# Lapsed Donors – being the final part of a diatribe in three parts

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/06/28/lapsed-donors-being-final-part-diatribe-three-parts/
- Published: 2010-06-28T07:39:33+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Q. When is a lapsed donor always a lapsed donor? A. When they always get the exact
same things.**

As anyone who has read this blog recently will know, lapsed donors (for want of 
a better term) have been on my (muddled) mind for a while now.

Having opined about the way we talk to perceived ‘lapsed’ donors, and about lumping
in one-time givers with multiple givers, the final thing that that strikes me as
particularly incongruous is the structure and format of some charities reactivation
programmes.

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Irrespective of whether a charity considers me to have lapsed, and irrespective 
of whether I gave one gift or twenty, my basic premise is this: if I “lapse” from
a charity it is because I am no longer engaging with the communications programme
I am being offered. Now obviously there are many other variables to take into account(
you may have annoyed me for example), but as a broad premise I think this holds 
water.

Yet, far too many reactivation efforts spend a great deal of time and effort to 
persuade folk to “come back” to the organisation and then, if successful, put people
back into the exact same programme that they have lapsed from.

Which seems a little counter intuitive to me.

While it might take more thought, a bit more planning, and a bit more effort, doing
something to distinguish the communications programme for re-enthused donors would
surely be worthwhile. Even a different way of talking to these people via the copy
used would be a start – acknowledging somehow their return to the fold in more than
just their first acknowledgement letter. Better still is re-engaging them in a different
way to that which they supported previously (the obvious example being cash lapsers
restarting on a (often low-level) regular gift and (hopefully) a different communications
plan to boot.

Best of all is giving them a new way to connect altogether – introducing them back
to the work of the charity via new products or initiatives and using online engagement
are two obvious options.

We have seen some interesting approaches to give lapsed donors a completely different
communications programme over the first 12-18 months that are looking very encouraging
from first results.

Surely it has to be better to re-inspire, re-enthuse and re-vitalise rather than
just reactivate and ultimately risk relapse!

 * **[Samaritans to reactivate donors with a Christmas thank you mailing](https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/11/10/samaritans-reactivate-donors-christmas-thank-you-mailing/)**(
   10 November 2010)
 * **[Would you live next door to a lapsed donor?](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/03/23/live-next-door-lapsed-donor/)**(
   23 March 2016)
 * **[Lapsed Donors – part one of a diatribe in three parts](https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/06/15/lapsed-donors-part-one-diatribe-three-parts/)**(
   15 June 2010)