5 Things to Do After Creating Your Nonprofit's Donor Persona

So you’ve done the research and created a donor persona profile for your nonprofit, now what? It’s time to start integrating all of the information you’ve gathered into your marketing strategy. By doing this, you’ll be sure to maximize your ROI since you’ll be reaching out to the right people. We’ll cover 5 things you need to do after you create a donor persona to get the most value out of it.

1. Create Engaging Content for Your Persona

One of the main reasons you created a donor persona was to generate content that is tailored to their preferences. Now that you know what they like and what makes them tick, you can easily create engaging content for your persona. For example, if your donor persona is more interested in watching a video rather than looking at a picture and reading text, then start to incorporate more videos in your content strategy.

Use the knowledge you have about their content preferences and tie it in with your end goal of receiving more donations. Would your donor persona rather your nonprofit spell out exactly what it needs to hit its next goal or share success stories? Before you publish your next piece of content, make sure you've asked yourself, "Will this make my donor persona want to donate again?"

2. Communicate with Your Personas on Their Preferred Platform

Even the best message is wasted if it's sent to the wrong eyes, so be sure to stay relevant to your donor persona by sharing your message on a platform they use frequently. Whether your persona prefers to hear from you through email or social media, channel preferences are key for guaranteeing targeting success.

For example, if your donor persona prefers to see success stories and has a fast-paced, busy life, then it may be best to send them short and sweet success story emails that they can easily read on their phones.

3. Plan Fundraising Events Based on Your Persona’s Interests and Demographics

Now that you know more about your donor persona’s lifestyle and what inspires them to give, you should plan events and fundraisers that align with their interests and demographics. For example, if your donor persona enjoys spending time outdoors doing activities such as walking or hiking, then you can create a walk-a-thon fundraiser. This would appeal to them because they’d be doing something they enjoy while giving back to a cause that they love.

Since your donor persona now determines the full scope of your marketing, you should always "put yourself in their shoes" and consider what would make them want to come to your event. You can also use the knowledge that you have about their everyday lifestyle to determine an ideal time and date for your event. For instance, if your donor persona works full-time and has young children at home, it's probably best to plan a family-friendly event on a weekend during the day. 

4. Use the Right Keywords in Your Online Search Ads

Your donor persona has preferences about the kind of language and wording that speaks most strongly to them. From a marketing standpoint, this means that some keywords will have a higher success rate than others. That's why it's important to mimic the exact language of your donor personas whenever possible, and especially when it comes to keywords.

Make sure to use that precise terminology in your ad copy, and always keep an eye on search trends for your personas, so you can adjust your messaging language over time.

5. Re-evaluate Your Donor Personas Every 6 Months

After you create your persona profile and implement the information into your marketing strategy, revisit it in 6 months. You’ll want to see how much you’ve improved and what didn’t work so well. Take a look at the areas that can be improved and do some research to see if a new trend has come along that has impacted your audience.

Make small updates to your donor persona profile and be sure to share them with your team! The more you optimize your donor persona profile, the more targeted your messages will be.

Donor Personas Maximize Your Marketing Efforts

Creating a donor persona for your nonprofit is just the first step to reaching out to the right people. It will help you maximize the impact of each marketing effort you make. From ad copy to videos, fundraising events and more, sending the right message to the right people is the best way to extract value from your audience.