In a traditional fundraising operation, the evidence that a longtime donor might still be listening gets scattered across four different places. Gift records are in the database. Event attendance might be tracked in a spreadsheet on someone’s desktop. Email opens stay in the email platform. Social media engagement either goes untracked or ends up in…
Every development operation has donors whose deepest loyalty is hiding in plain sight. Consider a fictitious donor we’ll call David Park. He has given to his local food bank every year for six consecutive years, always to general operations, always in response to the year-end appeal. He attends the annual dinner. He opens every email….
Think about the donor we know best. The one we could describe to a colleague over lunch without looking anything up. We wouldn’t recite a giving total. We’d say something like, “She’s given three times this year, each gift a little larger, and she’s really passionate about the mobile pantry program.” Or, “He’s given every…