Just a quarter of charities give feedback to Trustees on donor experience, survey finds

Just a quarter of charities give feedback to Trustees on donor experience: A report by the Institute of Fundraising reveals that only a quarter of charities give feedback to their boards about the donor experience – something they are urging organisations to improve, going forward. 

 

The in-depth report titled Improving the Donor Experience, reveals findings from a survey of over 325 fundraisers across small, medium and large charities to find out what measures they had taken to improve the experience of charity donors.  

 

Feeding back to Trustees

 

The survey found that only 28 percent of charity workers regularly fed back information to their Board of Trustees about the donor experience. This is despite 88% saying that it was the role of somebody within the organisation to review the experiences of donors and make recommendations for improvements. Forty percent said feeding back to the board was a joint responsibility, while 23 percent disclosed the responsibility lay more with the Fundraising Director.  In larger organisations, it was more usual for teams and departments to report to the board on such matters, while smaller charities often cited it as within a Fundraising Director's remit. 

 

It also found that 76% of respondents would welcome case study examples of how other charities have improved their donors’ experiences, with 69 percent being open to ‘how-to’ style guides to help them improve their current position. 

 

In terms of meeting donors needs, 69 percent of organisations (85% smaller and 56% larger) said they go ‘out of their way’ to do so, with almost three quarters (75%) saying that building great donor experiences is ‘the bedrock’ of all their fundraising and communication efforts. 

 

Fundraising consultant, Roger Lawson said at the Institute of Fundraising’s annual meeting in London, where the report was launched:

"I cannot think of another sector where customer satisfaction is not reported to the board. Yet three-quarters of us do not report to the board on this."

 

You can have a look at the full report here 

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