HBH Consultants

During our breakout session at last Wednesday’s MCN Technology and Communications Conference, we had a really great question from Melissa Hruza who serves as the outreach coordinator for the National Child Protection Training Center in St. Paul.

Melissa wanted to know, “What are corporate donors looking for? Do the same strategies apply to corporate givers that are effective with individual donors?” Melissa’s question was a great one, and prompted us to do a little more research to help her and other nonprofit communicators develop an effective strategy for corporate donor retention.

Below are some key findings related to corporate donors from a fairly study conducted by Cygnus Applied Research. The results challenge many of today’s accepted fundraising practices and reaffirm the need for fundraisers to pay closer attention how their donors want to be acknowledged and communicated with.

Results from the study included:

• 100% of corporate donors said it is always inappropriate for a charity to send small tokens or gifts such as refrigerator magnets to thank a corporate donor or sponsor.
• 94% of corporate donors said that photographs or personal letters from people who have benefited from the charity’s work are very meaningful and play a role in maintaining their support.

Related to recognition, 72% of corporate donors who receive plaques or certificates acknowledging their support display them; 71% are displayed in high-traffic areas and 29% are displayed in executive areas. However, 73% of individual donors either throw them out right away, or store them in a cupboard to be thrown away at a later date. This little bit of data tells us that what is an effective strategy for communicating with and retaining individual donors may not carry over int0 our corporate donor retention strategy.

So we know that corporate donors want more recognition, but this data also tells us that more importantly, they are craving meaningful information about their gifts at work. When developing your corporate retention strategy, what about combining both of these?  What are some creative ways can you acknowledge and recognize your donors, while also providing them with a meaningful “social investment” report?

Another legitimate question related to corporate donor communications is how often they want to hear from us. Our best advice is to ask them. Give them a chance to let you know how often and in what way they want to be communicated with when they renew their annual support for your organization. Not only will their response allow you to tailor your communications content and frequency to fit their preferences, but they will take notice that you are asking and will appreciate the gesture.

When looking for new ways to reach your corporate donors, think about what the company’s business objectives are and how you can align your work with their brand. How can their employees get involved? How can you help them share their support of your organization? Another tip for corporate donor cultivation is to celebrate their successes with them-if you see your favorite CEO recognized in a publication for a recent award, be sure to cut out the article and send it to her with a hearty pat on the back.

I hope this is enough info to get you thinking….thanks Melissa for your great question and source of blog inspiration!

Do you have ideas that have worked well for cultivating and retaining corporate donors? Let us know!

- Katrina

This entry was posted on Monday, February 28th, 2011 at 4:11 am and is filed under Communications, Fundraising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.