BEWARE THE LAPSER - They May Not Be Who You Think They Are

Posted on 12 Oct 2011 by ACEVO Consulting
Categories: Fundraising

As fundraising consultants we have been thinking a lot about lapsed donors (and members) lately. In particular about the way we define them and the way we try to ‘reactivate’ them.

Three things struck me. Firstly, it is dangerous to simply assume a supporter or member is lapsed (horrible term that) if they haven’t given for a while. Secondly, perhaps they were never truly a donor in the first place. And thirdly, how carefully are we thinking about what we ‘reactivate’ these people with?

In part this is because I recently received a letter from a charity asking me to renew my support for the organisation.

This gave me pause for thought – the thought being if I needed to ‘renew’ my support, presumably I was now considered a lapsed donor.

Yet I actually considered myself anything but, and was irritated by the charities use of language that created this assumption. Granted I hadn't given to an appeal for a while, but I still read the information they sent and I had sponsored someone quite a significant sum who was doing an event for that same charity - so to my mind, I had no need to ‘renew’ my support.

In fact, I have found this irritated response is relatively common from so-called lapsers. Last year on more than one occasion, I was doing research for a number of clients that included groups of lapsed donors and lapsed members. In one I made the mistake of referring to the fact that none of them were actively supporting the charity any longer, and got a unanimous and very robust rebuttal of such a statement. Without exception they all considered themselves to be supporters still – they just hadn’t made a contribution in a while. For some, that might have been quite a long while, but irrespective of this, they were not pleased at being told they had stopped supporting the charity.

I do think we could be a bit more careful, even thoughtful, about the language we use and the impression it can create. After all who wants to annoy anybody, lapsed or otherwise.

Contrast this scenario to the six organisations that I had a vague recollection of donating to, or joining, but which I hadn’t ever given a second time.

I know I am considered lapsed by these charities. Fair enough, but actually I don’t consider myself lapsed from these charities either. My belief is someone who has only ever given once to your organisation cannot lapse, because they were never really engaged enough to be a supporter in the first place.

However, what does strike me is that including these one-time only folk in any kind of reactivation programme where they receive the same communications / messages as those who have given multiple times is clumsy and not as productive as it could be.

After all, there is a world of difference between someone who has only ever given once a couple of years ago, and someone who has given four or five or more times over a period of two or three years or longer. At the very least their level of understanding and engagement must be different.

Now while this might seem obvious, I have been surprised at how many organisations I have come across that happily put all these lapsed donors into one big pool and then tried to persuade them to come back to their charity.

With a little bit of the same attention and planning that goes into segmenting an appeal mailing, much improved results can be achieved. For example, just at the simplest level, we have seen some positive results from re-mailing one-time lapsers with the pack that they responded to in the first instance. We have also seen some greatly improved responses from tailoring copy (and scripts) to accurately reflect that donor’s previous connection with the charity – from single givers to duplicate givers to multiple givers. In some cases the results have been nothing short of startling.

Related to this, the final thing that that strikes me as particularly incongruous is the basic structure and format of some charities reactivation programmes.

Irrespective of whether a charity considers me to have lapsed, and irrespective of whether I gave one gift or twenty, my basic premise is this: if I “lapse” from a charity it is because I am no longer engaging with the communications programme I am being offered.

Yet, far too many reactivation efforts spend a great deal of time and effort to persuade folk to “return” to the organisation and then, if successful, put people back into the exact same programme that they have lapsed from. Which seems counter intuitive to me.

While it might take more thought, a bit more planning, and a bit more effort, doing something to distinguish the communications programme for re-enthused donors would surely be worthwhile. Even a different way of talking to these people via the copy used would be a start – acknowledging somehow their return to the fold. Better still is re-engaging them in a different way to that which they supported previously (the obvious example being cash lapsers restarting on a (often low-level) regular gift and (hopefully) a different communications plan to boot.

Best of all is giving them a new way to connect altogether – introducing them back to the work of the charity via new products or initiatives and using online engagement are two obvious options.

We have seen some interesting approaches to give lapsed donors a completely different communications programme over the first 12-18 months that are looking very encouraging from first results.

Surely it has to be better to re-inspire, re-enthuse and re-vitalise rather than just reactivate and ultimately relapse!

Using all this readily available knowledge, and dare I say, common sense appropriately can reap real rewards. And in these days of squeezed purses and shallower pockets, getting increased benefits from reactivating ex-donors and members has to be easier and cheaper than finding new ones.