Lapsed Donors – part one of a diatribe in three parts
Howard Lake | 15 June 2010 | Blogs
Q. When is a lapsed donor not a lapsed donor? A. When they don’t think they are.
I have been thinking a lot about lapsed donors lately. In part this is probably because we are engaged in some “reactivation” work for a client in this area, but more so because very recently I received a letter from a charity we personally support asking me to renew my support for the organisation.
This gave me pause for thought.
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The thought being if I needed to ‘renew’ my support, presumably I was now considered a lapsed donor.
My first response to this thought was one of irritation.
Irritation that I was considered a lapsed supporter when I considered myself anything but, and irritation that the charity I was supporting (or should that now be had supported?) didn’t realise this. Granted I hadn’t given to an appeal for a while, but I had sponsored someone quite a significant sum who was doing an event for that same charity – so to my mind, I had still given relatively recently.
My irritation was petty maybe (well definitely), but it is often the small things in life that annoy the most. In fact, I have found this irritated response is relatively common from “lapsed donors”. Last year on more than one occasion, I was doing Focus Groups for a number of clients that included groups of lapsed donors. In one I made the mistake of referring to the fact that none of the group were actively supporting the charity any longer, and got a unanimous and very robust rebuttal of such a statement. Without exception they all considered themselves to be supporters still – they just hadn’t made a financial gift in a while. For some, that might have been quite a long while, but irrespective of this, they were not pleased at being told they had stopped supporting the charity.
Of course, on reflection I appreciate that a charity cannot know whether each and every individual still considers themselves a supporter or not. Equally, a charity has a duty to spend funds wisely and not waste money communicating with those people who no longer feel engaged or wish to hear from the charity, And I believe it is sensible to try and establish whether (after a certain amount of time) someone is still interested in hearing from you or not.
But I do think we could be a wee bit more careful, even thoughtful about the language we use and the impression it can create.
After all who wants to annoy a donor, lapsed or otherwise.
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.