associated parties related to your fundraiser. When you have custom fundraising software, it manages all your everyday activities and ensures that your resources are used more productively.