Why recruiting less might seem attractive for your net income, but a deeper dive into your data will show that this is not actually true.

In 2024, AMREF Health Africa launched one less recruitment campaign than it had in 2023. The first impression was a positive one. It saved the costs of the recruitment campaign. Meanwhile, the income remained virtually the same.

However, a deeper data analysis painted a different, more disturbing image. This analysis showed that the number of donors dropped by 30%.

That decline had gone unnoticed at first.
This is what happens all the time. When you stop recruiting donors, your donor base shrinks. Even as you read these words, donors are leaving you. They stop giving, move house, develop different interests or pass away. Your donor base gets smaller.

This is not always immediately obvious, as your net income remains the same and may even increase. That is due to two factors:

1. You have fewer costs, because you invest less in recruitment campaigns.
2. In addition, your best donors are the ones who stay with you and continue to give.

Nevertheless, this is not a sustainable strategy. As you continue to lose donors year after year, you may find yourself in the danger zone before you know it.

Growth starts with knowledge of your existing donors

Before developing a growth strategy for an ambitious charity, we start with a comprehensive data scan of its existing donors. We examine all data pertaining to the charity’s current donor base. Nine times out of ten, this allows us to discover hidden growth opportunities for organisations, which they can immediately capitalise on to receive more donations.  We also identify opportunities for sustainable growth, such as making better use of the potential of legacy donations.

When pursuing growth, why is it important to focus on your existing donors first, before you start looking for new donors?

• retaining existing donors is cheaper than recruiting new donors.
• existing donors are more likely to become monthly, mid-level and legacy donors.
• many of your donors only need to be asked slightly more often to get them to donate more.
• it is cheaper to get someone who has donated in the past to come back than to recruit new donors.
• it is often (not always) the quickest way to generate more income in the short term and achieve long-term sustainability.

Your new donors are probably a lot like your existing donors.

To realise sustainable growth, you need retention and recruitment. An effective retention strategy will also help you retain more of your new donors.

What information will we look for in your database? 

In order to get a clear overview of the hidden potential of your data, we will look for the following multi-year insights:

• The historical growth of your donor base.
• Who donates for the second time.
• Who continues to donate year after year.
• The development of your average donation amount.
• Who increases their donations.
• Who donates less as time goes on.
• How many times per year people donate.
• The growth of your number of monthly donors.
• Who is likely willing to donate more.
• Who may be willing to include a donation in their will.
• The growth of your number of legacy donations.
• What donors stop giving altogether.
• The performance of each fundraising channel you use.

This in-depth analysis gives you clear insight into how well prepared you are for growth. We compare your figures to our benchmark. This shows you exactly where your opportunities lie and where there is still room for improvement.

Are you ready to uncover the hidden potential of your database? 

This is what we usually find: 

• No clear donor retention strategy.
• No clear plan for thanking donors and reporting back to them.
• No idea of how to obtain more mid-level donors.
• No plan for winning back past donors.
• No clear multi-year strategy for structurally increasing income from legacy donations.
• Not enough activities aimed at celebrating and reporting on projects.
• Not enough communication with and requests to donors.

Request the growth whitepaper and discover how ambitious charities are able to raise more money month upon month and year upon year.