How to Identify Your Lapsed Donors

How many of your donors made a donation to your organization -- last year or in a previous year -- but have not donated this year? Knowing the answer to that question is the first step to improving your donor retention rate. In addition to raising more money, improving your donor retention rate will also save you money since retaining donors is significantly more cost-effective than acquiring new donors.

With MonkeyPod, you can easily identify your lapsed donors and send them targeted emails to bring them back into the fold. Let's take a look at two simple reports you can run in MonkeyPod:

LYBUNT

LYBUNT stands for donors who gave Last Year But Unfortunately Not This Year.

To generate your LYBUNT report in MonkeyPod:

  1. Search Relationships
  2. Apply the Financial Activity filter
  3. Set contributions to "At Least $1.00 Last Year" And also "At Most $0.00 This Year"
  4. Review your list of lapsed donors and use the Roles filter to exclude anyone you don't want on your list
  5. Subscribe donors to a mailing list

SYBUNT

SYBUNT stands for donors who gave Some Year But Unfortunately Not This Year

To generate your SYBUNT report in MonkeyPod:

  1. Search Relationships
  2. Apply the Financial Activity filter
  3. Set contributions to "At Least $1.00 Lifetime" And also "At Most $0.00 This Year"
  4. Review your list of lapsed donors and use the Roles filter to exclude anyone you don't want on your list
  5. Subscribe donors to a mailing list

Engaging Lapsed Donors

LYBUNT and SYBUNT reports can give you important insights into your fundraising strategies and operations. Once you have your list of lapsed donors you should consider reengaging them before asking for another donation, particularly if they haven't donated for a few years.

Send a lapsed donor survey to ask about their interests and why they donated in the past. Or send an impact update about a specific program or campaign that resonated with them. Or thank them for their previous donation and inform them about the latest news of your mission. You could even add your lapsed donors to a pipeline for moves management and tracking.