Lapsed donors are donors who used to give to your organization, but for one reason or another, have stopped giving.
The definition of a lapsed donor differs some among organizations, most tend to define it as a previous donor who hasn’t given to your organization in the last 12 months.
If you’re a fundraiser or nonprofit development professional, you’ve also probably heard the terms “donor retention” or “donor attrition”.
As most of my readers know, the world of non-profit fund raising is very dear to me. I am always looking for something unique to share with my colleagues.
PURLS worked for this non-profit:
The Diocese of Erie, in collaboration their Ad Agency, the Cathedral Corp, developed a campaign geared towards reinvigorating lapsed donors using a series of three postcards to drive them to personalized URLs to reconnect, followed by a direct mail solicitation.
The postcards themselves did not directly solicit the lapsed donors but focused on the question “What Does It Mean to Be Catholic?” with a series of answers available through the recipient’s personalized URL.
The Diocese reported a successful campaign with a 100% increase over previous efforts. Given the attrition of donors in the past decades, when other campaigns to target lapsed donors have achieved success rates in the 0.05-percent to 2-percent range, the campaign may serve as a model for future outreach programs.
The Diocese of Erie is the first diocese in the United States to use a PURL program to reach out to lapsed donors. This novel approach worked for them.
Every non-profit needs to look at their lapsed donor file – there is money to be found on that table.
Make a plan to reengage prior donors:
- Identify those disengaged donors
- Contact the past donors
- Tell them donors you miss them
- Invite your donors back
- Add in specifics about each donor
- Segment your lists of donors