Erika Carley · Sr. Director of Operations and Board Member, Chive Charities | Today, you get to hear from longtime Chive Charities employee, supporter, and board member, Erika Carley, as she breaks down some truly magical retention tactics.
Wow! Today’s episode is so jam-packed, it’s practically bursting. Chive Charities has only been around about a decade, but they’ve got donor retention down like no other organization we’ve seen. We know you’re sitting there thinking, “How great can their retention rate be? 50%? 60?”
Well prepare yourself, listener: Chive Charities has a 98% donor retention rate.
And today, you get to hear from longtime Chive Charities employee, supporter, and board member, Erika Carley, as she breaks down their retention tactics.
We were prepared to hear Erika talk about Chive’s super successful monthly giving program, but what we didn’t expect was Chive’s excitement to try their hand at peer-to-peer fundraising. Why seek out new strategies when you’re already winning so hard?”
From the concrete to the philosophical, the creative to the predictable, and the consistent to the untested, Chive’s retention magic comes from within their essential culture of impact—and Erika is here to let you in on what it takes to do it yourself.
Hello and welcome to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit!
Wow! Today’s episode is so jam-packed, it’s practically bursting. Chive Charities has only been around about a decade, but they’ve got donor retention down like no other organization I’ve seen. I know you’re sitting there thinking, “How great can their retention rate be? 50%? 60?”
Well prepare yourself, listener: Chive Charities has a 98% donor retention rate.
And today, you get to hear from longtime Chive Charities employee, supporter, and board member, Erika Carley, as she breaks down their retention tactics.
I was prepared to hear Erika talk about Chive’s super successful monthly giving program and how they’re breaking the mold with donor retention, but what I didn’t expect was Chive’s excitement to try their hand at peer-to-peer fundraising. Why seek out new strategies when you’re already winning so hard?
From the concrete to the philosophical, the creative to the predictable, and the consistent to the untested, Chive’s retention magic comes from within their essential culture of impact—and Erika is here to let you in on what it takes to do it yourself.
David Schwab Hello, everyone, and welcome to the next episode of Nonstop Nonprofit. I'm David Traub, your host. Head of Marketing and Growth at Fundraise. Today, I am really excited to be welcoming our guest, Erika Carley. Erika is joining us from Chive Charities. Erika, thank you for joining us today.
Erika Carley Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
David Schwab Erika, I am so excited to jump in with you. Share your wisdom with our audience. But before we do that, I would just love to hear from you. Have you share a little bit of your story with our audience? If anyone knows me to pick it up now, I am all about storytelling. I love hearing people's stories, their background, what makes them tick. So if you share some of that with our with our audience, you know how you got started in the nonprofit sector? What first brought you to HIV charities? I know you were telling me you've been there since almost day one, very early with Chive and its mission, but you've also been there a really long time. So what is it that first brought you there? What's kept you as long as it has?
Erika Carley Yeah, that's always such a fun question because it brings me back. I think I knew from a young age that I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector. I always had a feeling that I I'd need to be in some kind of mission driven work to feel filled up, and it didn't happen right away. The journey was really interesting. My experiences outside of the nonprofit sector, specifically in film production, which I dove into right out of college, was a powerful introduction to the way storytelling can carry, the way it can get people to move and act. And that understanding and interest has totally influenced my approach to the work I do now. So after a few years of coordinating and then managing productions in Los Angeles for TV and documentaries, mostly I embrace that itch to dedicate my time to more mission driven work and ended up identifying development as a career path that I felt I could be really passionate about. There was some pretty cool overlap in the skillset I had built that sort of can do attitude. The Strategic Coordination organization was huge and relationship building. So after working for some great organizations in L.A. where I was living at the time, I moved to Austin, Texas, and that's where charities came into the picture only a few months after I moved. So when I first heard about five charities, they were in year three at the time. So super young. Like I was telling you, and I loved the mission right away. I felt passionate about the communities they served. That includes veterans, military families, first responders and rare medical. And I saw it as a big opportunity for my professional development. It was super exciting to join a small and young organization that had what I thought was a truly unique model and a ton of potential. I wanted to learn from their talented team members, and I also wanted to help them advance and grow. There was a lot of building to do and I love the build. I still love the build, know we're only ten years and there's still a lot of building to be had. So it's been an incredible seven years and my role has evolved from running strategic development and partnerships to operations and longer term vision casting. And I've stayed there for a couple of reasons. I'll say the impact, it's so awesome to see the impact demonstrated in real lives every single week, sometimes twice a week. You get to know these recipients, these great recipients and their stories, their challenges, their passions. And you see how life changing our grants are. It's just really, really special. And then the growth, the opportunity that I've had to truly grow in my role and feel encouraged and empowered to do that, that's been a huge part of it for me and something I try to give our team members time, pass it down.
David Schwab That's awesome. I will say hearing that you have a background in film and that kind of media, I was I was watching the the video you have on your website right now, and it was kind of choking me up a little bit, hearing those stories of people who their lives were so limited because of the medical issues that they had and the help that they couldn't get or couldn't afford and how HIV came in and helped those families and those veterans and those those first responders. As I was getting choked up, little misty eyed when I was watching it, now it all makes sense is just someone who really knows what they're doing, telling a great story. But obviously the work itself is so important and so valuable, it's hard not to feel the emotional connection to what charities is doing. So I just kind of had that click in my head. I saw that video and I was like, Oh, that must have that must been something Erika had a big hand in.
Erika Carley Yeah, storytelling is so critical to our work. It's been a part of our model and our mission from the very beginning to raise a. It is through storytelling for these what we call underserved, overlooked causes. And I'll say, like we've had a very creative team since day one, and it was really neat to kind of come into it in year three and think that you and I could bring some of my production skills to this too, because that's an awesome way to share about what your nonprofit does and something that a lot of nonprofits actually struggle with because of the cost. So that's been a really fun part of it for me.
David Schwab That's awesome. Erika I think that's a nice segway into what I think is going to be probably our main topic for our conversation today. But I know I introduced it early as we started this episode, but I want to bring back to the fact that Champ Charities has an awesome success rate with donor retention. And if I know one thing to be true about our sector today, it's that we have a crisis on our hands when it comes to donor retention. The latest figures I was looking at is most organizations are happy if they're retaining 50% of their donors, that means one out of every two people who give a gift never come back to give a gift again. And HIV charities you guys are retaining almost 98. So it's like, what, almost 100%? That's a small, small fraction of a fraction of a percent of donors who come in are leaving. That is a huge success story. And that's something that I want to dig into with you today. I think it's going to be so valuable for our audience, so valuable for our listeners. So it's going to be valuable for me. I am so excited to pick your brain and learn what you guys are doing at Tribe Charities to break the mold in traditional donor relationships today, because I know it has to be a very intentional choice, just like you were talking about how you've always your organization has always been very storytelling driven and creative, and that's been part of your ethos. But I think also to be able to retain donors at the rate you're retaining donors, you also have to have a strong commitment to that relationship. And I'm sure it didn't happen by accident. So I guess my first that was that was a long winded way to get into my first question of with your your time at Tribe Charities, when or what was that aha moment that you guys all rallied around this commitment to donor relationships and being what is really a bright light in a very dark space of donor retention?
Erika Carley Yeah, well, thank you for those kind words. Yeah, we were retaining it around 98%, sometimes above that month over month. So that's huge for us. And I will say we prioritize the monthly giving from the start. So those really grim donor and giving statistics, I think they point directly to the value of launching a monthly giving program. We prioritize that from the start. So right away we saw the value in cultivating relationships with donors and engaging them on a consistent basis. Again, storytelling is a big part of that because weekly, we're sharing those stories. As time went on, we saw the value in our numbers. So 70% plus little bit, 17.6% right now of our revenue comes from this sustainable channel from monthly giving. So that's our aha, that's our answer. This kind of engagement allows us to plan strategically in the short, medium and long term, and it also gives us the incredible opportunity to build deep relationships with donors. They're part of their charitable evolution, which is so remarkable. That being said, our retention tactics have developed and evolved over time, and it's been really incredible to witness the impact over the last almost decade.
David Schwab That's so cool. I love hearing that, and specifically the commitment early on to acquiring donors as sustainable as recurring givers. That recurring revenue recognizing now, probably looking back that having reliable recurring revenue is the key to growth for nonprofit organizations. I mean, it's the key to growth for any organization is having reliable revenue. Those are things that we struggle with every day in a for profit company is how do we how do we grow revenue, how do we build a reliable base? And that sounds like for a long time that's what Tribe Charities has done. I think my next question on that would be digging a little deeper is it's one thing to say, you know, we prioritized acquiring sustainable. The answer sounds easy, but oftentimes an easy answer is rarely a simple solution. What are some of the things that you guys did at Tribe Charities to focus on recurring revenue and acquiring monthly or recurring givers?
Erika Carley Yeah. So we invested pretty heavily in monthly donor acquisition campaigns, marketing campaigns, and we used really compelling stories to do that. And, you know, when you do that, once you get them to the door, then it just becomes retention. So retention, having a sound retention strategy in place when you're doing that and before you launch, it is super important. And I will say like, you know, just thinking about some of the things that we have done to increase that donor retention, once we get those donors through the door, it's 1 to 1 communication. We increased 1 to 1 communication. There is no better tactic than that. You need to do that strategically, but there's nothing more valuable than connecting with your donors intentionally and authentically, and having a high touch approach is worth the investment. So we prioritize monthly giving. We had this sort of excited, passionate community ready to to support us. We got them to the door and then we continued to put our efforts into inspiring more and more people to join this this movement with us to support these underserved, overlooked causes. And and at the same time, we're thinking, how are we keeping these donors engaged? How are we stewarding that? How are we? How are we retaining them? And we've learned a lot of lessons and we've refined a ton along the way.
David Schwab That's so cool. It's honestly just hearing you talk about how you focus on storytelling and engaging donors and building that reliable base through a relationship. It's a breath of fresh air, so I'll probably say it often, and I'm sure a lot of our fans and listeners and our audience will say it, but kudos to you guys like this is it's incredible to hear. It speaks volumes to the success. I have a another question that I'm coming to here is, [00:11:59]how has having that reliable relationship with donors allowed Chive Charities to grow in a way that other organizations that are only 10 or 11 years old haven't been able to grow? Have you been able to do things or scale or try things that you think other organizations may not have had the opportunity to because of your commitment to recurring reliable revenue built on the back of strong donor relationships? [26.7s]
Erika Carley [00:12:26]Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, going back to the revenue, when a good portion of that revenue comes from recurring giving, you're just set up to plan and you're also set up to be creative. So you can simultaneously make budget projections into the future, pretty far into the future. And then you have the opportunity to be more strategic with your planning. You could be more proactive than reactive and you can get really creative, like I said. So that's a huge benefit and it's so helpful to your year-over-year sustainability and growth. And I think when you retain your donors in this way, it gives you the ability to foster a true culture of impact. So by connecting our donors, and their donations, directly to the causes they're impacting on a consistent basis, we're demonstrating the value of their support and showing them not just telling that they have a stake in something bigger than themselves. So this opens up the door to new opportunities all the time for Chive Charities. I can't tell you how many of our donors will reach out with a new idea or a connection to a program we should check out or kind of sharing information about a company they work for. Sharing about potential applicants that we could support, nonprofits we might want to support. So our community members trust us, and that goes a really long way. When you have that trust, you have the flexibility as an organization to try new things, to introduce new initiatives and campaigns and programs, and your donors are there and ready to engage. So yeah, that's been huge for our growth. It's been and it's been huge for our connection, our connection to our donors. [107.7s] They trust us. They see what we do with their dollars, and then they also feel like we're listening to them. We listen to them, we see them, and we have opened up those pathways for communication so that if they have something they want to share. With us. They know exactly who they can go to.
David Schwab Mm hmm. I think that may be the most powerful piece of it, is that your donors don't just feel like a donor. They feel like an investor, and they feel like they're. They're really, truly part of the mission that they're giving to.
Erika Carley Yeah.
David Schwab They see the value that Chave charities brings and the impact that you're able to make and the resources that you have. And they're able to feel like I am part of this by making my gift month over month, over month. But I also know who I can go talk to when I want to do something different or I want to do something over and above, or I want to share an idea or dream with the organization that I care about. I think that is so cool. I think it ties back to what you're talking about, is that commitment to 1 to 1 communication and creating that relationship.
Erika Carley Yeah. Yeah. And we have a lot of great tactics like powerful donor retention strategies for that. If you want me to go into that.
David Schwab Oh, you know, I do.
Erika Carley But that's been, you know, key to talks. He says, Yeah, I mean, I love that. I love talking about those powerful donor retention strategies. And, you know, some of the most powerful I'll share one handwritten cards. I will die on a hill of handwritten cards. We identify key touch points for this kind of like level up. Thanks. This level of communication. Like when a donor downgrades their monthly giving level, when they upgrade their monthly giving level. And that goes to your intention. You're you're seeing what that donor is doing behind the scenes. So they downgraded something must be going on in their life but they stuck with us. They might have lost their job and yet instead of canceling, they're just downgrading, you know, they're making it more doable for the space that they're in. And we just think that's incredible. So we really try and honor that. We honor that action that they took in sticking with us. And and we also send a card if they cancel, because, look, we want to keep the door open and we also want to thank them for the incredible amount of impacts they've had as a donor and remind them exactly what that was. How many causes have you impacted, how many dollars have you donated to date? And, you know, we want them to know that that we know that we not only have that information, but that we're associating that with them as a donor who has made the decision to be so committed to something bigger than themselves.
David Schwab So that is such a unique story and a unique tactic. I've been in the space a long time, and I can honestly say outside of major gifts, I don't know any organization that handwrite so card to a donor, maybe a mock handwritten card as part of a thank you package or a welcome package. But never, never a handwritten card. Intentional based on the way that they're changing their commitment, whether it's increasing or decreasing or canceling, it comes back to, you know, the culture and everything you institute there. But I'm really curious, while we're on that subject, has anyone ever responded to a handwritten card? And what are some of those responses like.
Erika Carley Oh, they all the time. And our incredible development associate, Teresa, she just sent me a note today that she got from a donor that she sent a handwritten card to. And and really, they are they're usually just really grateful and maybe a little bit stunned, like, oh, my gosh, they took the time to write me this card. And and that's what they say. They thank us right back. You know, I don't do this for recognition. I don't do this for any kind of acknowledgment. But it's felt so nice to get that. And I feel that way when I get a piece of snail mail from a friend. You know, it makes me feel good and right. And I think, you know, going into just like that, that culture of of donor appreciation, I think the most important thing that I've learned at what keeps me so committed to this and and our team, what keeps our team so committed to this, is that we are connecting on a human level. And this should be about connecting on a human level. It's about philanthropy, a love for humankind. And I think that love should be shown to the communities we serve and also to the people who make that possible together. We're doing such incredible work. We're doing so many incredible things, and it can be easy to think about donor appreciation and limit yourself to thank you for your donation, and then asking them again, and then thanking them again and then asking them again. And I think it's important to remind ourselves that our donors are humans. They're humans first, and they want to be seen and valued just like we all do. And it doesn't mean that they give to be recognized like that donor told us today. But we all want to be seen. And so we do our best to achieve that. And we build really special relationships because of it.
David Schwab That's so incredible. It must be some of the conversations that come on the back of those must be so interesting or impactful and valuable.
Erika Carley Oh, yeah.
David Schwab So if you wanted to talk more about strategies, I think every strategy, every tactic that you share, but you have to share about is going to be totally valuable. But I was so curious about some of the conversations that that happened because of that unique touch point.
Erika Carley One of the retention tactics that's a little bit more philosophical in nature and really powerful, I think, is your ability to listen and observe intently. So you're in a mindset to identify opportunities to meaningfully engage with your donors as humans. So that means you're consistently canvasing your donor communication. If a donor is going through a challenging time, a family member passed away, or maybe they've gone above and beyond to share about your mission, whatever it might be, you're mindful enough in that moment to pause and ask yourself, How can I make them feel seen? So maybe that is a hammer and card acknowledging what they're going through personally. Maybe you're thanking them not just for increasing awareness, but for being the kind of person that would dedicate time and energy to that. Maybe you're sending flowers with a note from your team. So identifying the less obvious opportunities to engage with your donors, it's not just about thanking them for their donations. I think once you start cultivating this incredible relationship with your donors, you start to learn a lot more about them and it's because they're opening up to you. So you'll be more privy to that information. And then you just have to remind yourself your days get really busy. Know we're all kind of in the grind. But taking having a mindset where I'm going to take a pause, Oh, I just like, you know, they just shared that with me. That's like really moving. I think I'm just going to take a moment and, you know, pull out a card and and write it right. Let's just write something, put it in the mail, do it immediately. Don't keep a running list to do it in that moment when you're when you're feeling that. So that's I think that's a really powerful tactic.
David Schwab So you guys, you are not only are recognizing donors, responding to what they're telling you in a personal relationship, but you're actually physically handwriting your cards, because I know a lot of organizations when they do handwritten cards, have tools that they do to kind of automate the process where you can. It's still technically handwritten, but it's done through robots or machines, which I've looked at in a few different capacities. I think it's a really cool thing. But you guys, so you're literally you've got a stack of cards next to your desk and you go, Right now I'm ready to write that note by hand to the person I just talked.
Erika Carley Yeah, we've never used robots or anything like that.
David Schwab How I.
Erika Carley Am. And someone actually, I was on a demo the other day and and someone said, Hey, you should look into this, you guys, Right? So many handwritten cards. And I was like, You know, I could understand that for a campaign, if you're sending a note of thanks or, you know, after an end of year thing. But that doesn't really work with the culture that we built with our donors, because when we write a handwritten card, we use their name, we use personal information about them. We tell them exactly, like I said, how many causes they've impacted, the amount that they've donated to date. We're referencing personal details and interactions we've had with them, and I think that's what makes it so special. So in my mind, because of the way that we work and because of the relationships we have, I don't know that we would get any return on that investment, the return on the investment, on our investment of sitting down and writing those cards. We see it in big, big ways. So yeah, yeah, I wouldn't want to pay a service to do that for us.
David Schwab I totally get it. I just think it's so inspiring that you guys are so fiercely committed to your donor relationships that it's a fundamental part of your culture. Like it is not only encouraged, it is expected that every time you talk to a donor, you are thinking, How can I have a personal follow up with that person? It's not like it's not just something that is above and beyond. It is like, this is this is what we expect. This is what we commit to being part of this team, being part of this movement to recognize and build the relationship with our donors.
Erika Carley Totally. And I will say, when you're so committed to these kinds of tactics, I think you can run the risk of going overboard and not pausing to assess the return on investment. So we've done that with sending more generic thank you cards after a campaign, we handwrote them. And thanks to mostly Theresa, who wrote 800 cards after a donor acquisition campaign last summer. And, you know, at the time it was we thought, okay, this is a good idea. And the card went along with this really cool challenge coin that was the benefit of this campaign. And the campaign was incredible. The story was. It converted so many new monthly donors and upgrades and one time donations that anyhow, we did decide to write those cards. And if I were to look back, I probably would have said, know, I don't think that we actually need to do that. You know, we could. Somewhere where you could get a service to write a thank you card or you think of a different and creative way to say things along with that that benefit, that promotional benefit that they're getting. So I think it is important when you're thinking about these touchpoints with your donors, you want to map that out. You don't want to send a donor five handwritten cards in the mail on an annual basis because the cards might lose some of their value if they're more generic. So instead, I think it's important to focus on being extremely personal in the cards when you do send them and identify that opportunity for level up. Thanks. And then you can also have one on one communication, texting, emailing. But those cards are really special. So just make sure that you're identifying the best time to send that. I think that's that's important.
David Schwab That's awesome. So we've gotten tactical. We've talked about cards. We've talked about some of the times like that high value, the high return on cards, but also sometimes when it doesn't make sense to do it. Thinking future state. What is something you're really excited this year or beyond to start trying when it comes to increasing those donor relationships, maybe adding that that next percent to get to 99 or 100% of donor retention?
Erika Carley Yeah, well, that's a great question. I mean, I, I think because we have such a strong culture of impact when I think about new retention tactics to deploy, I'm getting a little bit more I'm thinking a little bit bigger. So one thing I'm very excited to try this year is peer to peer fundraising and engaging our donors in that. And if we can do that effectively, I think what will happen is we'll get we'll see more opportunities for donor retention strategies. So with peer to peer, the hope is that, you know, our committed donors would engage their networks and then we have a whole new pool of people to engage in our community and retain with these, like thoughtful and meaningful strategies. So that's where my excitement really lies. We have done peer to peer fundraising in the past when crowd rise was around, but since that went away, we haven't been able to do that. And our community, because they're so loyal. I mean, it's like the perfect thing for them. Peer to peer fundraising and they would love I think our donors would love, right? Yeah. To engage their friends and family in our campaign. So we're thinking very strategically about how we can incorporate a peer to peer fundraising element into our campaigns this year. And we'll be excited to, of course, always attach stewardship and retention strategies as a part of that, and those will be very nuanced and specific to each one of those campaigns. So that's where my excitement is.
David Schwab That's that's perfect. And I'm glad you brought up peer-to-peer, because I will have to admit I've been in the digital fundraising space for a long time, and for a long time I was against peer-to-peer fundraising. And I have to raise my hand right now in my humble pie. I was wrong. Not only was I wrong, I was dead wrong. We just finished a study at Funraise. We do this annually. We look back at our numbers, the average value of a peer-to-peer fundraiser. So someone who runs a fundraiser as a peer-to-peer, like the head of a does their peer-to-peer fundraiser program, they're ten times more valuable than a single gift from that same person, at least ten times more valuable. And I mean, it makes sense. You're asking that person to tap into their network of people to support a cause they care about, and those people that they're rallying are learning about. Your organization, are seeing someone they care about, care about you, and are stepping into the cause with their friend, family member, that loved one. They're stepping into the cause and then learning more about the cause and why they should continue supporting it. So it makes sense. But man, for a long time I was on the fence because I was like, You know, it makes sense. I see the value, but how do you build relationships with those donors that come in? But the more that I look at it and the more that I see it, one the value is undeniable. But now there's so many more tools available to run these types of programs and allow your fundraisers to fundraise on behalf of you and intentionally engage with their people and share their story. But also on the back end, get the type of information you need to be able to nurture that relationship with those new donors that are coming in through your fundraisers. So I like I said, I'm eating my humble pie. I am all for peer-to-peer fundraising now.
Erika Carley Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's so great. And I think you can have. By that same logic, two major gifts. That's something really cool about sustainable. Is that your monthly giving program can become a really tremendous pipeline for major gifts. And then you can look at those major gift donors and say, Hey, you know, there may be an opportunity here for you to engage your network and we can teach them about type charities and draw them in and invite them into our stories. So I think the same logic applies there, and it's all very, very powerful.
David Schwab Yes. Yes, it is, I think. And I was curious if we were going to be able to broach that subject. But I'm wondering, with the intentional relationships you're building with your donors and those very intentional personal touch points, have you seen and this may be a hard, hard thing to quantify, but have you seen a strong pool of those sustainable or individual givers rising the ranks and becoming what we would typically call a major donor built on the back of those relationships you're building?
Erika Carley Yeah, that's a great question. So I have an interesting sort of case study about that, and I've talked about it before for many, many years. From day one, we only offered we offered monthly giving levels from $10 a month up to $100 a month. And there was always a enter your own amount field, but it was rarely used. And so we had was sort of blinded by the fact that we had this very successful monthly giving program. And it wasn't until April of 2020 that, you know, COVID hit we were all sort of like, you know, what is going to happen in the charitable space here? How many donors are we going to lose? What we know now is that there was a huge uptick in 2020 and 2021. And and we said, let's launch a campaign to launch a higher level of monthly giving, so $200 and above. And so we launched this. We did a campaign around it. We attached new benefits and we saw so much support so quickly, you know, and it was $200 a month. We saw donors that went, oh, I'm going to give $500 a month that opened up this door. Right. That they didn't know existed to give more. And we learned in that moment that how that the power of just the ask and educating donors that you can give more. There is that opportunity. You can leave so much on the table, so much money that could be so impactful for the communities you serve. And now our platinum level giving makes up 20% of our annual revenue. So that's been huge. And and it wasn't until last year where I really started to double down on a major gifts strategy. We had what could be called major, major gift donors, but it wasn't really intentional program. We've always prioritized monthly giving and we have partners and sponsors, of course, but we really started to drill into that and we saw the same response that we would ask them. Those three words, would you consider? And what we found is if we got a response to that email, would you consider having me having a meeting with me to discuss how you can be instrumental to our growth, we were able to close some really big gifts and continue to relationship build with these donors who have been with us for a long time. So that charitable evolution is very giving, is really incredible and just very inspiring for us to see and witness and be a part of.
David Schwab That's amazing. Yeah. It does not surprise me that with the way that you've prioritized building relationships, you have a culture of relationship and value of your donors that you've been able to nurture, maybe even unintentionally for a while. Those opportunities to be able to open up a bigger ask, you saw it as you asked for higher or even just higher recurring gift amounts, but also probably those I always call them the hiding major donors or the hidden donors. They have much more propensity or capacity to give, but they're just waiting for the invitation. So I think it's really cool to hear some of that payoff. And I'm confident that it paid off because of the intentional work that you and your team have done, not just for the last months or our few years, but really for the entire time that type charities has been operating. So, Erika, we've talked some tactics, we've talked big picture in philosophy, we've talked culture. I think I'm going to be sitting for a while and thinking about what culture of impact really means and how maybe I can even bring that back to my team at fundraise, because that's what we want to do too. We want to we want to foster a culture of impact to help the organizations we partner with grow their impact more. So you're going to you've got the wheels turning in my head for a while on that one. But I think I would be remiss if I didn't take us even a little bit more tactical maybe, you know, a lot of the minds. Getting into the minds of the people who are listening right now. They're going, okay, Eric, we're all in. You've convinced us it's time to change our culture, create a culture of impact. We got to go all in on major gifts. I'm going out and buying a stack of thank you cards it at Trader Joe's this weekend. They're going to sit on my desk. I'm ready. But let's give some practical steps to get started. So if if someone's like, hey, we just we've never done this before. We haven't thought about this. We've been part of the, you know, the traditional thinking where I've just got to go get more donors to fill the donors that are leaving. But maybe really the answer isn't growing bigger or having a bigger file size. It's having a more loyal audience and a better relationship with my donors. What can I do? You know, step one, what can I do today to start taking a step towards building better relationships with my.
Erika Carley That's a great question. Okay. I have a couple of ideas to share here. So, one, I would I would map out your donor journey and identify your current engagement points. How and where are you engaging with those donors? And then I would identify gaps. Where could you be more thoughtful and effective in your engagement? Are you engaging 1 to 1 with your donors at least once annually? Mm hmm. Thinking about cards, thinking about tax, thinking about emails, 1 to 1. How are you thinking your donors? I would also look at passive cancellations, just to your point. You know, if people are just always concerned about these donors left, now I have to go find new donors. We'll look at passive completions. Have you invested in a value add with your payment processor that automatically updates credit card information? And do you have a communication plan or email text drip when credit cards fail? That's been huge for us. I mean, we get our list of inactive donors and we're engaging with them meaningfully and we've thought about really carefully about what that communication should look like. I also think, you know, this is really top of mind because I just did this, which is a good thing to share because we haven't done it all, but we still have so much to do and so many things that we can develop in. But I would do an audit of your triggered email communications, and if you don't have triggered email communications that I would think about what that could look like for monthly donors who sign up and wait time donor. So like I said, I just did this. We're getting close to implementation, but you want to look at what does your confirmation email say? What does it look like? And then what's the drip? So I just wrote a new drip for new monthly donors who join our Green Ribbon fund and an email drip for one time donors, and that drip ladders up to a conversion play after 12 weeks. So this is low hanging fruit. And then once it's implemented, it's done and it will begin to impact every donor who supports your mission leading forward. So, for example, for the first email, two new monthly donors, it's welcoming them into this sacred space. What does it mean for them to be a part of this space where you're all you have this like collective dedication to monthly giving into your mission? So we describe what that means. And it's all about identity with monthly giving, recognizing that these committed donors feel that this is part of their identity. So build on that. And the second email is triggered two weeks later and it details how they can get involved with our community. That includes like who they can email on our team, who they can text. You can join this channel on discord, you can join a chapter in their volunteer efforts. The third email has a message from our executive director and sort of sums up that wraps it up with a bow just how impactful they are as donors. And then of course, those are all automated. Then we have those that mindset to know, okay, we want to make sure we are seeing our donors and we're doing that level up. Thank you when it's warranted. So that's the handwritten cards, that's emails or text net that have nothing to do with them making a donation. It's just about seeing them. So that's huge. And then you already set it. You're running out to Trader Joe's to get a pack of cards. But I would say like, sit down with whoever on your team is creative design and order cards, order lots of cards and identify those level up. Thank you. Opportunities or appreciation opportunities to communicate with your donors through snail mail. The best at those. Those are some some immediate things that I would do, but I think it's important with really a really high touch approach that you also think about the automated approach to write. Like I looked back at our confirmation email and I was like, Oh man, we could really work on that. Like it's just confirming your donation, but that's an opportunity to really double down on retention and immediate tactic for retention. Yes, and that's a really it's a missed opportunity. So we're working on some animated gifts that we're going to include in the. That have really stunning visual components. Again, that's that hits on that identity and pulling people into this this story that they're now going to be a part of. So you want to demonstrate that impact from the very, very beginning. And I'm so excited to get those out. So if anybody listening in on the episode feels inspired by that, I just did it. And we've been pretty great at the retention game for years now. So always room to grow, right?
David Schwab So two things. One, I think we heard episode two featuring Erika talking about turning automation on and how to build an automation program to boost retention. I have always been a huge fan of automation. It's not easy and it takes a lot of upfront time, attention and investment. But the return on that time invested is totally astronomical. So we have we have a few sequences that fundraise and one like our simple sequence when you know, when someone signs up for our newsletter at fundraise, that's our highest engaged email that we ever send. And it's just a simple thanks for joining our newsletter. Here's some content you might be interested in. We're so happy to have you part of our community and that other the other part that you touched on there that I think is so important for not just retaining donors but creating a culture of impact is building those communities like you talked about having a discord, a place where your donors can come talk and connect and engage with other donors. Like when you're part of a community, you're seeing your felt you're heard. It gets you so much more invested in the cause and the movement. Well, gosh, Erica, there have been so many things we've talked about today that I'm just going to take away and sit and chew on for who knows how long you have shared so much wisdom and insight with us today. I so appreciate you joining us and giving us an hour of your time and sharing your thoughts and your tactics and your strategies and kind of peeling back the curtain and letting everyone see how things are run at charities. For anyone listening, if they want to follow along in your journey, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're going to be talking about some automation and what that looks like in the donor retention process. But I also know, like it's so valuable to follow you. Where can working our audience engage with you?
Erika Carley Yeah, I think LinkedIn is is the best spot for me and trying to do more sharing. It's I'm so impressed by people who share daily on that platform and I'd love to get there too. Yeah, it's very time intensive, but I do try and be very intentional with my posts and share some more tactical information like this. So LinkedIn is going to be the best place.
David Schwab All right. Well, Erika, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I know our audience appreciates it as well. Have a great day.
Erika Carley Thanks so much.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit! This podcast is brought to you by your friends at Funraise - Nonprofit fundraising software, built for nonprofit people by nonprofit people. If you’d like to continue the conversation, find me on LinkedIn or text me at 714-717-2474. And don’t forget to get your next episode the second it hits the internets. Find us on your favorite podcast streaming service, hit that follow button and leave us a review to help us reach more nonprofit people like you! See you next time!