The average first-time donor retention rate is 22%.
For nonprofits looking to enhance first-time donor communication, incorporating a robust calendar is crucial. Here’s how to do that for your organization– Steward your donors through personalized video.
The Videos You Should Send In Between
The Thank Video
According to a poll conducted by the Donor Relations Guru team, 85% of donors say they don’t know what their gift did. They received no info on the outcome of their gift.
While this statistic is shocking it is also an invitation for donor relations and stewardship offices to step up to the challenge.
Building relationships with donors. Not just sending receipts and appeals.
In your thank you video…wait…. Stop right there. In your thank you videos… don’t shy away from sharing your organization’s successes. When you followup with a thank you for a specific gift or just a general thank you throughout the year, make sure to follow one simple rule with your script and messaging to a donor.
Golden Rule: In your video, make sure you make clear that the donor made this work possible. Do not say thank you all, but thank you specifically for the gift you gave to help move this project forward.
What does a personalized YOU made this possible message look like. Let’s take a look at UNC Chapel Hill’s example.
This message shows rather than tells the impact of a donor’s gift.
Text like “YOU are helping ease the burden [our students] face.” is following by photos and testimonials from students.
In addition, the message beneath the video used the word “you” 2 times! UNC Chapel Hill, whenever possible, is pointing back to their donors’ impact.
Step up your personalization game
It’s possible that photos and testimonials are the all your team has access to for the thank you video, in that case, follow UNC Chapel Hill’s lead on creating a video message.
But if you’re a university you may have access to student workers or student phoneathon callers. If you’re a nonprofit, you may have access to your network of volunteers. In which case, you have the opportunity to explore the option of personalization by name.
For Drake University, this meant a personalized thank you to anyone who gave to their emergency fund in 2020.
Using the ThankView user status of “Recorder” students could record and attach videos to a donor, for a Drake employee to review and send.
The result: personalized followup with donors.
Similarly, UMass Amherst set up a system for donor to receive a personalized followup from a student. In 2019, they sent over 900 personalized videos like this one.
You may be saying, “Wow! I would love to do personalized followups for each gift we receive but my team does not have the students, volunteers, or time to start doing that right now.”
And to that we say, 2 magic words.
Scalable personalization.
What is scalable personalization?
Aimee is the Stewardship Program Manager Annual Giving and Campus Relations at WFAA. Though she works at a foundation now, she previously worked in the annual giving office so has seen life from both sides of the tracks–working on teams with varying levels of resources and staff. Take it away, Aimee!
“I’ve been in very small shops. So I recognize it sounds really cool if you have the people to send 34,000 personalized videos. But sometimes that’s not always the case. My first recommendation would be prioritizing your lists.
As you go up the ladder or pyramid, whatever you want to call it, as you’re giving more and you have a closer relationship with the organization as a donor. I think that the level of personalization should only grow. So if it feels unsustainable to do this at an annual giving level, then I would say bump it up to the next tier. Make sure that you’re being intentional about what is a good long-term solution.
But It’s important to approach generic and personalized videos more like you are talking directly to a single person. That is really valuable. So the language in the video is not, “all of you people” but it’s “you made a difference.”
Aimee Furrie, Stewardship Program Manager Annual Giving and Campus Relations at WFAA
Special event Thank You Videos
When it comes to special event thank yous, e.g. #GivingTuesday or your Giving Day or Week. A timely followup is key. You are asking donors to give in a quick timeframe so you should thank them quickly in return.
In addition, to a timely followup to thank donors for their gift you can ask for a second Call to Action as well. A Giving Day is a great opportunity to request more than just donations from your crew. Get your donors excited for
- Tours of campus
- Volunteer events
- Social Media takeovers
- Raffles for swag
You can absolutely use your giving day thank you as an opportunity to lead your donors to the next step of engagement.
For University of Miami, the next step was to invite donors to use the #HilltopChallenge to spread the word about the campaign on social media.
Don’t end the conversation at “Thank you.” Consider what the next step for your donors might look like.
The Birthday Video
When it comes to birthdays videos, here are 3 strategies you can use to delight and surprise your donors on their very special day.
Be Personal
At first glance, this seems like a daunting task to send out a personalized birthday video to each donor. But take Conner Prairie and other ThankView users’ lead. A birthday video can be simple, short, and sweet.
When Conner Prairie learns it’s a donor’s birthday, the team gathers round (in office or in zoom) for a quick song or celebratory message.
The video is typically less than 30 seconds long and is filmed on one of the team’s smartphones.
The video is made specifically for that donor and creates a human touch that is often missing in copy-focused emails.
And the responses they have gotten from donors have been phenomenal!
“We tend to keep it very simple and solely use our iPhone’s for recording. Birthdays are the touchpoint where we like to keep it unpolished and more personal.”
-Kate Baker, Donor Relations Manager at Conner Prairie
Be creative.
One of the best things to incorporate into a birthday video is to get staff, students, volunteers to help create this donor birthday video.
For The Hill School this meant coordinating a production through the school’s hallways and of course, featuring front and center the students of The Hill School.
One students leads the donor through a quick recap of why their gift is so important and then… they sing happy birthday!
This fun video showcases exactly who donors want to see, the kids! And this was the goal for the Donor Relations team at The Hill School.
“We wanted to be able to bring The Hill School to our donors so that they could students and faculty and the campus and we thought a video campaign would be a great way to do that”
Kate Druckenmiller, Donor Relations Officer at The Hill School
Go big.
You got a drone and a marching band? Why not create an incredible birthday party for your donors?
Words don’t do justice to this video, but to quickly recap, there’s a marching band playing happy birthday, baton twirlers, location changes… you get the picture.
All of these elements help communicate the excitement and energy at the University of Akron campus.
Which is something donors really respond to.
“We send our birthday videos out everyday at 8:00am, and I feel very fortunate to usually end up with a couple responses every day. One really neat response we got was when a person responded that they were in Greece on a cruise and they had played the video for their entire cruise.”
Brittany Finch, Assistant Director of Alumni Relations at University of Akron
If you want to learn more about how Conner Prairie, The Hill School, and the University of Akron film and send their donor birthday campaigns. Check out our full interview at the link below.
What if I don’t have birthdays in my database?
If birthdays are something that you are missing, now would be a great time to survey your donors! If you already survey your donors, make sure to add birthdays to your next round.
The Holiday Video
Great holidays for donor engagement are
- Valentine’s Day
- Halloween
- 4th of July
- Veterans Day
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas
- New Year’s Eve
But don’t limit yourself to just these holidays!
Find a holiday that fits for your organization whether it’s National Whipped Cream Day, Campfire Day, or National Potato Day–yes, these are all real dates. You can look at websites like Time and Date or Holidays Calendar to find the right date and message for your organization.
To help get your first holiday video campaign off the ground let’s a 2 popular holidays to send donors an update/thank you video.
Valentine’s Day: Gotta Share that #DonorLove
February is Donor Appreciation Month, which makes Valentine’s Day the PERFECT holiday to share some love with your donors.
This holiday is great to reach out to long-time and first-time donors with a message about how their gift is making your organization’s work possible.
How?
Share the stories of those your work has directly impacted, like this Valentine’s Day message from Wallace State Future Foundation.
This video is short but gives a glimpse at just one life that has been greatly impacted by the scholarship she received.
Could you give your donors a better gift on Valentine’s Day? We think not.
The Holiday Season
A Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Hannakuh video will be remarkable similar to the messaging in your thank you campaigns. Again the focus is to show that your organization works over the past year would not have been possible without your donors.
The University of Alberta captures this sentiment perfectly in their holiday video.
They incorporated students and some festive props to share a sweet, personalized video for their donors.
And don’t think for one minute that they’re mascot missed out on the chance to wish donors a Happy Holidays!
End of Calendar Donation Links
Important to note for holiday videos: they fall at the end of the calendar year which means a huge fundraising push for their end of calendar year or end of fiscal year giving.
If you’re looking for a way to include a link to give in a holiday video (in case your recipients is so inclined to give again), here’s a great way to incorporate that link without making a direct ask. Los Rios College Foundation made sure to include the link to donate beneath their video, but the video does not contain about any reference to donating.
Their video features a scholarship student expressing gratitude and well wishes during the holiday season. Incredible!
The Update Video
Updates can be prepped and scheduled throughout the year, but sometimes your constituents need to be updated quickly about your organization.
Personalized check-ins.
In spring 2020, WFAA sent over 35,000 personalized check-in videos to their donors, alumni and current students. The campaign’s average open rate was 50% and they received over 400 replies.
WFAA was able to accomplish this feat with a team of student callers ready to film hundreds of videos over the course of a month.
The goal of this campaign was to reach out to donors and alumni, not to ask for donations but to share what was going on campus and build that relationship.
The responses donors sent were directly addressed to the student who had filmed their video, which was exciting for the donor relations team and the student workers!
This is an incredible way to strengthen your donor’s connection to your organization, but what if you don’t have students workers or volunters ready to record hundreds (or thousands) of videos!
That is a-ok.
Look no further than this personalized campaign set up, filmed, and sent by Toni De’Angelis at TSJC Educational Foundation.
The message is short, sweet, and personal– asking how the donor or alumni is doing and is not asking for donations. Instead the call to action links to a COVID-19 updates page.
A Quick, Unplanned Update
Sometimes your organization needs to speak to your donor base quickly. Video is the best way to do it! Keep your donors informed with update videos like this one from the University of Missouri.
The Event Video
Events are a great way to engage with your donors. No doubt about that. A lesser known fact, video can be a great way to invite or follow up after those events.
Let’s check out 3 different ways you can incorporate video into your organization’s event calendar.
Event Invites
An event invite video means the most when it comes from those a donor’s gift has directly impacted. Children’s Health of North Texas did an amazing job following up a gift with a thank you and an invite to a virtual event.
That’s right! You can thank and invite with one video campaign!
The video is short and features a Children’s Health of North Texas patient.
This kind of followup invites a donor to an even stronger relationship with your organization.
What is the next step for your donors after their first, second, and third gift? Make sure you can direct them to share a hashtag on social, attend an event, or whatever the next step might be.
Event Recaps
Took some incredible video and photos at an event? Want to share them with the attendees? Why not following post-haste?
Three things to keep in mind with event recap videos.
- They need to be timely.
- They need to be brief.
- They need to be sharable.
Check out this example from Miami University that hits all these notes. The video shares a slideshow of photos and videos from the event (A zoo trip!). This is a fun way to keep in touch post-event!
And most importantly: the event recap is sharable. Make sure your donors can broadcast their experience to their social channels
Virtual events
The third type of event outreach became much more necessary in 2020 and that is the virtual event.
There is a common misconception around hosting a virtual event: Using video to invite a donor to a video event is too much video.
False!
Video can be a personal way to invite your donors to an online event. With 2020’s shift to completely online events, Metropolitan State did an amazing job updating their donors with this video invite.
And there you have it, the 5 Videos that should be a part of your first-time donor communication calendar.
If you’re interested in learning more about creating branded, personalized content like in the examples above, reach out and book a demo today!