Your nonprofit needs volunteers and donors to function, but have you considered the ways these groups can overlap? Many volunteer coordinators view volunteers and donors as separate supporter segments, but this mindset leaves valuable resources on the table. Donors can help expand your volunteer base, and even more critically, volunteers make great donors.
Volunteers are twice as likely to contribute to your organization than other prospective donors. But how do you leverage this critical but often underutilized fundraising strategy? In this article, we will outline the volunteer-to-donor pipeline, share the reasons why volunteers make great donors, and offer some actionable strategies for boosting volunteer-to-donor conversion.
Understanding the Volunteer-to-Donor Pipeline
Understanding the volunteer-to-donor pipeline is key to turning enthusiastic volunteers into loyal donors. It reveals the factors that motivate volunteers to donate, as well as key touchpoints where you can nurture the volunteer-donor relationship.
A volunteer’s journey to becoming a donor largely follows the volunteer lifecycle, with some extra steps:
Awareness
Volunteers learn about your organization, either organically or through targeted recruitment efforts, and become interested in your mission and goals. This phase is your first impression, and it’s critical to establish respect and trust from the get-go.
Consideration
Volunteers research your organization and look for ways to get involved. In this phase, you can educate interested recruits about all the ways they can support your organization, including volunteering and donating.
Engagement
Volunteers formally apply to work with your organization, start the training process, and register for their first shifts. Cultivate a positive volunteer experience to ensure that volunteers keep looking for ways to get involved.
Retention
Volunteers continue to engage with your organization. As a volunteer works with your organization, they will naturally encounter your nonprofit’s fundraising goals and campaigns, as well as learning how donations are used.
Recognition
Volunteers are recognized and thanked for their hard work. They feel connected to the broader organization, and they start to see how they make a difference.
Advocacy
Volunteers start to expand their involvement with the organization and advocate for it within the community. This is a critical moment in the volunteer-to-donor pipeline. When your most enthusiastic and involved volunteers are looking for other ways to make an impact, they will be most motivated to donate.
Giving
When you notice that a volunteer has reached the advocacy point of the lifecycle, it’s time to send them a message about donating. It seems obvious, but many organizations are hesitant to ask volunteers for money. After all, volunteers already donate so much to the organization that it may feel like an imposition to ask for more. It’s not! The key to success is delivering targeted messages to the right volunteers at the right time.
Stewardship
A single donation is good, but consistent stewardship can turn one-time donors into long-term sustainers. Continue nurturing your relationship with volunteer-donors by thanking them for their donations, showcasing how their contributions made an impact, and sharing plans for future fundraising initiatives.
Paying careful attention to the volunteer-to-donor pipeline will ensure that you reap the full benefits of volunteer fundraising.
Why Volunteers Make Great Donors
Nurturing volunteer-to-donor conversion takes a lot of time and energy; is it worth the investment? The short answer is a resounding, “Yes!” But if you need more convincing, here are the reasons why volunteers make great donors:
Volunteers are already emotionally invested in your organization.
Your volunteers have an emotional attachment to your nonprofit and its work, which has already motivated them to donate their time to your organization. When this emotional investment translates to financial contributions, it can be a game-changer for your organization. Volunteer gifts are, on average, 10x larger than those from other donors, which means that volunteer donors offer the strongest lifetime value of any donor segment.
Volunteers have a deeper understanding of your mission.
With most first-time donors, you have to make a case for why your mission is important and how your organization is making a difference. When it comes to volunteer fundraising, however, you don’t have to convince skeptical individuals. Your volunteers’ hands-on experiences have built belief in your nonprofit’s capacity for impact. They know exactly where their money is going, and they know firsthand that it is needed.
Volunteers have personal relationships with your staff, supporters, and beneficiaries.
In their day-to-day work with your organization, volunteers build personal relationships with members of your team, other volunteers and donors, and beneficiaries. These connections promote a sense of trust and belonging that translates to long-term loyalty. Because of this strong community, volunteers are more likely to become recurring donors.
Volunteers have a habit of giving.
Volunteers already give a lot of time and energy to your organization; monetary contributions are just another way to support a cause that they are passionate about. Frame the volunteer-to-donor pipeline as a natural extension of the volunteer lifecycle; you will see an increase in donations.
Volunteers are organizational ambassadors.
Volunteers aren’t just critical team members; they are often your best advocates. Enthusiastic volunteers will organically talk about your organization to their network, and their advocacy can extend from just donating themselves to encouraging others to donate as well, whether through organic word-of-mouth or structured peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns.
Volunteers have better click-through rates.
Your volunteers are already used to reading your emails and responding to calls to action. Cold outreach has a place in your fundraising strategies, but when you contact a volunteer about donating, they are going to open your email and consider your pitch instead of sending it right to the trash.
All of these factors come together to demonstrate a clear fact: volunteers provide a stronger return on investment than many other fundraising leads.
How to Leverage Volunteer Fundraising
With so much to gain, your organization must learn how to leverage volunteer fundraising and promote volunteer-to-donor conversion.
Incorporate these best practices into your volunteer fundraising strategies to maximize success:
- Target your message to your most engaged volunteers. Segment your volunteers to identify the most likely candidates for volunteer-to-donor conversion: enthusiastic individuals who have been active in the organization for a considerable amount of time. Then, reach out to them with personalized calls to action that speak to each volunteer’s interests and priorities.
- Automate donation prompts. Use volunteer management software to embed donation prompts into your volunteer landing pages, newsletters, and other communications. Automated donation prompts make it as easy as possible for volunteers to give and keep the possibility of becoming a donor at the front of their minds.
- Clearly articulate your fundraising goals. Specific fundraising goals can make all the difference. Tell your volunteers exactly how their donations will make a difference and the exact amount you need. Break fundraising campaigns down into milestones with actionable outcomes, i.e., “$1000 buys groceries for 10 families.” If your volunteers see that you are just shy of a goal, it may be the motivation they need to give.
- Encourage peer-to-peer fundraising. If your volunteers aren’t in a position to give financially, they can still be involved in your fundraising efforts. Encourage volunteers to start peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns on social media and donation platforms. Then, when these volunteers have more disposable income, they will already be in the habit of supporting your fundraising campaigns.
- Partner with corporate gift matching programs. Donors are 84% more likely to give if they know that their gift will be matched. Build partnerships with your volunteers’ employers and see if they are willing to match their employees’ donations. The ability to maximize their impact may convince your volunteers to contribute.
- Treat volunteers as potential donors. You should always approach your volunteers with respect and care, but if you invest in your volunteer relationships with the same energy that you bring to your donor relationships, you will see results. This approach builds a superior volunteer experience—which encourages organic giving—while also making it easier for volunteers to envision themselves as potential donors.
- Publicly recognize volunteer-donors. In addition to personal thank you messages, spotlight volunteer-donors on your social media, website, and newsletters. This public recognition not only serves as positive reinforcement for your volunteer-donors—encouraging recurring gifts—but also gives volunteers a blueprint for how to become donors themselves.
With these techniques, you can organically nurture the volunteer-to-donor pipeline, turning your most engaged volunteers into your most valued donors!
Volunteer-to-Donor Conversion in Action: Habitat for Humanity NOVA
At Habitat for Humanity Northern Virginia (Habitat NOVA), volunteer-to-donor conversion has transformed their approach to volunteer management. Habitat NOVA relies on both volunteers and donors to expand access to homeownership in Virginia and help families escape unsafe living conditions, and with volunteer management software, they have been able to bridge the gap between these two supporter segments.
Habitat NOVA leveraged VolunteerHub to streamline day-to-day operations and promote volunteer-to-donor conversion. Thanks to VolunteerHub’s integration with Salesforce, Habitat NOVA was able to connect its donor and volunteer databases, making it easier to steward volunteer-donors. Habitat NOVA has also benefited from VolunteerHub’s other features, including group landing pages, automated communication, and online liability waivers.
