What does your charity have to do to guarantee that some of your donors will stop giving today? Nothing. You are going to lose donors today whatever you do. Or don't do.

Donor attrition is a fact of life at every nonprofit organization. No matter how long you've been around, no matter how large your base of support, no matter how popular your cause, no matter how much your donors love you, some of your donors will fall away today and never give you another cent.

Today you will move backwards, no question. If your charity is small, you will lose a few donors. If your charity is large, you will lose more donors. But either way, you will have fewer donors today than you did yesterday.

Your database may contain the same number of records. But the number of donors in that database that will give you another gift just shrank. And it will shrink every day from today on.

Why you'll lose donors

1. Donors die. You have no control over this, or shouldn't have. A percentage of your donors will pass away each week, and their gifts will cease the same day they do.
2. Donors lose their jobs. When the breadwinner loses a job, the first thing to be cut is discretionary spending such as takeout food, movies and charitable gifts.
3. Donors move. Sometimes, lapsed donors haven't lapsed at all. They've simply moved and forgotten to give you their new address.
4. Donors' credit cards are declined. If your donors give by credit card through your monthly giving program, you understand donor attrition better than most fundraisers do. You see it on your spreadsheet. A percentage of your donors' credit cards expire each month and you never get the new expiry date. Or their donations are declined because the card is maxed out or the card was stolen. Some of these donors you will never re-activate.
5. Donors retire. Some donors retire with little or nothing in retirement savings. Their pension supports them, though barely. So they save where they can. And that means reducing the number of charities they support, including yours.
6. Donors grow infirm. Some donors develop dementia or terminal illnesses and hand over their financial affairs to a power of attorney. Unless your donor specifies to her power of attorney that donations to your charity are to continue, they won't.
7. Some donors intend to give only one gift. Many of the gifts made to charities in lieu of flowers are made by strangers with no intention of supporting that charity again. People make these gifts only to honour the wishes of the family of the person who passed away.

Making up for natural attrition

As you can see, all of these reasons are out of your control. They represent natural donor attrition. They account for at least 7% of all donors who stop giving.

That unavoidable, daily, natural donor attrition is the primary reason you need an ongoing, proven, board-approved donor acquisition program. Obviously, if you have dreams to grow your organization, you need to acquire new donors. But you also need a donor acquisition program even if you don't want to grow. You need to acquire donors just to replace the active donors who are falling away at the rate of about 7% each year.

Otherwise, you'll be shrinking. Guaranteed.

© 2011, Alan Sharpe, reproduced with permission.