Retaining donors beyond their first gift is one of the most important, and often the one of the most challenging, tasks facing fundraisers today. Donor acquisition is an expensive process, with the cost to acquire new donors often up to double the amount of their first gift. To realize a positive ROI on acquisition campaigns, nonprofits need to attract and retain donors who will make multiple gifts over time, creating positive revenue for the organization.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. First, you’ll need to acquire the right donors - those who are a good fit for your organization and likely to stay engaged. Second, you’ll need to prioritize and personalize your stewardship and retention efforts, supporting each donor through a unique journey. To help make this process a reality for your organization, we’ve recently released our newest AI-powered donor data model: Future Giving.

‍Future Giving modeling: how it works

With the help of AI, we can predict the future with greater accuracy than ever before. Like all of Dataro’s donor propensity models, Future Giving is trained on a fundraising data set encompassing millions of donors and tens of millions of donation transactions, enabling it to detect common donor behavior patterns and predict fundraising results before you’ve even begun a campaign. 

This model in particular looks 5 years into the future, predicting the likely total value of the donor during that time. Donors that are likely to give consistently each year, convert to sustainers, or upgrade to midlevel or major gifts will have a higher projected long-term value. When used in conjunction with Dataro’s recurring giving, midlevel, and major giving conversion models, Future Giving can help you identify priority donors for long term stewardship campaigns. 

How to use the Future Giving model 

Now that you can see into your donors’ future, what will you do with this information? Here are a couple of places to start:

Create lookalike audiences for targeted donor acquisition ads

One of our favorite ways to use this model is for creating advertising audiences for donor acquisition. By using Dataro to identify donors with a higher projected long-term value, you can create a source or seed list for a lookalike audience, and run acquisition campaigns targeted at other people with similar characteristics. Attracting more donors who are also likely to have a high long-term value greatly increases the ROI of your acquisition campaigns.

Build personalized nurture campaigns for high projected value audiences

See donors on your list with a high Future Giving projection? Check their other Dataro scoring to identify whether they are best potential prospects for major giving, mid-level giving, planned giving, or monthly giving and connect them with the right opportunities. These donors are likely to be worth the extra time and effort you put into personalized outreach.

Automate nurture campaigns to retain donors with lower projected giving

Like all predictions, Dataro’s Future Giving projection shows a likely version of a future for each donor. But not everything is set in stone - taking action early can increase your chances of retaining these donors. While they might not be at the top of your priority list for individualized outreach, automating a nurture campaign targeted at these donors will allow you to work to deepen their interest and improve their connection with your organization, while still focusing your efforts on higher value audiences. With successful nurture and stewardship, you just might see their projected future value increase over time.  

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