Why Your Donors Stop Giving
Every year donors stop giving to your United Way. Most often they disappear without a trace, rarely letting you know they were going, leaving you to wonder why. Over the years, we have surveyed thousands of former United Way donors in communities large and small throughout the United States. Our research has found that the vast majority of donors stop giving for two reasons: they are no longer exposed to a workplace campaign and they don’t understand what their contribution accomplished.
REASON #1: No Longer Exposed to a Workplace Campaign
The most common reason donors stop giving is because they have retired or no longer work at an organization that runs a workplace campaign. On average, four percent of all United Way donors retire each year, which doesn’t seem like a lot until you realize that half of all your donors will retire in the next 13 years. The decline in the number of workplace campaigns, and more recently COVID-19, has resulted in a lot of people who are no longer asked to support United Way through a workplace campaign.
That leaves a lot of former donors in your community. Our research has found that over half of all people who did not give to United Way this year, have given to United Way in the past. Furthermore, nearly half of those former donors would give to your United Way again if asked.
SOLUTION: Offer Active Giving Opportunities Outside of the Workplace Campaign
Active giving opportunities means you are actively inviting someone to support United Way. Putting a donate button on your website is a passive giving opportunity because the potential donor needs to remember United Way, take the initiative to go to your website, and then make a contribution. Inviting a potential donor to give means inviting them to a special event such as a golf outing, dinner, or Power of the Purse. You can also invite potential donors to give through email, mail, or social media solicitations. Another option is to invite people to join your affinity groups. Don’t count on former donors to find your United Way, you need to put the same amount of effort into inviting former donors to contribute to your United Way as you do organizing and conducting workplace campaigns.
REASON #2: Don’t Understand What Their Contribution Accomplished
Our research has found that the second most common reason former donors no longer give is because they do not understand the impact of their contribution – in short, how did their contribution make things better. On average, only 60% of United Way donors feel they can describe what their contribution accomplished. This means that four out of ten donors are not sure how their contribution made things better. When donors don’t know what their contribution accomplished, they are likely to stop giving.
SOLUTION: Share Your Issue, Actions, and Results
Our research has found that to understand impact donors need to know three things: what issue your United Way focuses on, what actions your United Way is taking to address that issue, and what results your United Way is achieving. At Perspectives, we refer to this as I-A-R, which stands for Issue, Actions, and Results. For example, “Your support of Camp iRock (action) has helped 438 children (results) to gain the skills to read at grade level (issue).” Share your issue, actions, and results when you are asking potential donors to give as well as throughout the year in your social media, annual report, newsletters, and website.
Issue Focused United Ways choose an issue, like poverty, homelessness, graduation rate, or kindergarten readiness, and they lead and convene the community to make a measurable change on that issue. When a United Way is issue focused, donors know exactly what their contribution accomplishes because an issue focused United Way only addresses one issue and measures success by the number of families no longer living in poverty, people who now have a home, students who graduated from high school, or children that are ready for kindergarten.
Take a couple of minutes and learn more about how an issue focus will transform your United Way by watching our free United Way Survival Guide video.
Keep Your Donors
You can reduce the number of donors who stop giving to your United Way by inviting them to support your United Way outside of the workplace campaign while clearly communicating your issue, actions, and results.