How has COVID-19 changed your donor profile?

Nonprofits have experience engaging with disaster-response donors.  We know that a rush of new donors who are driven to act can be a boon to organizations looking to fund frontline work — but these donors can also be confounding as they are typically transactional and the leap can be big to broader mission-based support.

As in all areas, COVID-19 giving has defied precedent.  Pursuant clients on the front lines have seen as much as a ten-fold increase in the number of new donors in March through May than the months before the pandemic, generally through direct online gifts.  At the same time, the ways to support nonprofits have changed abruptly — particularly with the absence of peer-to-peer community or other face to face events.

By continuing to chant our donor loyalty mantra to meet donors where they are, Pursuant is working with clients to understand the size and profile of COVID donors as they transform active donor files in 2020 and beyond.

Recent Pursuant GivingDNA analysis shows us that:

• • COVID donors are younger than general donors.  About half are under the age of 55. We found that COVID donors were substantially younger for organizations that tended to have homogenous donor files – bringing diversity and a challenge to traditional donor engagement strategies.
  • COVID donors are about as affluent as older peers.  Younger, charitable, affluent donors are out there.  Organizations that have prioritized finding these donors are seeing them self identify and respond.
  • Digital communication preferences are higher for COVID donors.  These donors were acquired online and will help to accelerate the continued transformation to online giving.

How does the profile of COVID donors at your organization match your traditional donors? Are donors more of the same or vastly different? How will your strategies adapt to address what these donors need?  Further, new donors aren’t created equally — do you have the ability to identify those with the greatest potential for ongoing support?

Finding these Answers Requires Augmented Donor Intelligence

The Pursuant GivingDNA Platform enables nonprofits to understand the profile of their supporters in near-real-time. We gather hundreds of attributes including demographics, behavior, psychographics, affiliation, engagement channel preference, and timing. Our technology decodes each supporter, from major gifts to casual supporters, revealing elements of who they are and what motivates them to action.