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One of the most common fundraising challenges is increasing donor retention. While acquiring new donors allows you to expand your supporter base, it’s typically more cost-effective to retain existing donors.
Studies show that it can cost up to $1.50 to raise $1.00 from a new donor, but only $0.20 or less to raise the same amount from an existing supporter. Plus, when you retain donors, you build a consistent community that’s dedicated to furthering your cause.
To retain supporters, your organization needs to strengthen its relationships with them. By collecting donor feedback, you can show donors you appreciate them and value their input, fortifying your supporter bonds.
In this post, we’ll highlight why gathering donor feedback is important, what you should ask in donor surveys and meetings, and a few best practices for creating donor surveys.
Donor feedback FAQs
Why is it important to gather donor feedback?
It’s important to gather donor feedback because it allows you to:
- Understand donors’ motivations. By asking donors directly about their experience with your nonprofit, you’ll learn why they’re passionate about your cause and choose to support your organization.
- Refine your strategies. Equipped with this data, you can tailor your fundraising, marketing, and retention strategies to your donors’ needs. For example, if an overwhelming number of your donors enjoyed your recent 5K event more than the walk-a-thons you’ve held in the past, you’ll know to repeat the 5K event in the future to boost engagement.
- Cultivate deeper supporter relationships. When you personalize the donor experience based on supporters’ feedback, they’ll be more likely to think positively about your organization and continue showing their support. Plus, collecting feedback shows you value donors’ opinions, making them feel like partners in your mission.
What are effective ways to collect donor feedback?
Effective ways to collect donor feedback include:
- Surveys. You may send surveys via email or SMS after major campaigns or events. Additionally, surveys allow you to collect donor preferences and measure satisfaction.
- Polls. Similar to surveys, polls pose questions, but they’re often much shorter in nature. For example, you may send a quick poll to your donor base asking them to help you choose between two potential event dates based on their availability.
- One-on-one conversations. Often reserved for major donors, one-on-one conversations allow you to gather more in-depth, open-ended feedback from your supporters.
- Focus groups. If you’re launching a new initiative or campaign, consider running it by a focus group first. This small-group setting lets you hear various perspectives at once in a laid-back environment.
14 questions to add to your donor feedback survey
If you’ve never created a donor survey before, you might not know what to ask. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of questions to help you gather donor feedback in different contexts:
Donation process questions
- How did you find our online donation page? Provide a list of options, such as social media, email, your website, or a Google search. This question reveals your most popular marketing channels and prompts you to workshop your strategy for sources that don’t typically lead to conversions.
- On a scale of 1-10, how convenient was the donation process, and how can we simplify it? A convenient donation process encourages supporters to follow through with their contributions. Adjusting your donation process based on donor feedback can help you create a simpler, easier-to-use form.
- Do you understand how we’ll use your donation? One common reason why donors stop giving is that they aren’t sure about how their donation supports your mission. With this question, you’ll see whether you’re doing a good job of communicating how your nonprofit uses contributions to fuel real impact.
- What is your preferred donation method? Provide options such as credit, debit, checks, PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, and bank transfer. If donors want to use a donation method your organization doesn’t support, consider adding more payment options to your donation form.
- Do you have any other feedback or suggestions regarding the donation process? This is a great open-ended question to wrap up your survey with, as it lets supporters share anything else on their minds.
Nonprofit event questions
- How did you find out about the event? Discover how supporters typically find your events, and continue leveraging those promotional channels.
- On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the event? This type of number-based question allows you to quickly gauge whether supporters enjoyed your event or not. Calculate the average donor score to determine their overall response to your event.
- If you donated at the event, what inspired you to give? Find out whether your guest speakers, personable volunteers, lively community, or something else persuaded supporters to make a financial contribution.
- What would you change about the event to make it better in the future? From large changes like choosing a new venue to smaller adjustments like extending the event by an hour, donor-suggested improvements allow you to tailor your event strategy to their needs and preferences, leading to increased engagement.
- How likely are you to participate in another fundraising event? This question will help you predict event-to-event retention. If supporters don’t feel compelled to attend your events again in the future, you may want to revamp your event strategy.
Donor experience questions
- What inspired you to give? This question can help you understand which elements of your nonprofit’s mission, story, or outreach strategy influence someone’s decision to donate.
- Do you feel that our nonprofit appreciates your support? Recognizing the impact that your donors have on your work lays the foundation for building strong, long-lasting relationships with them.
- What is your preferred communication method? Ask if donors prefer for you to contact them via social media, email, direct mail, or text to stay in touch.
- On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to donate to our organization again? This question can help you determine donors’ satisfaction levels. You can send different types of follow-up communications to those who respond positively or negatively to this question. For example, you can send upcoming fundraising opportunities to those who said they’re very likely to donate again. For those who said they’re unlikely to give again, you can reach out to them personally to find out why.
Best practices for designing your donor feedback survey
When creating your donor feedback survey, keep these best practices in mind:
- Make it short and sweet. Think about the surveys you’ve completed in the past. Chances are, you probably prefer to fill out shorter surveys that won’t take up too much of your time. The same is true for your supporters. Focus your survey responses on collecting specific feedback. Don’t worry about getting their opinions about everything all at once—you can always go back and collect more information.
- Avoid leading questions. A leading question pushes respondents to submit an answer that confirms your assumptions. For instance, instead of asking “On a scale of 1-10, how amazing was our fundraising event?” you should ask “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our fundraising event?”
- Incorporate a variety of question types. Answering open-ended questions requires your donors to do more work. Ensure your survey includes a mix of open-ended and closed-ended or multiple-choice questions so respondents don’t have to put as much effort into providing their feedback. This variety increases the likelihood that donors will complete the survey.
- Send the survey promptly. Send your survey within 48 hours of the donor’s gift or after your event so the donor experience is fresh in your supporters’ minds.
- Incentivize responses. People may be more likely to complete the survey if they know they will receive an incentive for doing so. One way to do this is by sending small thank-you gifts—such as $5 gift cards or free merchandise—to donors who complete the survey.
- Follow up with respondents. Contact donors after you review the survey results and share how you’re taking their feedback to heart. Summarize a few key trends that emerged from the surveys, and explain how you plan to incorporate donor feedback in the future.
Your donors are among your nonprofit’s most important supporters. Asking for their actionable feedback shows them how much your organization appreciates and values their perspective. Sending thoughtful, well-timed surveys can ultimately help you create stronger, long-lasting donor relationships, increasing your donor retention rate over time.
Featured Image by: Tara Winstead
Author: Ann Fellman
As the Chief Marketing Officer at Bloomerang, Ann is responsible for the company’s overall thought leadership, brand, marketing, and community outreach programs that work to strengthen relationships with customers and the broader nonprofit community. Ann brings with her more than 24 years of experience in business-to-business (B2B) marketing in the technology industry, including time spent working at a nonprofit organization.
