Donor management: the record that makes second gifts possible

Donor management is the work of knowing who gave, why, and what happened next — so that a first gift has a chance of becoming a second. Most small organisations can produce a list of donations and almost none can produce a list of donors who gave last year and not this one. The first is bookkeeping; the second is the entire job, and it needs a record rather than a spreadsheet of transactions.

What a donor record has to hold

• The donor as a person or organisation, with every gift attached to them rather than listed separately.
• First gift date and amount, which is what makes a lapse visible later.
• Source: what prompted the gift — an appeal, an event, a friend, a search.
• Designation, where the donor asked for the money to go, because breaking that promise ends the relationship.
• Communication preferences and consents, with the date and the wording they consented to.
• Relationships: household, employer for matched giving, and any connection to a trustee or volunteer.
• Every contact you have made, including the ones with no response.

Donor management in four segments

Donor management becomes manageable when the list stops being one list.

1. New: gave for the first time in the last twelve months. The only segment where a thank-you changes behaviour.
2. Active repeat: gave at least twice, most recently within the year. This is the group to steward, not to solicit hardest.
3. Lapsed: gave before, nothing in twelve to twenty-four months. A reactivation ask costs a fraction of finding someone new.
4. Major or recurring: the small number whose absence would change your budget, and who deserve a named relationship owner.

A donor who has given twice is several times more likely to give again than a first-time donor. That single fact should decide where the effort goes: second-gift conversion before new acquisition, almost always.

Keep it as a register, not a donation log

One row per donor with gifts, contacts and consents attached is the shape that answers the questions that matter — who lapsed, who upgraded, who has not been thanked. Ettex Records holds that, with the gift history on the donor row rather than in a separate sheet, and Ettex Mail sends the acknowledgements from the same data so nobody is copying names between systems. Where the donor completed a form to give, Ettex Forms delivers the submission onto the record instead of into an inbox.

What to do in the first seventy-two hours

• Acknowledge the gift, with the amount and the designation stated back.
• Say what the money will do, concretely, not gratefully in general.
• Record the acknowledgement on the donor row so a second thank-you never goes out and a missing one is visible.
• Flag first-time donors for a follow-up that is not an ask.
• Check for a matching-gift employer, which is the cheapest uplift available.

People who give time need the same care in the records as people who give money. A volunteer management system holds roles, background checks with their expiry dates, shifts and hours, which is what makes the annual return and the rota possible from one source.

Measures that tell you something

Retention rate by segment, second-gift conversion within ninety days, average gift by source, and lapse count over the last quarter. Total raised is a result, not a measure — it tells you what happened without telling you what to do. A membership database has the same problem in a different shape: renewal rate is the number that matters, and gross subscriptions is the number that gets reported.