In disaster situations, the public steps up to help. Non-profits and charity organizations see an immense uptick in people wanting to lend their support through monetary gifts. Notably, much of this giving comes from small or individual donors. However, these donors tend to be “one-time” givers whose support wanes once a disaster fades from the immediacy of social media and news coverage. Here’s how to keep these donors engaged – and transform them into repeat givers positioned to help in the long-term.
1. Rise Up to Meet the Challenge of Increased Demand
In the wake of a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis, your non-profit or charity will experience an immediate increase in donor interest. To meet this need, your organization needs to be able to dynamically scale up your donor support efforts to ensure that every call or message is promptly handled. This means taking advantage of a turnkey, full-service cloud-based contact center solution and leveraging an agile staffing model – so that no potential donor is left hanging on the line. Disasters can occur at any time and without warning, so the ability to move quickly to address a surge in donor demand is vital. A full-service contact center solution will not only help you capture more donations, but it will help cement the reputation of your organization as being caring, responsive, and mobilized to help.
2. Use Analytics to Reach Out to Past Donors
While some of your existing donors will proactively reach out to your organization in the wake of a disaster, you’ll reach more of your potential donor pool by leveraging your existing donor database to send out emails or text messages asking them to donate. Tap into your contact center analytics to see who these donors are, which methods of giving they prefer, when and why they last donated, and what dollar amount they contributed. You can then segment your outreach and messaging to make sure that your campaign will resonate with your past donors. If your current contact center solution doesn’t track this data or allow for segmented campaign outreach, consider upgrading to an all-in-one solution like ACD’s.
3. Use Today’s Disaster to Build Tomorrow’s Relationships
Lapsed and reduced giving dramatically affects the long-term prospects of non-profits and charities. Without the proper nurturing, new donors can easily turn into one-time givers. According to the Red Cross, barely 10% of disaster donors become repeat givers – and may only return if another disaster occurs. That’s why building donor relationships matter. Pairing a quality content marketing campaign highlighting time-sensitive, specific goals and needs with targeted, timely contact center outreach can help keep your organization top of mind so that giving doesn’t only happen when disaster strikes. Send regular updates across multiple channels, target messaging according to customer personas, and show the impact of donor giving. By using customer data and analytics to shape your campaigns and outreach, you’ll be able to build long-term relationships that focus on value and outcomes – encouraging participation from your donors.
Talk to ACD About Our Full-Service Customer Contact Solutions
ACD’s pioneering multi-track approach to donor support brings together full-service contact center solutions with an agile staffing model. Our all-in-one cloud-based platform helps charitable organizations of all sizes instantly scale up their customer service needs – and positions you to create effective, long-term donor outreach campaigns that lead to repeat giving. For more information about how we can position your organization for success, talk to our team today!
