How to Tailor Nonprofit Outreach: 5 Tips for Personalization

Whether your nonprofit has five supporters or five thousand, each individual plays an important role in fulfilling your mission. To convey this to supporters, you must treat them accordingly—as individuals.

Personalized communications foster meaningful connections with your supporters by helping them feel recognized and valued by your organization. By building relationships with donors, or as Convergent Nonprofit Solutions refers to them, investors, you can inspire repeat giving and deeper engagement.

This article unpacks the key personalization tactics your nonprofit can use to tailor its outreach.

1. Segment Your Audience

Data drives specificity. The more you know about your audience, the more informed you’ll be when crafting messages that resonate with them.

However, relevant data comes from various sources, including your constituent relationship management (CRM) system, program management solutions, financial database, and other solutions. Centralizing this disparate data into one repository—a data warehouse—enables you to fully analyze your audience’s behaviors and preferences through information like giving history, online interactions, and event attendance.

With a unified view of your data, you can group audience members according to various characteristics, such as:

• Demographic data: Responses vary across demographics for different content and channels. For example, Gen Zers are inspired to give by social media content, while Gen Xers are prompted by email.
• Gift size and frequency: Giving history reveals a supporter’s engagement level and, as a result, the level of personal attention they should receive. This could range from exclusive updates for major investors to cumulative impact reports for recurring investors.
• Involvement history: Supporters with deeper involvement in your organization feel more connected to your organization, while first-time investors or new social media followers may need additional information to bridge that gap.
• Employment information: Knowing your audience’s employers can help you identify (and reach out about) employee giving opportunities, such as matching gifts or volunteer grants.
• Wealth indicators: Property ownership, investments, and other factors may indicate the likelihood that certain audience members could upgrade their gift sizes or support larger campaigns.

Use this data to group your supporters according to their shared characteristics, keeping in mind that some characteristics will overlap. For example, after creating a segment of recurring investors, you may break this category down even further by grouping recurring investors according to their age, eligibility for matching gifts, and wealth indicators. Then, develop messaging that resonates with each subcategory.

2. Incorporate Personal Details

Incorporate personal details in your messaging to help recipients feel like you’re speaking directly to them. Here are some details you could include:

• Recipients’ first names
• Previous donation amounts and the impact of those gifts
• Volunteer history, such as participation in a corporate volunteerism program or specific roles

Use these details to guide your audience toward a personalized call to action. For example, an animal shelter volunteer who walks dogs might eagerly donate to help the shelter update their dog parks. Here’s how the shelter could structure an email to a current volunteer:

James,

As you may remember from your 50 volunteer hours last year, our facility’s dog parks have long needed updating. With your help, we can resod the dog parks and plant trees to provide shade in the summertime! Just a $15 donation can go a long way in helping us reach our goal. See our Ways to Give page to learn how you can help.

Other audience segments less connected to your mission may prefer a brief introduction to your organization. For example, the animal shelter may send the following email to someone who hasn’t donated but has shown interest in the organization:

Nicholas,

We noticed you recently requested our Kitten Kit, which provides supplies for caring for kittens found in your community. If you’ve recently found kittens nearby, we’re here to help! Our mission is to provide quality services that improve animal welfare in our city. For more information on our mission and vision, feel free to check out our About page!

3. Develop a Multi-Channel Strategy

Assess your nonprofit’s digital presence and evaluate how supporters engage on each platform. Determine which channels engage each audience segment and identify any specific content types that resonate most. For instance, do supporters engage more with Instagram stories or posts? Which email subject lines receive the highest open rates?

With these insights, your marketing team can create a plan for outreach that leverages multiple channels, including:

• Email: Send regular email newsletters that provide updates on your operations and special announcements about upcoming events or projects. Include multimedia elements like infographics, videos, and podcasts to make them even more engaging. 
• Social media: Regularly post on the social media channels that your supporters frequent. Take your efforts to connect to the next level by actively responding to comments and direct messages.
• A donor portal on your nonprofit’s website: Allow supporters to make password-protected profiles on your website where they can manage their personal information and view their involvement history. Here you can provide information about how supporters’ contributions are creating tangible impact, send personalized messages, and facilitate processes like event sign-ups and ticket purchases.  
• SMS campaigns: Use texts to send out last-minute reminders about important deadlines for registering for events or making donations. You can even use texts to initially thank supporters for their gifts.

Reviewing your digital strategy can also help you identify marketing tools you don’t currently use, revealing gaps where you could expand your reach. Consider any platforms not currently in your digital strategy and whether they’d be worth the investment.

4. Offer Unique Ways to Engage

Asking every audience member for a donation is like ordering the same dish at every restaurant—it may work a few times, but you’ll inevitably be rejected when your ask isn’t on the menu.

Instead, increase the likelihood of involvement by making thoughtful requests. For example, investors lacking the financial security to commit to recurring gifts might have gently used items perfect for your clothing drive. Or, volunteers with taxing time commitments may be eager to continue supporting your mission monetarily.

Use supporter data to determine the most appropriate request. You may already have relevant information in your database, but consider researching recent giving trends to explore common giving preferences. Statistics surrounding supporter behaviors can help you determine which asks are more likely to be fulfilled.

5. Use Automation Tools

For nonprofits with large-scale operations and hundreds or even thousands of supporters, personalizing each message can seem daunting. To balance a tailored approach with efficiency, look for automation tools that personalize at scale without sacrificing quality.

These tools include:

• CRMs, like Blackbaud CRM or Raiser’s Edge NXT, which automate segmentation, email series, and other tasks
• Social media management software, which schedules posts and automates engagement tracking
• Email marketing platforms, which automate email sequences tailored to supporters’ interests

Consult a nonprofit technology expert for specific recommendations and guidance as you navigate automation tools. Their specialized expertise in software for mission-driven organizations ensures you’ll make the most of your technology by using it strategically for your mission.

Nothing makes a supporter feel more personally connected to your organization than recognition of their involvement. Personalized appreciation shows investors you remember and cherish their contributions to your mission rather than forgetting about them until they give again.

In your tailored outreach, remember to highlight your supporters as the center of your story—after all, your work would be impossible without them! 

About the Author

Carl Diesing
Managing Director | DNL OmniMedia

 

Carl co-founded DNL OmniMedia in 2006 and has grown the team to accommodate clients with ongoing web development projects. Together DNL OmniMedia has worked with over 100 organizations to assist them with accomplishing their online goals. As Managing Director of DNL OmniMedia, Carl works with nonprofits and their technology to foster fundraising, create awareness, cure disease, and solve social issues. Carl lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife Sarah and their two children Charlie and Evelyn.