Automated donor journeys are everywhere. Nonprofit leaders, seeking efficiency and hoping to do more with less, are often encouraged—sometimes pressured—to adopt this tool by customer relationship management (CRM) vendors. The pitch is enticing: automated journeys promise to save time, reduce workload, and improve donor engagement.
But beneath this shiny veneer lies a deeper truth that is often overlooked. Donor journeys, like any tool, have the potential to do as much harm as good. A hammer, for example, can build a home or destroy a wall. The same applies to donor journeys. When wielded improperly, they can undermine trust, damage relationships, and drive donors away.
This isn’t a criticism of automation or the software itself. It’s a reminder that donor journeys are tools, not solutions. CRM vendors have a vested interest in promoting their use because they encourage nonprofits to adopt and rely on their software. The fear of missing out is a powerful motivator. But while automated donor journeys can seem like the modern solution to fundraising challenges, they often fail to account for what really matters: the donor.
The Appeal of Donor Journeys
It’s easy to see why donor journeys are so popular. They offer a structured way to communicate with supporters, using data to segment donors into neat categories and guide them through a pre-planned series of interactions. For overworked fundraisers, journeys promise efficiency and scalability. For leaders, they offer measurable results like open rates and click-through rates.
In theory, donor journeys seem like the perfect solution. They take what can feel like chaos—hundreds or thousands of donors with unique preferences and motivations—and make it manageable. CRMs are built to automate these processes, promising seamless execution. To some, it feels like turning a complicated relationship-building process into a tidy system that runs on autopilot.
But this tidy, systemized approach often prioritizes efficiency over outcomes. It assumes donors can be neatly categorized and nudged along prescribed paths. In practice, these journeys often miss the mark entirely.
The Problem with Donor Journeys
However, the reality is often far messier. While automation can simplify tasks, it can also oversimplify relationships, reducing donors to data points and personas. Instead of fostering genuine connections, donor journeys risk alienating supporters by failing to resonate with their individual needs. Here’s why:
1. Tools Can Break Things, Too
CRMs push donor journeys because they want organizations to believe in their effectiveness. This belief ensures nonprofits stay tied to the platform. But just like a hammer in the wrong hands can destroy rather than build, donor journeys can harm relationships if not carefully implemented.
When donor journeys fail to resonate, they don’t just miss the mark—they create friction. Supporters may feel unvalued or even manipulated, which erodes trust. Worse, the damage can go unnoticed because the system continues running, unchecked and unexamined. It’s a set-it-and-forget-it scenario that can fester over time.
2. Organization-Centered Design
Most donor journeys are designed with the organization’s needs, not the donor’s, at their core. Following recommendations from so-called experts, nonprofits often segment donors into persona buckets such as “lapsed donors,” “recurring donors,” and “new donors.” These labels might make sense to a certain degree. For example, naturally, it’s important to acknowledge a new donor’s first gift in your communications.
This small but meaningful gesture establishes relevance and fosters resonance, helping the donor feel recognized and valued for their first contribution. However, your entire strategy should not reflect the organization’s perspective rather than the donor’s unique motivations or preferences.
Getting what you and your organization believe is the right message to the right bucket at the right time neglects the donor’s desire for a value-oriented, trust-building experience. According to Liz Waldy (International Fundraising Director at Mission Without Borders), instead of meeting donors where they are, organizations shoehorn them into predetermined paths based on where the organization wants them to be. That drives messaging that feels out of sync with their motivations for giving.
These motivations are driven by a donor’s life story or history as it relates to your cause, their values and how they align with your organizations, and their desire for a sense of belonging or community. If you haven’t captured these data points directly from your donors, it won’t matter what technology you deploy. You will have a hard time delivering journeys that really work.
3. Misalignment with Donor Motivations
Donor journeys frequently aim to move donors through a pre-designed funnel, assuming they will follow the journey as planned. But donors aren’t passive participants. They have unique motivations, timelines, and preferences.
Instead of asking, “What do donors need from us?” donor journeys often focus on, “What do we need from donors?” The answer in most cases is: Money! This mindset leads to impersonal and disconnected messaging, which fails to resonate and can even alienate supporters. Why? Because donors want an organization to do what the donor wishes they could do, if only they had the time and energy to do it themselves. Since they are so busy, they ‘hire’ your organization to do it on their behalf.
4. Complexity and Overreach
Many donor journeys are overly complex, with endless branches and decision trees based on assumptions about donor behavior. This complexity makes them time-consuming to build and maintain. But complexity isn’t sophistication. It simply increases the risk of errors, disengagement, and delays. Scaling a flawed system only magnifies its shortcomings.
5. The Risk of Institutional Amnesia
Automation often shifts knowledge from people to systems. If a staff member who designed and implemented donor journeys leaves, their expertise may leave with them. The system continues running, but no one knows how to fix it or even assess its effectiveness. This creates a blind spot where harmful practices persist because no one remembers they exist.
The Hidden Costs of Automation
Automation’s greatest strength—its ability to run without human intervention—is also its greatest weakness. When journeys are set and forgotten, they fail to adapt to changing donor needs or organizational priorities. Worse, poorly executed journeys can quietly erode trust and results over time.
Imagine a donor receives irrelevant, impersonal messages for months because they were wrongly segmented into a journey. Frustrated, they stop engaging altogether. Meanwhile, staff turnover leaves no one aware of the problem. The result? Lost trust, diminished donations, and a missed opportunity to build a lasting relationship.
What Works Instead—A Donor-Driven Approach
To truly engage donors, nonprofits need to move beyond rigid, one-size-fits-all journeys. Instead of focusing on automation and efficiency for the benefit of your organization, focus on delivering value to your donors by allowing them to drive the process.
Start with the donor’s “why.” Why do they care? What motivates their giving? These questions are the foundation of meaningful engagement. When you understand their motivations, you can deliver messages that resonate, build trust, and encourage them to move forward on their own terms.
This isn’t about abandoning automation entirely. Tools like Fundraising Automation can still play a role (find our eReport here), but they should support—not replace—the human element of fundraising. Relationships, not processes, drive giving. Donors must feel understood, not bucketed.
Bottom line:
Donor journeys are tempting. They promise simplicity, efficiency, and measurable results. But nonprofits must remember that these are tools, not solutions. Like any tool, their impact depends on how they are used.
A poorly executed donor journey can do more harm than good, eroding trust and disengaging supporters. To avoid these pitfalls, nonprofits must shift from organization-centered automation to donor-centered engagement. Prioritize resonance, trust, and value over efficiency. Only then can you build the kind of genuine relationships that lead to meaningful and lasting support.
To learn more about Fundraising Automation done right, consider downloading our free report: The Nonprofit Leaders’s Guide for Optimizing Fundraising Operations with Technology.
Related Posts:
- Don’t Just “Find” Donors; Build Relationships for Lasting Impact
- The Power of Emotional Intelligence in Fundraising: A Lesson from Bill Crouch
- 5 Advanced Fundraising Tactics You Can Automate
- How to Deepen Your Major Donor Relationships