Keep Your Donors
The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships
Written by fundraising experts Tom Ahern and Simone Joyaux, Keep Your Donors is a winning guide to making disappointing donor retention rates a thing of the past.
This practical and provocative book will show you how to master the strategies and tactics that make fundraising communications profitable.
Most fundraising programmes do a stellar job of finding donors, but keeping them is another matter: most new donors do not return after their first gift. These lost donors represent major lost potential—for an organisation’s annual giving programme, capital campaign efforts, and major and planned gifts.
For the first time in one book, nonprofit professionals will find an in-depth analysis of the two things that matter most to long-term fundraising success: relationship building at all levels of the organization and a thorough look at effective fundraising communications.
This practical and provocative book shows nonprofit professionals how to:
- Master the strategies and tactics that make fundraising communications profitable
- Create a “culture of philanthropy”
- Apply hard-core marketing principles to fundraising
- Understand the most complete discussion of emotional triggers ever written and the science behind them
- Create plans for relationship-building and donor communications
- Build a truly “donor-centered” program
- Write a case for support
- Measure effectiveness…and much more
This book was written for all fund development professionals who want outstanding results. Those seeking their CFRE credential will find it doubly helpful. The authors based their work in part on the CFRE and AFP job analyses, which document the roles, knowledge, and competencies required for effective fund development.
Enthusiastic, readable, and filled with case studies, Keep Your Donors is the definitive guide to getting new donors—and keeping them—for many years to come.
Part of The AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series.
Reviews
“A great book…a great read…value beyond words. Ahern and Joyaux have married ideas, insights, stories, and real-life examples to remind us all…it is all about the donor.”
J. A. (Tony) Myers, Advisor to the President (Strategic Initiatives) University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
“A broadly nuanced view of written and personal fund development communications and their purpose—creating and sustaining relationships—that embraces philosophy, strategy, and practical tips. The counterpoint of their style intrigues, and their prose is lively and surprising: interspersing anecdotes with intermezzos with powerful challenges to the way we approach our work and our relationships. Bravo!”
Kay Sprinkel Grace, Principal, Transforming Philanthropy, LLC
