Adding a personal touch to automated donor communications

Guest post by Megan DePaul

AI tools that facilitate automation have changed how organizations communicate with donors. According to a Twilio study, 90% of organizations surveyed in the nonprofit, education, and healthcare sectors are leveraging AI for one or more engagement and marketing use cases. These tools increase efficiency and facilitate streamlined automation, making it easier to connect with a broader group of constituents more frequently. 

However, it’s important not to get distracted by the shiny bells and whistles offered by fundraising automation tools and lose sight of the importance of tailored donor communications. Too much automation can feel generic or inauthentic and may even cause donors to tune out. 

This guide covers five tips for striking a healthy balance between automation and personalization in donor communications. These tips will help you maintain efficiency while providing the positive, individualized experience today’s donors seek. 

1. Segment donors to create tailored messages

Segmentation is a tried-and-true automation practice that nonprofits and universities use to maximize automation and personalization. Through segmentation, your organization groups donors into different persona types based on their shared characteristics. 

We recommend developing these groups based on donors’ giving habits and histories. For example, you could group donors based on their: 

• Giving amounts
• Giving frequencies
• Graduation year (specific to alumni giving)
• Specific charitable interests (research, scholarships, construction projects, etc.) 
• Length of involvement 

Then, you’ll use this information to develop a tailored outreach strategy based on each group’s primary interests. For example, BWF’s predictive AI guide recommends determining the unique messages, channels, and communication frequencies that appeal to each segment. Donors will be much more likely to engage with your outreach when it aligns with their preferences and interests. 

You could even create an online community for each segment by inviting them to join an affinity group based on their interests. For example, create a monthly giving program for your recurring donors and a major donor society for your largest givers. This helps donors feel part of something greater than themselves, deepening their connection to your cause or school.

2. Personalize donor communications using automation tools

In many use cases, automation and personalization aren’t at odds with each other—they go hand in hand. You can use automated marketing and email tools to pull personal information about donors from your donor CRM and plug it into your outreach messages to help donors feel seen as individuals. 

For example, using your marketing or CRM integration, you can populate your messages with: 

• Donors’ names
• Their unique donation amounts and impact
• References to other ways they’ve engaged with your organization, like volunteering or peer-to-peer fundraising
• Any other personal details you know about them (their birthday, key milestones, favorite food, family information—anything else you may have on file that is relevant to your message!) 

Here’s an example of how you may personalize a message thanking a donor for a recent campaign contribution. Everything bolded is personalized information you can automatically pull from your CRM: 

As you can see, this message is populated with the donor’s name, donation amount, the gift’s impact, and additional references to volunteer experiences and impact. With this information, donors know that you’ve made an effort to track their involvement history, and they’ll appreciate the gratitude you express for their involvement. 

3. Intersperse generic messages with personal touchpoints

Receiving regular automated emails from your organization (such as campaign progress updates or newsletters) is a great way to keep donors informed about your ongoing activities. However, breaking up these generic messages with unique personal touchpoints reminds your donors that you care about them as individuals and makes your outreach more compelling. 

Between your general update emails and newsletters, reach out to donors with a personal touchpoint, such as: 

• Phone calls or text messages
• Handwritten letters
• Personalized appreciation videos from volunteers, staff, or beneficiaries

An effective donor engagement strategy isn’t rocket science. Donors just want to know that your organization values them enough to occasionally step outside the typical touchpoints to offer a meaningful personal interaction.

4. Consider timing and delivery

As mentioned above, there is a time and place for automated messaging and personal touchpoints in donor communications. Carefully consider the timing and delivery of both types of messages to use them to the fullest extent. 

Automated emails are great for immediately thanking donors after they give and sending them their donation receipt. Use straightforward, formal language to thank donors and explain how they can use their donation receipt for tax purposes. 

You can also use immediate, automated emails to inform donors about the progress made during a gamified peer-to-peer fundraising challenge, highlighting who is in the lead. Donors can see whether they need to step up their fundraising efforts to surge in the contest. 

Send more thought-out, personalized messages after a campaign concludes to describe donors’ impact. Use personable, casual language to connect with donors. Include photos and videos of beneficiaries to convey donors’ tangible impact on the community and foster emotional connections to your fundraising mission. 

5. Foster two-way communication with donors

Donors will have a more personal stake in your nonprofit or university’s success when they can make their voices and opinions heard. Using two-way donor communication tactics to gather information about supporters can help you create targeted and personalized messages, whether they’re automated or hand-crafted.

Use these strategies to get to know donors and incorporate their interests into your communications: 

• Send surveys to ask for their input. Ask questions about the giving process, your communication cadence, and whether they feel sufficiently informed about how you use their gifts. 
• Respond promptly to their questions. Show donors that you’re listening by responding promptly to any questions they send via email, phone, text, or social media. 
• Save donor preferences in your CRM. Store any insights you glean from donor surveys in your CRM to reference in future outreach. 

The next time donors receive a message via their preferred platform or hear directly from a staff member about your upcoming campaign plans, they’ll feel much more connected to your organization personally. Don’t forget to follow up with donors personally after hearing their feedback to provide context for why you decided to move forward with their suggestion or table it. This responsiveness helps build trust and understanding with donors, making them more likely to stay engaged with your activities long term.

Finally, ensure your team’s marketing professionals review and vet any automated communications templates you create. Human oversight at every step reduces the risk of your communications sounding generic or robotic. Plus, it ensures that all content that ends up in donor messages is aligned with your mission. 

With these tips, you can create an efficient and individualized donor communications strategy that’s the best of both worlds.