Look at you.
Nobody knows your nonprofit as well as you do. You’re plugged into the latest trends in your industry, and you can read the landscape better than Vincent Van Gogh.
But how well do you know your donors?

Sure, you’ve done the groundwork to strengthen your relationships with donors. You’ve worked to address their wants and needs. You’ve got those fundraisers humming along like a well-oiled machine.

You’ve got all the colors on the palette for great relationship-building. But are you using the best tools to engage with prospective donors, or manage analytics on your current donors? Are you making the most of the systems you already have in place?

For this blog post, let’s examine the best digital tips and tools so you can use to color your next great masterpiece.

Streamline your digital footprint

Your organization probably uses some form of digital customer relationship management (CRM) or donor management system to gather data. Awesome. Analytics are important.

What’s also important is maximizing your understanding of the data that your CRM gathers. For some organizations, that might mean increasing the amount of data collected. At minimum, you need biographical data and contact information, followed by a timeline of a donor’s gifts, volunteer work and event attendance. Beyond that? The smart answer is that it depends on your organization. But often it means paring down the analytics you gather to what’s useful to you.

In the famous words of minimalist artist Sol LeWitt “a little goes a long way.” Maybe he didn’t actually say that, but you get the idea. Look at what data you use from your CRM and examine efficient applications of it. Try to cut out the needless fluff. Your organization will be better for it.

Integrate your mail

I love the smell of a great e-mail newsletter in the morning. It’s hard to find a more effective way to engage your audience than a well-crafted newsletter. It’s true in journalism, business, and a whole host of industries. According to MailChimp, nonprofits have some of the highest open and click rates with e-mail newsletters. There’s even a time and a place for direct mail.

Your CRM needs to have functionality to cover both. If it doesn’t — or your CRM doesn’t have built-in newsletter functionality — you need to make a habit out of exporting your donor list from your CRM and importing it into your newsletter provider at least 24 hours before your next e-mail is scheduled to go out.

On the print front, some modern CRMs can format labels for your direct mailing needs, saving you a bunch of time in the process.

Segments are key

Having a wholistic view of your donor audience is important. The real power, however, lies in segments. Segments give you the power to break down your audience by donation amount, donation frequency, age, profession, and more. Tailoring your marketing to each individual segment is a powerful donor engagement strategy.

Examine the data gathered by your CRM and assess whether your donor marketing materials could be adjusted to your top donors, or to different age groups.

Extrapolate data to find prospective donors

You have all this data at your fingertips. You’ve canvased the information and you know your audience. The next step is growing that prospective pool of donors. Take the data you’ve gathered and use it to find new donors. Do the bulk of your donors fit in a particular profession, age group or city? Use that to your advantage and expand your marketing based on those demographics.

Free tools like Google Analytics can help you segment potential clients who visit your website and built-in analytics tools on social media help you get the most out of your audiences there.

Risk-Free Luxury Travel Packages

In the words of famous television artist Bob Ross: “We don’t make mistakes, we just have risk-free luxury travel packages.” OK, maybe he didn’t say that exactly, but here at Philantopia, we have the perfect solution for your next raffle, auction, or charity event. Make sure check out all our best-selling packages and allow your organization to enjoy discounted rates on a variety of luxury vacation packages. To steal an actual quote from Bob Ross: “No pressure. Just relax and watch it happen.” If you’re not into marketing, our advertising artists will handle the marketing materials. Every dollar you raise above the travel package reserve price goes directly to your organization, so you can get back to painting those happy little trees and expanding your donor base.