What’s the most important metric in nonprofit fundraising?
Income?
Donor count?
Retention rates?
Average gift?
You can probably find someone to fight you over every one of these being the most important. Just like with your health, there’s no measurement that your doctor cares about more than anything else. All your vital signs contribute to your “bill of health”.
But no one will argue that retention rate is extremely important.
And for good reason. That metric shows you, at a glance, how many donors are staying engaged with you, and how many have left your organization. A healthy donor base is one with a high retention rate.
It’s not the easiest metric to improve. Nor is it automatic that if you have a high retention rate one year, then you’ll have a high one the next year.
It’s hard work to get it up and keep it there. And at Oneicity, we’re proud that that hard work is paying off (and has been, we just haven’t talked about it).
Oneicity clients have retention rates that are double the national average.
But, what is the national average retention rate?
Good question, but first we need to clarify how we’re calculating retention rate. Oneicity only measures “all up” retention, meaning all donors who gave to your organization from year to year versus those who didn’t. We don’t slice it and only measure donors who have been giving for 3-4 years, or only donors who give x number of gifts in a year.
It’s nothing against those, we just don’t find them helpful. If you want to know how many donors you’re retaining, we believe you have to look at every donor—even if that lowers your percentage.
Overall, the national retention rate is reported to be around 34%, give or take some.
So, what’s a good all-up retention rate?
That depends on where you’re looking and who did the report. Not many publish all-up retention, and often it’s only for a certain subset of organizations (in one state, in one niche, or working with one agency).
Sometimes that’s helpful, sometimes not.
Oneicity’s average retention rate is right around 64%.
And that’s not skewed by one huge retention rate. Among our clients, the retention rates range from the lowest of 59% to the highest of 69%.
The Key to Retention Rates
One of the biggest reasons Oneicity clients have such high retention rates is because their messaging resonates with their donors. Each client is different, their donors and community are unique, so their messaging needs to be as well.
If an appeal letter can have your logo removed and another organization’s logo put on it and go to donors, then it’s mass marketing instead of a heartfelt letter from you to a donor.
Another key reason organizations we’re able to partner with have high retention rates comes from our slogan: it’s all about relationships.
Working closely with our clients, we create a message that cultivates and builds relationships with their donors. Their donors don’t want to leave, because they’re never treated like an ATM or that brother-in-law who is always asking for money.
They’re treated as a partner in their ministry, making an impact and doing good.
What that looks like in practice is different for each client, there’s no playbook. The messaging for Client A is different for Client B, and those are both different from Client C.
But they have one thing in common: the fundraising is donor-focused.
What about you?
If you’re a nonprofit and are worried about your retention rates, don’t panic. It’s easy to see the numbers dropping and feel like the world is falling on your head.
It’s not easy, but you can change it!
Start doing some digging, look through your messaging. And if you have any questions, you can always email us at: howdy@oneicity.com
Photo by Ali Rezaei on Unsplash
