Building positive donor relationships helps your nonprofit secure new donations and retain current donations. Here’s a breakdown of what donor relations mean for your nonprofit and how you can positively impact your relationships.

What’s included this guide

• Donor relations defined
• Why you should worry about your donor relations
• A typical donor relationship journey
• Strategies for healthy donor relations
• Putting it all together

What does the term donor relations mean?

“Donor relations” is all the effort your nonprofit puts in to maintain your donors’ trust, respect, engagement, and support. Nonprofits that have good donor relations give their donors a high-quality experience that fosters engagement and investment in the long term.

According to nonprofit experts, you can break donor relations into four distinctive parts:

1. Donor and donation management

2. Donor acknowledgment

3. Donor recognition

4. Donor reporting

Your relationship with your donors extends to both the physical and digital worlds. With the rise of online donating, your nonprofit needs to consider how the digital interactions your donors engage with might positively or negatively impact their donor experience.

Often you might hear the term stewardship used interchangeably with donor relations. However, stewardship traditionally focuses on how your nonprofit uses the donations your donors provide you. Your donor relationship considers the entire donor journey, not just the donations. In general, you can think of stewardship as one part of the overall positive donor relations you’re trying to foster.

Why you should worry about your donor relations

The short answer: it increases donor retention, engagement, and commitment. The longer answer is that thinking about each individual donor’s relationship with your organization helps you build a better long-term fundraising strategy.

Considering how all of your actions impact your donors’ relationship with your nonprofit is just good business. It helps you remove friction from the donation process and gives you perspective on what online tools and platforms your nonprofit needs to successfully engage donors.

Another not-so-hidden benefit: happier donors are likely to give more, recommend your nonprofit to a friend, and volunteer to help your cause!

A donor relationship journey

To understand a typical donor relationship journey it’s best to put yourself in a donor’s shoes and track their experience from start to finish.

First, think of all the times your donor interacts with your nonprofit, both physically and digitally. Ask yourself at each step if the interactions your donors take positively or negatively impact them.

1. Introducing your nonprofit

The first step in any donor’s journey is getting introduced to your nonprofit. There are a lot of ways this can happen and many nonprofits focus first on their physical presence at events like open houses, fundraisers, or volunteer sessions. However, your nonprofit’s introduction also extends online and encompasses things like Google search results for your nonprofit, your nonprofit’s website design and layout, and your social media presence.

Many nonprofits miss out on the benefits a great introduction has to their donor relations and focus more on raising funds rather than building relationships.

While fundraising is an essential part of your nonprofit’s success, your introduction is the first and best chance you have to inspire your donor and improve your donor relations. Your physical and online introductions should ensure that every donor that meets you know what your nonprofit stands for, how you accomplish your mission, and why you need their donations.

2. Explaining why donors should donate to your nonprofit

After you’ve introduced yourself, you need to explain to potential donors why they should donate to your nonprofit. During this stage of the donor journey, your nonprofit wants to create a compelling case for why donors should trust you.

Spend time explaining to donors how your nonprofit changes lives and how their gifts and donations can make an impact. During this stage you might provide social media posts that highlight key stories from the work you’ve already done. You might dedicate space on your website or blog to share successes and accomplishments. Finally, you might operate transparently by releasing annual reports on where money is spent or how donations impact your cause.

3. Asking donors to make a donation

Asking donors to make a donation is the next step in the donor relations journey after introducing yourself and explaining your nonprofit.

This is a critical part of your nonprofit’s success and a critical part of your donor’s journey. Since your potential donors have had a chance to get to know your organization, this stage of the journey should be focused on making it as easy as possible for them to donate.

You’ll want to make it as effortless as possible for your potential donors to support your cause. You should invest in a platform like RoundUp App or Ribbon that offers multiple ways to donate (one-time, monthly, and through RoundUp donations), provides you with easy-to-use donation forms for your website, and gives your donors a mobile platform to easily manage their donations.

You also want to consider additional ways your online donation process might negatively impact your donor relations. Having confusing site layouts and non-mobile-friendly forms makes it harder for donors to give.

4. Acknowledging donors’ donations

After donors have made their donations, it’s critical that your nonprofit acknowledge this donation. You might send out physical letters in the mail thanking users for their support or send out a personalized email acknowledging the gift you received.

In general, try for a two-day turnaround. At RoundUp App we send out personalized emails to donors who join our platform that day. We also acknowledge one-time gifts immediately with automatic donation receipts sent directly to your donors.

You might use a personalized email template to automatically send your donor a thank you and let them know how their donation is being used. Whatever strategy your nonprofit chooses, make sure you acknowledge donations to positively impact your donor relations.

5. Engaging your donors in the long-term

Once your donor has given a donation, their donor relations journey doesn’t automatically end. Instead, you’ll want to switch your focus to continual engagement with your donors.

In this stage, focus on providing updates, telling your organization’s story, and highlighting the successes each donor allows you to achieve. Use tools like RoundUp App’s donor dashboard to track your donors and see who is actively giving and who has dropped off from donating.

Make sure to address both audiences equally. You don’t want to negatively impact your donor relations by solely communicating with your donors when you need donations. Instead, donors want to feel inspired and like they’re part of your nonprofit’s team!

Improve donor relations with RoundUp App

RoundUp App helps improve donor relationships through tools that streamline the donation process.

Learn more

Strategies for healthy donor relations

Building positive donor relations requires a lot of work both physically and digitally. Try these strategies to improve your donor relationships and experiences online:

1. Remove friction in the donation process
2. Make it easy for donors to manage their donations
3. Build a culture of giving by integrating donating into their daily life
4. Acknowledge and engage donors continually

Remove friction in the donation process

A great way to improve donor relations is to remove friction in the donation process. To remove friction in the donation process you need to ensure that your website is easy to navigate, that your donation forms are easy to use, and that all of your tools and platforms are mobile-friendly.

First, think about how your website layout might be causing friction. Is it easy for donors to find ways to donate immediately, or do donors have to poke around before finding your donate button? Consider adding donate buttons into your navigation menu, or providing compelling donation calls to action on your home page.

Next, ask yourself if your donation forms are easy to use? Do potential donors have to navigate to new pages or use outdated forms to make donations.

At RoundUp App we make it easy for donors to give directly from your website with custom donation embed forms.

Finally, with the rise of mobile-giving make sure that all of your tools and platforms are mobile-friendly. At RoundUp App we take a mobile-first approach to donating. We make it super easy for donors to find your nonprofit on our platform, set up a new donation, and start giving immediately to your nonprofit using mobile-ready features and tools.

Make it easy for donors to manage their donations

When donors RoundUp their everyday purchases they report feeling more engaged and inspired by the nonprofits they support. It’s one of the reasons we love the RoundUp method of donating so much!

Whenever possible, integrate giving into the daily lives of your donors. By making donating a daily habit and not a monthly expense, you’re building an audience that feels directly connected to the causes they support. This improves donor relations overall and makes donors feel like their part of your team!

Acknowledge and engage donors continually

After a donor has made a donation, continue communicating with them! Send thank you emails or notes, create blog posts that highlight the impact of their donations, or continue to engage them with your nonprofits’ story through social media!

Use marketing templates, like those found in RoundUp App, to build out yearly content calendars that share your nonprofit’s mission and highlight your successes.

You might also use reporting tools found in your RoundUp App dashboard to track donors who are and are not giving and send targeted individual messaging to these audience types.

Putting it all together

Ultimately the key to maintaining positive donor relations is taking a holistic approach to your donors’ journey. By removing friction whenever possible, sharing your mission, goals, and successes, and engaging your audience at every step of their journey, you’ll be on your way to building positive donor relations!

For more strategies about fundraising, engaging your audience, or building positive donor relationships visit our RoundUp App blog!

The post A donor relations guide: what it is and how to improve your relationships with donors appeared first on Roundup App.

We’re so excited  when we make someone’s “Top App” list, so to have two blogs highlight RoundUp App at once makes us feel warm and fuzzy!

BestApp.com named RoundUp App as the “Most Convenient” charitable app of 2021!  What sets RoundUp App apart from other options is the flexibility we offer: donors can choose to give one-time, monthly, or “round ups”. No matter the type of donor you are, we can make donating effortless! Glad the people over at Best App think so too! 

We are also thrilled to have been chosen as a holiday favorite over on OlderSlightlyWiser.com!  What’s better to get you in the holiday spirit than to donate pennies on purchases to help your favorite nonprofits?!

 

When so much hard work and love goes into creating a product, we’re always so happy that it resonates with others! We can’t wait to see our name on more lists!

Give RoundUp App a Try Today

Joining RoundUp App is simple and only takes a few minutes. By signing up for RoundUp App you get access to all of our tools including an Admin dashboard, marketing library, brand profile, and more!

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The post RoundUp App Is Making It on Lists, and We’re Making It Twice! appeared first on Roundup App.

Although QR codes have been around for awhile, their usage has boomed within the last few years. If you’ve visited a restaurant lately, you’ve probably sat there waiting for someone to bring out one of those germy menus everyone touches, only to realize there’s a tiny QR code on the table with the words “order here” stuck to the table. You open your camera, point, scan, and viola! An entire menu and order sequence right on your phone!

QR (or Quick Response) codes have played an important role in Covid-19 safety protocols because they’re contactless and pretty easy to use. But, have you thought about how these tiny, pixelated squares can help your nonprofit organization raise awareness for your fundraising efforts?

What are QR Codes?

Short for Quick Response Codes, QR codes are a type of barcode that can be scanned by your smartphone to display an array of information. Often used as a means to transfer information from a printed format to a digital medium, swiftly. 

There are two types of QR codes: static, and dynamic. A static QR code, as the name suggests, has a fixed destination. Once a URL is embedded into the pixelated image, it will always direct traffic to the same place. A dynamic QR Code is flexible and can change the destination of where traffic is being sent. 

You can embed a QR Code with just about anything and likewise, you can use them almost anywhere. But keep in mind that QR codes work best when you want to quickly relay information from one source to your phone. Some creative examples using QR Codes are adding them to large presentations, business cards, and often used as stickers placed all around the world. And while you may see QR codes on social media and websites, we do not recommend this considering your audience may already be viewing these codes on their mobile device. 

While we could go further into detail about the history and make up of QR Codes (or let you read more here) we want to get to the “How to’s” and “Best Practices” for QR codes in the nonprofit sector.

How To Create A QR Code

There are plenty of free and paid websites where you can create QR codes. One simple, easy to use, and super effective tool is Canva’s QR Code creation tool. You may already be using Canva as a way to create promotional material, but if you’re not, we highly recommend it.

Using Canva to Create QR Codes

1. Open up a design or create a new one.
2. Once your design is created look for the “… More” on the side dashboard and look for the “QR code” App. 
3. Insert the URL where you want to direct your audience and click “Generate Code”. Keep in mind, this is a static QR code, so once you create the code and distribute it – you won’t be able to edit the destination later. 
4. Now you can download your image or add it to your design and people will be able to scan it and be directed to wherever it is that you send them.

If you want to explore other options, here’s a helpful list of QR Code creating tools! 

So how does RoundUp App fit in? 

At RoundUp App, we’re all about making things effortless. Nonprofits that sign up with RoundUp App to let donors “round up” their spare change and donate it to their organization with every transaction get a custom registration page. 

The custom registration page directs potential donors to your organization’s donation page through RoundUp App. This simple and mobile friendly page let’s donors sign up to donate one time, monthly, or use “round ups”. Sharing your custom registration page alone can increase conversion rates by up to 33% and is the perfect URL to embed into a QR Code.

Create a QR Code for your organization’s custom registration page and use it any time potential donors may be near with their phones and ready to donate. For example, print posters with a QR Code for display at your next event, include one on your next mailer or brochure.

Best Practices for using QR Codes

1. Accessible The most efficient way to use a QR code is to use it when it makes relaying information more convenient, like going from a print media to a digital one. 
2. Arrangement When placing the QR codes, make sure there is plenty of space surrounding the QR code and make sure the size of it is large enough to be scannable.
3. Aim – Make sure the destination of your QR code is mobile friendly. 
4. Make Apparent – Make sure the audience knows the purpose of your QR code and where it will take them when they scan. 
5. Assessment– Once you have created your QR code, test it out and see if it meets all the above criteria. If it does, go ahead and share it!

Whether you decide to promote your custom registration page or something else, QR Codes are a helpful and convenient tool to push your nonprofit fundraising efforts in a creative manner. If you want to start using a quick and simple custom registration page, sign up with RoundUp App here and start doing some effortless good! 

The post QR Codes + Nonprofits 101 appeared first on Roundup App.

The Numbers

Let’s start with the numbers. Nonprofit reports over the past few years have consistently shown that the popularity of online and mobile giving is continuously on the rise. According to Blackbaud’s 2017 Charitable Giving Report, online charitable giving increased by an impressive 12.1% and online giving now accounts for 7.6% of overall fundraising. And of those online donations, more than 21% are made with a mobile device.

Plus, RoundUps are reported as the most common way of giving to a charity. Over a 2 year period, 50% of Americans donated by rounding up during checkout.

The Donor Experience

Offering donors the opportunity to “just donate their spare change” is a smaller perceived ask than asking for a monthly donation (even though the end result is the same).

Plus, the signup process really is easy! After setup is complete, donors use their cards in-store and online as usual. They do NOT have to open or use the app during checkout. It works seamlessly in the background to calculate the RoundUp amount for each transaction.

Donors also have complete control over their giving. They can add and remove cards, set a minimum and maximum donation amount, pause donations at any time and cancel their account right in the app. This means that your nonprofit doesn’t have to worry about any customer service or account maintenance.

The final piece of the donor experience – security – is something that we take very seriously at RoundUp App. That’s why we partner with Stripe and Plaid to process transactions. Only Stripe has access to donor’s credit or debit card numbers and Plaid’s API establishes the connection between the app and the donor’s credit or debit card accounts. In short, no card information or bank credentials are ever stored on the app or our servers.

The RoundUp App Impact

The average RoundUp App user gives $15-$20 each month. So even with just 25 RoundUp App donors, you could raise an extra $6,000 a year for your nonprofit. The best part is that these donations are predictable and allow you to spend less time focused on fundraising, and more time focused on your mission.

Plus, we offer the tools and resources you need to be successful with RoundUp App without feeling overwhelmed and alone. Registered nonprofits receive access to a library of marketing templates plus donor reporting in an easy-to-use format. You also have access to an administrative dashboard with all of your donor information and more.

It’s also completely free to sign up and start using! So why not register your nonprofit for RoundUp App today and add an extra source of reliable, monthly donations to your revenue stream.

The post Why Choose RoundUp App for Your Fundraising Efforts? appeared first on Roundup App.