Donor Retention Strategies: 4 Ways to Get Donors to Give Again

For non-profits and charities, finding new donors is a crucial part of the money-raising process - but so is retaining donors once they’ve donated.

Retaining donors - and creating a donor-retention strategy - is something that many non-profits neglect once they’ve successfully raised money through an event or a donation run.

But turning those one-time donors into lifetime supporters is vital for the long-term success of any organization, and a donor-retention strategy is something that every non-profit should dedicate time to.

Below we take a look at a number of different methods that you can use to successfully retain donors for your next event.

Give a personal thank you

Thanking donors for their generosity should already be a given following a successful silent auction or fund-raising event. But just sending out an auto-receipt won’t cut it. Adding a personalized message to any and all thank yous you sent out will make donors feel seen and appreciated.

This will also make donors instantly feel more connected to your organization. It’s a small touch, but personalizing your communications will help donors feel like they’re a valuable and integral part of your mission.

Demonstrate your impact with a post-event blog post or video

One of the main reasons for donor hesitancy is the fear that they aren’t sure where their money is going or how it’s being spent. You can assuage these fears to a large degree by demonstrating exactly how and where their money is being used.

Publish a newsletter that details exactly how and where the money is being used, and send an account of the impact directly to a donor’s mailbox.

You can also use social media to document live impact stories and allow your donors to follow along as the project unfolds.

Stay on top of communication

According to Double the Donation, 53% of donors said that poor communication was the reason that they no longer supported an organization or cause.

That’s huge - and preventable.

We already identified two effective methods (personal thank yous and post-event content) of communicating with your donors, but there are plenty of other ways to stay in touch.

If you haven’t already started building a robust social media presence, then now is the time to start. Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and more provide excellent ways of connecting directly with the people who support you. This isn’t groundbreaking advice, but it can’t be overstated - social media is incredibly important for staying in touch with donors.

Another effective method of communication is through newsletters. If donors are giving money to your organization it means they care about your mission, and it also means that they love to get updates on what you have been doing. A monthly, quarterly, or bi-yearly newsletter is a great way of updating donors on the progress you’ve made and what your plans are for the future.

You can’t control everything, but you can control the number of great interactions you have with your donors.

Host more live events

While hosting silent auctions is an incredibly flexible way to raise money, you might also consider hosting live events. Events provide a tremendous opportunity for you and your supporters to interact on an intimate level and give donors a more personal sense of your organization, increasing the likelihood that they will donate again in the future.

This isn’t just wishful thinking - the data backs it up. According to the 2022 Fundraising Event Experience Report, 91% of event attendees said they would be more likely to engage more with a nonprofit following a positive event experience.

You can also use events as a staging ground to promote future events in order to lock in repeat attendance and encourage donors to donate further.

Never underestimate the value of events - one incredible event experience could result in a lifetime of recurring donations.

What's New in BidWell? Fund a Need.

To be an effective charity organization, you need as many avenues as possible to raise money for your cause.

To help you with this mission, we're excited to announce BidWell's new feature - Fund a Need.

With Fund a Need, you can create public campaigns to raise funds for a specific goal. You can then easily share these campaigns with your donor base (or anyone else).

Campaigns are super easy to set up. Simply name it, add a description and pictures to make it more compelling, and then decide on the amount of money you're trying to raise. If you hit your objective well ahead of time, you can let your campaign run and still receive donations beyond your target amount.

Combined with silent auctions, you now have a bevy of effective tools at your disposal to raise funds for your mission.

If you have any questions about Fund a Need, please don't hesitate to get in touch at support@bidwell.com

What’s New in BidWell? Bulk Emails to Attendees.

As we all know, writing and sending emails is a time-intensive process. To help speed things up and cut down the workload significantly, we've introduced a method of sending bulk emails to attendees.

Now, instead of having to copy and paste the content of an email for each person attending the event (or write out new ones), you can simply send a bulk email to an entire list of attendees.

This feature also allows you to schedule your emails ahead of time. So if you're planning a big event and want to get your ducks in a row before sending out invitations to your attendees, you can simply set your emails to send at a predetermined time and date.

Batches of bulk emails can only be sent once per event per day, and there's a limit of 10,000 emails per month.

If you have any questions about bulk emails, please don't hesitate to reach out at support@bidwell.com.

Silent Auction Best Practices for a Successful Event

There is no right or wrong way to host a silent auction. Like organizing any other event or throwing a party, the way to manage the affair is quite subjective. While there aren't any hard-and-fast rules to stick to, there are a number of guidelines - or best practices - which, when adhered to, will make the execution of your silent auction that much smoother.

In this article we're going to discuss a number of different best practices that you can use for your silent silent auction. Let's dive in.

Create and encourage bidding wars whenever possible

Bidding wars are not as hostile as they sound. They refer to the process of friendly rivalry between two or more bidders at an auction as they try to outbid each other to win and buy an item.

Bidding wars are great for rapidly raising the price of an item. This allows you to sell an item for the highest possible price and raise as much money as you can your charity or cause,

To encourage a bidding war, you need to set an attractive starting price and low bid increments.

A good starting bid price should be about 30% - 40% of the item's fair market value (FMV).

As far as bid increments go, there's no precisely correct figure, but there is an optimal zone to aim for that is different for every item.

You will discourage bidding if the bid increments are too high, but if they are too low, then the item likely won't be sold for its FMV.

You need to find the optimal bid increment that encourages attendees to bid without plateauing at a suboptimal price.

Allow guests to register themselves ahead of the silent auction

Knowing how many guests are attending your silent auction ahead of time can help you distribute your time and resources more effectively.

This will not only allow you to know how many staff you will need for your event, but it will create a faster checkout process once all items are sold.

Using an app like BidWell for your next silent auction allows you to easily register guests for your event way ahead of time.

Registration also provides a way of introducing the rules of your auction before any bids are made.

Which leads us to our next best practice:

Ensure that you have auction rules in place

Every silent auction should have a set of rules that guides the actions of bidders. These rules might look something like:

• Right to change items: Items may be added to or withdrawn from the auction without notice.
• All sales are final: Items are sold as they are, sales and final and no exchanges are permitted.
• No refunds: Once an item has been successfully purchased there can be no refunds. Guests are responsible for the items once they have been claimed.

Offer a buy-it-now option

A buy-it-now option is an excellent way of selling an item well above its FMV to an attendee who knows precisely what they want and are willing to pay for it.

Since the goal of a silent auction is to raise as much money per item as possible, it's good to set the buy-it-now price anywhere from 150% - 200% of the item's FMV.

It's not a good idea to offer this option for every item on auction. Generally, you should only offer a buy-it-now option on times that are extremely unique or rare, have a high emotional appeal, or are one-of-a-kind experiences.

Another good tip is to ensure that any buy-it-now items are advertised before your silent auction starts so that you can create a sense of urgency for your bidders.

Best practices make for the best auctions

Though silent auction best practices are often more guidelines than strict and rigid rules, they can help your event and the bidding process stay on track and progress as smoothly as possible.

If you have any questions about silent auction best practices, please don't hesitate to get in touch at support@bidwell.auction.

What’s New in BidWell? Public Charity Information and Donations.

One of the most important aspects of securing donations is attracting publicity and getting the name of your charity out there. To help facilitate this, we’ve recently added a feature that allows charities to publish public information and credentials about their organization. This feature lets bidders and attendees see all the pertinent details of your charity at a glance.

We’ve also implemented a donation button that lives alongside the charity’s public information. Now, when bidders view a specific charity, they have the option to make custom donations at the click of a button. These donations can be once-off or set as a recurring subscription.

We’re confident that these features will help improve charity’s visibility and potential for securing donations. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out at support@bidwell.auction.