After any successful fundraiser, once the money is accounted for and plans are made to distribute it, the pencils will come down and the papers will be stacked and the team will congratulate to a job well done. But it’s not over yet. Post-fundraising surveys should be drafted and distributed to ensure the lines of communication stay open and clear between the group and its donors. They will want to know that their money or other donations have gone to the right people, not a faceless group that will shut it all away and never let them know how much they helped.
Sending a post-donation survey to donors is a great way to stay in contact and stay personal in the lives of donors so they will continue thinking of your and the cause they supported until the next event needs planning.
When to Start
When’s the right time to send a survey? Sending a simple thank you to the email or mobile number they provided by signing up through an online portal or hand-written collection point is just the first step of staying contact. You should wait a week after the event has ended. This will give them time to get back to their own routine but will keep them in contact once the funds they provided start to get processed.
What to Ask
What should a survey say? Ask a few simple questions to get a feel for who the donor is. If you’re running a highly successful organization you may get thousands of donors, too many to get to know independently. But you can at least form a basic personality for your donors, a common demographic or series of traits that got them interested in your group above others.
Here are a few common questions worth asking:
● Why did you choose us?
● What is your preferred donation type?
● Do you support other causes?
● What part of our mission statement is most appealing to you?
● How much do you feel your donation has helped?
● How would you rate your donation experience?
Finally, give some space for questions, concerns or suggestions for the organization that can be brainstormed later. Getting feedback from the donating community can come in handy to help expand the reach and depth of donations in the future.
How to Send It
When collecting donations, you should also be collecting basic information. For online donation platforms, name and email are the basics. Consider integrating social media, grabbing Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other such accounts. Then find out what each donor’s preferred method of contact is, and send the survey through that. Email is basic, and some people may consider a survey as spam. But a Twitter DM or Facebook message will be more personal, more visible and more likely to leave a positive impression as you are reaching them on their own level.
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