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Why you should be investing in donor personas
You probably have a good idea who your donors are, but as part of a human centered design approach, many not-for-profits and charities are finding that there is a strong case for really understanding who your donors are, and using those insights to design your approach to fundraising. They are doing this by creating donor personas, based on a real understanding and evidence of how your users behave.
This post will show you:
- Why donor personas are important for designing your approach to fundraising
- How to go about creating your own donor personas
The Digital Outlook Report 2016 found:
“Last year, in our first annual report, we saw a correlation between organizations investing in personas and citing shorter average conversion times between a constituent’s first interaction with an organization and their first donation.”
And further:
“these organizations cited shorter times between a constituent’s first gift and their second gift. We know that persona development improves both acquisition rates and has a positive impact on retention.”
Design with data, not what you think, what you KNOW
Personas are a fictionalized representation of data that you actually have on your donors. It is important not to just write down how you think your donors behave, but to use this as a chance to find evidence of how they behave and design for that.
Decide on the segmentation of your donors
You may want to segment into:
- Age group
- Donation status (e.g., regular giver)
- How recently they graduated
If you choose age group, examine your database to identify patterns. The next step is gathering additional information about this group through:
- Donation methods (online, telephone, postal order)
- Timing of donations (particular campaigns or channels)
- Gender, location, and income data
- Marital status and type of work
- Response rates across different channels (social media, telephone, mail, email)
Use Google Analytics to understand the interests and referral paths of online donors. Contact engaged donors representative of each segment to learn:
- What motivates them to give?
- How do they prefer to be contacted?
- What other organizations do they support?
Focus on information that truly matters for your fundraising strategy. Organize all data by segment to begin forming your user personas.
Create donor personas
Using data to create a persona lets them become an identifiable donor with whom your team can begin to empathize. This helps teams think from the donor’s perspective rather than their own assumptions.
Give your donor personas the following:
- Full name and picture (from free stock photo sites) to aid team empathy
- Goals or reasons for engaging with your organization, kept brief and rooted in collected data
- Biography and background information including contact preferences
- Information about social media usage and communication preferences
- Their motivations for giving
Keep personas brief to maintain team engagement and help them understand donor motivations and pain points.
Free templates are available online: search “donor persona template” or “user persona template.” Tools like xtensio.com and resources from usability.gov can help organize information effectively.
How to use donor personas
After creating personas for each segment, write tailored asks or appeals for each, as they will likely sound quite different.
Validate personas within your organization by sharing them with staff members. Then distribute them widely: print them, post them visibly, and remind teams to reference them when considering any new donor interaction aspect, including:
- Creating new asks (consider whether one version fits all or if tailoring per persona improves results)
- Running fundraising events
- Developing donor thank you approaches
- Planning stewardship and timing of future asks
- Creating or updating website content
Personas should be embedded in a human-centered design approach across your team, fostering genuine empathy and understanding of donor needs and motivations.
