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Top 10 Ways You Can Benefit from Conducting a Donor Survey
First, it’s important to recognize that there are two reasons to conduct a donor survey:
- To conduct research
- To raise money
Generally, you must pick one objective and, at MarketSmart, our Survey System is not a research tool but, rather, a money-raising System.
So, here are the 10 ways you can benefit from it or any other survey tool you might decide to employ:
- Raise money – If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money ask for advice. Surveys raise money.
- Identify prospects – Decide who your best donor prospects are based on what they say
- Generate qualified leads – Get major donor and legacy gift prospects to raise their hands showing interest in giving, volunteering or talking to you
- Qualify high-value donor prospects – Ensure that you spend your time wisely with high-capacity, passionate, motivated supporters
- Prioritize for outreach – Determine who requires attention most urgently
- Capture vital information you can’t buy elsewhere – Uncover demographic information you simply can’t buy while learning why each supporter cares, their life story, and their wants, needs, interests and desires so you can cultivate the relationship properly and have meaningful one-to-one conversations
- Understand your supporters – Learn why each supporter/donor cares and where they reside in the consideration process for giving so you focus on those who are ready
- Gain referrals – Inspire high-value, major gift supporters to refer you to like-minded friends and family members
- Clean up and add data to your list – When done right, 7% of survey respondents will update their contact information for you
- Deliver value – Surveying your supporters makes them feel valued and appreciated because it gives them a channel for communicating with you and your organization
Related Resources:
- Don’t survey your donors unless you have cultivation ready to go
- How to Use Donor Surveys to Raise More Money
- Engagement Fundraising Podcast – Episode 3: Donor Surveys
- The Ultimate How-to-Guide for Conducting Nonprofit Donor Surveys
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Feeling like your job is getting harder because donor expectations have changed and competition for the charitable dollar is growing?
Finding that the old orthodoxies and conventions espoused by so-called experts in online echo-chambers and at conferences don’t work anymore?
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Engagement Fundraising was developed from the perspective of a donor who discovered firsthand that the impersonal, spray-and-pray approaches of his beloved charity were not only offensive but also wasteful and ineffective. So he took action. And now, you can too.
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Great tips indeed. Thanks for sharing