Stop Dragging Your Feet: It’s Time to Take Mid-Level Seriously!

Remember last week’s blog, where I touted that Veritus clients saw their major gift revenue go UP by 22% on average, versus the national average of LOST revenue at -4%, based on the Fundraising Effectiveness Project statistics?

Well, now we have our mid-level client revenue compiled.

In the Fundraising Effectiveness Project report, donors at the $500-$5,000 level were down -3.9% in revenue in 2022 compared to 2021.

Veritus mid-level clients on average were up 7% in 2022 compared to 2021!  

Why? You’re going to be shocked at how straightforward this recipe for success is:

1. Structure — We create caseloads for each Mid-Level Officer between 500-700 donors that are tiered A, B, and C. This structure is designed to create a one-to-some relationship model for the fundraisers so they’re meaningfully engaging with their donors and moving more donors into major gifts.
2. 12-Month Communication Strategy — Each tier has its own strategy, between 6-8 touches that layer on top of your current direct-response program. Those touches include solicitations, reporting back impact, thanking, and ways to tell the donor you know them.
3. Partnership — MLOs and the mid-level team work in partnership with the direct-response program, the major gift program, and even planned giving to ensure that the donor is moving through the pipeline as easy as possible. This helps in understanding who gets credit for gifts and the easy transition of donors moving into major gift caseloads.
4. Accountability, Focus, Strategy — Our client experience leaders at Veritus meet every week with our client MLOs to ensure they are staying on track, talking about strategy with specific donors, and feeling encouraged in their job. This helps the MLOs focus on the right donors and start understanding the donor’s passions and interests, which in turn garners larger gifts.

The result of all this, as the numbers suggest, is greater revenue year over year… of course, but even better is that we’re seeing between 3-3.5% of those donors move into major gift portfolios… and guess what? They are already QUALIFIED!

When you don’t have a mid-level program, mid-level donors move up at a rate of 0.2-1.2% on their own. But then your major gifts team has to spend time qualifying these donors. This is a significant difference!

Look, I know you may be worried about your revenue from mid and major gifts. Almost all our donor assessments we’ve done in 2023 so far with prospective clients are all showing that 2022 was down over 2020 and 2021.

But just because mid and major donors across the country are giving less doesn’t mean you’re resigned to that same fate.

If you do the right things, like build a disciplined mid-level program, you will see increased revenue overall, more donors moving into major gifts, and a lift in major gift revenue too.

If you haven’t already, you need to stop dragging your feet and start investing in mid-level! And do it with a very disciplined, relationship-focused approach. This will keep your donor pipeline flowing and allow donors to give their best possible gifts.

Jeff

PS – If you want to get a clear picture of the health of your donor file and see your mid-level potential, I encourage you to complete our free donor file assessment. This assessment is unlike anything else on the market, so I hope you’ll take the time to pursue it. Get the process started here.

PPS – But if you’d like to chat with someone first about what we’re doing that led our mid-level clients to see an average of a 7% increase in revenue, we’re here for that too! You can grab time with my colleague Amy here.