The recently released benchmarking study from Target Analytics shows two very concerning trends. First, donor populations have dropped by 20% over the past five years. With acquisition being the lifeblood of a healthy fundraising program, organizations need to get more creative in acquiring new donors. Secondly, the retention rate of mail-acquired donors is only 31% and, for new online donors, it is even worse (9%).

But when donors are retained, the trends show that revenue per donor continues to increase. That means we should put much more emphasis on retention. In another study, due to market saturation and increasing competition, 82% of companies said that customer loyalty programs would be “very important” or “important” to their company  over the next five years.

What’s holding many organizations back? Organizational silos. Only 21% of companies say they have the necessary collaboration between IT, customer retention and loyalty departments to enable this.

“The only way to earn loyalty is through deeper customer engagement. Customers demand a high-quality experience across all touch points, starting with their first service experience and continuing over the course of the customer’s lifetime,” said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president of product and solutions marketing for Amdocs. “To do this, service providers must look at the customer holistically and provide them with a simple, proactive, personalized and consistent experience across all channels of interaction.”

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