Which of your donors are feeling most generous right now?

A common belief in fundraising is that donors need to take a rest from giving for some time after they donate.

Seems intuitively correct.

It’s not correct.

It’s one of the most destructive things you can do to your revenue and to your donor retention.

Read about this on the Better Fundraising blog, at Never Interrupt Your Donors When They’re Being Generous.

The post tells the story of a large national charity that decided to remove all $100+ donors for a few months after they gave. They were afraid these high-value donors would “burn out” with the amount of asking they were getting.

Here’s what happened:

• The $100 donors stopped giving. No big surprise, as they weren’t getting asked.
• Revenue plummeted. The loss of gifts from those $100+ donors cut deeply into revenue.
• When the $100 donors were added back into appeals months later, a significant percentage of them never gave again. The relationship with those donors didn’t improve after they were “rested” from appeals. Doing so killed the relationship for many of them.

I’ve seen it happen too. And it goes like that every time.

The reality is that donors like to give. When they donate, they feel good. Not annoyed. Giving begets more giving. The response rate from your most-recent donors is the highest among all your donors.

So if you decide to go silent on them, you are choosing to cut off the generosity of donors just when they are most likely to be generous.