Is new donor acquisition harder than donor retention?

One of the common accepted myths in fundraising is that new donor acquisition is hard and donor retention is easy. However, this is not true.

Yes, there is no doubt that acquiring new donors is an expensive and difficult task. But, retaining donors for five, ten or even fifteen years and encouraging them to increase their support to your cause is often far more challenging.

Think about it – in order to keep donors interested in your charity’s work you need to constantly find new ways to communicate your vision, fresh perspectives on sharing your stories, etc. Such activities take a great deal of thought, time and creative effort.

What’s more, cultivating strong relationships with donors means using a wide range of communications channels. And, this takes time and effort too in terms of launching multi-media strategies and sending out targeted messages.

So, every fundraiser should pay attention to both of these areas of fundraising.