From Prospects to Investors: How to Grow Your Supporter Base

If you’ve kept up with recent trends in the nonprofit sector, you know that the current state of charitable giving holds both challenges and opportunities. Giving USA 2024 reported that donations are trending positively in current dollars but not outpacing inflation. Additionally, the nonprofit verticals that have seen the most significant growth include the arts, education, foundations, and public-society benefit organizations—all of which are heavily associated with major giving.

These giving trends demonstrate that it’s more important than ever to build strong supporter relationships, especially with potential major donors (or as Convergent Nonprofit Solutions refers to them, investors). So, relationship cultivation should be at the core of your nonprofit’s efforts to grow its supporter base.

In this guide, we’ll discuss three tips to help you turn supporters from unengaged prospects into long-term investors in your nonprofit’s mission. Let’s dive in!

1. Consider the Entire Supporter Journey

For investors to be fully committed to your organization’s success, they need to have a positive experience at every stage of their involvement. This is where a helpful tool commonly known as the donor management lifecycle comes in. It helps you systematically consider each phase of an individual investor’s engagement and determine how to help them progress through the steps through the process of moves management fundraising.

Here is an overview of the stages of the donor management lifecycle:

• Acquisition. This phase describes a potential investor’s first contact with your nonprofit. For lower-level supporters, this usually occurs when they respond to your organization’s mass marketing efforts, such as by clicking on a digital ad or commenting on a social media post. With prospective major investors, your nonprofit will typically reach out to them individually after conducting prospect research (more on this later!).
• Cultivation. This is where dedicated relationship-building begins in the supporter journey. Cultivation often takes multiple months of getting to know a prospect and sharing detailed information about your mission if you’re planning to request a major gift. However, to cultivate small-dollar investors, you may just need to answer a few questions or send a quick follow-up message.
• Solicitation. Your cultivation efforts should lead to your first gift request. With most small-dollar investors, this also happens relatively quickly (e.g., sending a fundraising letter with an attached return envelope or directing them to your online donation page). Major gift solicitation typically requires a one-on-one meeting where you and the investor hammer out the details of their gift amount and designation.
• Stewardship. After a successful solicitation, your first task is to thank the investor for their generosity. Your appreciation methods should align with the size of their gift—a simple thank-you message works for a low-level donor, while major donors warrant greater recognition, such as inclusion on a donor wall or a mention in your annual report.
• Retention. The stewardship and retention phases of the investor journey overlap slightly, as thanking a supporter is the first step in keeping them engaged with your nonprofit after they give. To continue your retention efforts, communicate with investors regularly, offer non-donation involvement opportunities like volunteering or advocacy, and ask for feedback on their experience so far.
• Upgrade. Once an investor has demonstrated their continued commitment to your organization, it’s time to ask them to level up their giving. This may involve asking them to upgrade from a one-time to a recurring supporter, moving up a giving level, or contributing a larger amount within the same giving level. Use what you know about each investor to determine a reasonable upgrade ask and choose the right time for your next request.

Data-driven decision-making is critical at every stage of the donor management lifecycle, so make sure your database is organized and up-to-date to inform your efforts.

2. Conduct Comprehensive Prospect Research

According to DonorSearch, “Prospect research is a technique used by nonprofit fundraisers, major gift officers, and development teams to identify high-impact [investors] within and beyond an organization’s current [supporter] pool. Through this process, nonprofits gather an immense amount of data—information about [investors’] backgrounds, past giving histories, wealth indicators, philanthropic motivations, and more details that help determine prospects’ likelihood of giving.” So, prospect research is critical for data-driven moves management.

Traditional wealth screening—analyzing data on potential investors’ financial situations to determine their giving capacity—falls under the umbrella of prospect research. However, comprehensive prospect research goes beyond assessing investors’ ability to contribute by also considering their charitable tendencies and desire to support your specific organization. 

Therefore, you should look for the following three types of data on each prospect, also known as markers or indicators:

• Capacity (wealth) indicators: Real estate ownership, stock holdings, business affiliations, political giving history
• Philanthropic indicators: Past donations to your organization or other nonprofits
• Affinity (warmth) indicators: Passion for your mission, non-donation involvement with your nonprofit and similar organizations, personal information (interests, values, family ties, etc.)

A supporter needs to exhibit all three types of indicators for your nonprofit to consider them a viable prospect. Once you have a list of potential investors, reaching out first to those with the strongest ability, willingness, and likelihood of giving can help you achieve more success in cultivation and solicitation with less time and resources required. AI-powered tools built for predictive modeling and prospect reporting can help with outreach prioritization.

3. Personalize Communications With Investors

Supporters want to know that your nonprofit sees them as important members of its community who are integral to furthering your mission. However, generic communications that don’t account for an investor’s preferences may leave them feeling less like a valued individual and more like an ATM with legs.

According to eCardWidget, personalizing communications “assures [investors] that you remember and appreciate their combined contributions to your mission,” which encourages continued support. Here are a few tips for tailoring your messages to individual investors:

• Address each supporter by their preferred name. A fundraising letter that begins with “Dear Stephen,” or “Dear Ms. Arnold,” is much more likely to be read and responded to than one with a greeting like “Dear Valued Supporter,” or “To Whom It May Concern.”
• Mention the investor’s past contributions. This includes both previous gifts (e.g., “Thank you for your $500 donation!”) and non-donation involvement (e.g., “Since you spent 20 hours volunteering with us last year…”).
• Incorporate the supporter’s interests and preferences. Note the communication channels each investor responds most to and promote opportunities or aspects of your cause that they’d want to know about. For example, if a prospect is passionate about education, you might share updates with them about your environmental organization’s program to promote recycling at local schools.

Careful data collection and management is also critical for effective personalization—this way, you can quickly reference each supporter’s preferences and tailor your content accurately to them.

The tips above should provide a solid foundation for building strong relationships that will help you grow your nonprofit’s supporter base, especially when it comes to high-impact investors. Keep your finger on the pulse of sector trends so you can adjust your strategy as the world of charitable giving evolves and continue to cultivate long-term support.