Calling Lapsed Donors?
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Do you re-connect with lapsed giving partners? If not, you are leaving money on the table. And, doing a disfavor to your partners!
The US Navigators Fundraising Team recently discovered that lapsed donors are eager to restart their support of mission-workers. Look at these metrics:
21 American Navigator staff contacted 84 lapsed giving-partners (about 4 each)
42 of the 84 reactivated their monthly giving—that’s 50%
21 of the 42 also made up for the months they skipped—that’s 50%
Is there a downside to re-connecting with lapsed giving partners? None—even if they don’t restart! But in our minds, we expect the worst! Which ones do you identify with?
We assume lapsed giving-partners:
Will become angry if we contact them
Stopped giving because they don’t like us anymore, or that we offended them
Have suffered a drastic financial setback
Will restart without any action from us (if they forgot about it for a month or two)
Other…
And sometimes it is simply inattention on our part. We don’t even know they have stopped!
Why did the giving partners lapse? The US Team reported that of the 84 lapsed partners:
33 had “credit card issues” (39%)
1 “lost the turnaround slip” (1%)
8 “forgot” (10%)
19 had “life circumstances” difficulties (23%)
19 “other or unknown” (28%)
1 disagreed with a minor Navigator doctrinal issue (1%)
The first three reasons for lapsing (in red above) show that 50% of the time the giving stoppage was an oversight—they never intended to stop. And only 1 stoppage was because of a disagreement.
Let us take this report to heart. Don’t hesitate to reconnect right away when a faithful monthly giving partner misses 2-3 consecutive months.
Here’s what I say—after preliminary greetings:
“I am calling today to check on you…your support has been so faithful over the last year [years], but I noticed that it has not come into our account the last two months. I thought I should call and ask if everything is okay.”
I find that over half the time, donors say, “Really, I didn’t realize we had stopped!”
But what if they stopped because of “life circumstances?” Once a lapsed donor sadly told me he lost his job. Immediately, I empathized saying:
“Thank you for telling me. I am not calling to urge you to give money you don’t have! Is there anything I can do to help you secure a new job? I will certainly pray….”
And then we had a wonderful conversation about his job and family and spiritual life. Then we prayed together. In a year they restarted support and continue to this day.
In a similar vein, Paul said to Barnabas:
“Let us go again and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.”
Paul and Barnabas took initiative to see how their flock was doing. You too must initiate! Your giving-partners will appreciate your caring-heart—that you took time to help them be successful givers and faithful disciples!
