Charities don't speak to donors too often
Howard Lake | 8 July 2009 | News
Almost three quarters of donors are happy with the frequency of charity communications.
Contrary to popular belief, only 17 per cent of donors actually think that charities communicate with them too often, according to research carried out by TW Cat into key fundraising issues and trends.
Research was done via 150 interviews with donors. The average number of charities people supported was just two and most think they give five times to one charity before moving on to another. TW Cat’s data, however, shows that most only give once.
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The optimum number of communications to donors to elicit more than one gift appears to be eight. Almost half of donors give two or more gifts if they receive eight communications in a year (anything from DM, phone calls, thank you letters). Only 24 per cent give more than one gift if they receive seven, and the number drops away significantly if they receive more than eight.
Eighty per cent said they were not giving any less because of the recession and those who are giving less overwhelmingly cited personal finances as the reason, rather than that the charities had done something wrong. Just over 60 per cent said they were less likely to support a new charity.
The research also revealed that the lifetime of a regular giver is less than the generally accepted five years. There is a bigger fall off in year two than in year one, but by year four only around a third of donors are still giving to the same charity.
The number of new donors being recruited during the economic downturn has remained steady.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.