Plenary Session (Sponsored by Advocate Healthcare)

Donor Loyalty & Retention

Presented by Professor Adrian Sargeant, Ph.D.

About the Program:

Levels of donor loyalty are depressingly low. Nonprofits routinely lose more than 60% of their newly acquired donors without the donors ever making a second gift. Even those donors who do give again lapse their support at an alarming rate of 30% year on year thereafter.  Given that most nonprofits lose money on their donor acquisition activity, these high levels of attrition are costing the sector dear. Even small improvements in this pattern of performance can have a huge impact on the subsequent performance of fundraising activity. Increasing loyalty by as little as 10% can improve the lifetime value of the database by anything up to 200%. In this session we explore the reasons underlying the terrible levels of loyalty nonprofits currently experience and examine what we might do to improve on them. The session will suggest a variety of very practical ways in which donor loyalty can be managed and enhanced.

By the end of the session all participants should be able to:

1) Name the three key drivers of donor loyalty;

2) Identify concrete ways in which their own fundraising program could be modified to affect these key drivers;

3) Measure each of these drivers in their own organization;

4) Describe a range of key loyalty metrics;

5) Compare their practice with best and 'standard' industry practice.  

About the Speaker:

Adrian Sargeant is the Robert F. Hartsook Professor of Fundraising at Indiana University. Sargeant is also Professor of Nonprofit Marketing and Fundraising at Bristol Business School (UK) and an Adjunct Professor of Fundraising at the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Adrian Sargeant is one of the world’s foremost authorities in the domain of nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Sargeant is the Managing Editor of the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing and the author of ‘Fundraising Management’ and ‘Marketing Management for Nonprofit Organizations’ published by Routledge and the Oxford University Press, respectively.

Adrian Sargeant is probably best known for his work on donor retention and loyalty, although he has also studied nonprofit branding, e-fundraising and bequests. His work has been funded by the Economics and Social Research Council, the Aspen Foundation, Indiana University, the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Institute of Fundraising. His work has also been funded by a plethora of different nonprofits in the United Kingdom and the United States including organizations as diverse as the American Cancer Society, Habitat for Humanity, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Concern Worldwide and Sightsavers. His work has appeared in many scholarly journals including the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and Nonprofit Management and Leadership.

In 2004 Professor Adrian Sargeant pioneered the public information website www.charityfacts.org which will shortly be developed to provide a similar service to the public in both the United States and Australia. The site is underpinned by an ongoing and ground breaking study tracking the fundraising performance of a cross section of charities. Most recently Professor Sargeant developed the UK’s new National Occupational Standard for Fundraising, specifying the skills and knowledge required of fundraisers working in a variety of different roles within the profession. Adrian Sargeant is presently working on the design of a new suite of professional fundraising qualifications.