Donor Personas for Your Nonprofit

If you’re new to nonprofit marketing, there’s a chance you’ve had to create some buyer personas. But what are “buyer” personas doing in a nonprofit marketing model and, more importantly, why should you prioritize them?

Personas are essentially a representation of a group of consumers who have similar goals, buyer habits, and personal profiles.

Personas help organizations narrow down their target audience and delve deeper into their needs. You can fine-tune your marketing strategies by anchoring them to your audience’s real, living needs or desires, rather than throwing out messaging that’s too vague, too robotic, or that simply misses the mark.

What Are Donor Personas?

Donor personas are traditional marketing personas that describe your present, future, and/or ideal donors. They encapsulate demographic factors such as gender, age, income, and profession while putting a human face to your donor strategy. Well-written personas should remind you of donors you currently have and people you’ve met that you want to attract as donors.

What is the Ideal Donor Profile?

Your ideal donor is someone who is deeply aligned with your mission and has the capacity and willingness to contribute financially, through advocacy, or by volunteering. They often resonate with your organization’s values and want to see tangible social impact from your work.

What’s the best donor type?  

The best donor type is someone deeply passionate about your cause and who prefers long-term engagement. These donors often prioritize consistent contributions over erratic, one-time support. For instance, monthly donors who sign up for sustained giving programs or corporate donors who align with your nonprofit’s goals often fit the profile of the best donor type.

What is the ideal donor age?  

This depends on your nonprofit’s mission and audience, but certain age groups fit differing roles. For instance:

• Baby Boomers and Gen X (45-75 years): These donors often have more disposable income and may be legacy-focused. They’re ideal for planned giving campaigns or large one-time donations.
• Millennials and Gen Z (20-44 years): Typically tech-savvy and active on social media, younger donors prefer engaging causes and transparency. They’re excellent for crowdfunding campaigns, peer-to-peer fundraising, and spreading awareness digitally.

Knowing who connects most to your mission will help you identify and cultivate an ideal mix of donors across different ages and types.

Why Are Donor Personas Important to Nonprofits?

In nonprofits, growth metrics are often tied to engagement, membership, and donations. And, let’s face it, you can’t always get everything done with wide-net fundraisers. The most successful nonprofits have a well-curated group of donors who have cultivated and retained long-term relationships. In other words, a smaller net with maximized returns. Understanding your donor personas empowers you to achieve this balance and confidently steer your organization toward success.

To strike the right balance between seeing your stakeholders as partners and recognizing them as consumers, you should first understand which audience aligns most with your mission and who will push your organization to succeed.

They believe your values can change the world and are willing to help, but first, they must trust you. Creating buyer personas is one step in cultivating an intentional community where everyone feels connected and part of a larger mission.

How to Create Donor Personas

Creating great donor personas starts with honest conversations. It’s important to consult with all your stakeholders, not just those actively and frequently giving, but with all the folks helping you be good stewards of these donations. This includes volunteers and members (past and present), staff, and clients. Don’t forget about lapsed donors: what’s changed for them and what’ll it take to re-engage?

Here are some steps you can take to start crafting outstanding donor personas.

1. Survey your stakeholders.

Ask them what they need rather than assume you already have what they seek when engaging with a nonprofit. Identify key members of your target audience, speak to them, and allow their answers to be your guide. These conversations will ensure your message and values are aligned and impactful to those seeking your service.

Create a community database and post questions like:

• Who are your most frequent (active) donors?
• Who only gives every so often?
• Do any companies donate to your cause? If so, what kinds? When and why?
• Have you noticed members of a specific profession tend to donate?
• Are there any particular programs that tend to garner more revenue than others?
• Who attends your fundraising events?

Remember, of course, that the data you receive from active donors doesn’t account for everyone. Those already in your corner are very different from the rest of the population. After all, they have a vested interest in your organization already. So, cross-check your data with industry publications and trend reports. Your goal here isn’t to verify or validate your numbers, but to understand the larger story, the context in which your nonprofit operates. Cross-referencing will also give you even more nuance when testing different methods for engaging your audience.

2. Interview your stakeholders.

Now that you’ve cast a wide net and collected some preliminary data, identify commonalities across people you serve and form specific groups. Recruit (2-3) people from these groups, and schedule 30-45 minute meetings. Record these meetings to analyze patterns and introduce new groups you may not have noticed before making these calls.

Audience perspectives like these will yield critical insights into what stories and needs drive your consumers. In turn, you’ll be able to strengthen the blueprint for your organization, which puts faces to your values.

Donor interviews are unstructured but direct conversations. Ask for the answers that will serve your purpose, and when points of commonality emerge, use these elements to construct persona profiles.

As these profiles begin to take shape, you can ask more pointed questions about a donor’s motivations to better understand their individual decision-making processes.

• How does our nonprofit intersect with your life?
• How do you decide to give?
• How would you like to be asked (phone, email, in-person events)?
• How would you like to give (Online, credit card, cash)? And When?
• How do you find information?
• What do you expect from our organization?
• What other organizations do you support?
• What motivates you to take action?

3. Organize the data.

Categorize your stakeholders into psychographic groups based on attitudes, aspirations, interests, and more obvious traits such as age, gender, and lifestyle choices.

The attributes, characteristics, habits, and shared goals you learn throughout this process will help tailor your message and widen your margin of success with future/potential donors.

When you find certain people fall into specific categories, you can mold your conversation to meet their interests.

It may be helpful to give your personas names and specific personalities so that speaking to and about them feels like talking to or about folks you actually know.

Remember, market segments don’t donate to your cause—real people do.

4. Name your donor personas.

Once you’ve organized your information into donor categories, it’s time to transform them back into people. Giving your donor personas a mnemonic title better helps you recall their strategic role and enables you to envision their needs, wants, and goals more clearly as you work through your marketing materials. For instance, it’s easy to recall that “PTA Paul” is a highly involved dad with two children and a full-time job who volunteers for your organization on the weekends because he cares about improving educational opportunities for his kids. Giving Paul a stock photo to associate with his name also helps to humanize him and make him more memorable.

5. Approach your mission with a new lens.

Now that you’ve found your intersections, start to think about your mission from the perspective of your target personas. Where does your mission converge with their values? How does your organization make the world a bigger, better place for your donors, and what kinds of people support your cause?

With the right personas, your messaging strategy will be naturally tailored for success. If done well, with intention and genuine curiosity, it won’t even feel like “strategy.” You’ll simply be talking to your constituents who also happen to be your most engaged and lucrative audience. The more specific your personas, the more likely you’ll be able to motivate and thank your donors in resonant ways.

6. Understand ‘negative personas.’

In doing this, you’ll likely find those who simply do not resonate with your mission. This is a good thing. You can’t please everyone. Look at your data and decide who has the lowest rate of interest (or return on investment) and don’t waste time or resources trying to sway them. Trust your purpose enough to know that when and if they want the service you provide, they’ll find you because you’re the best in the game.

What Is an Example of a Donor Persona? [Donor Persona Template]

Meet Community Cathy, one of the donor personas for a nonprofit focused on providing educational supplies to underprivileged children.

Persona Details

• Name: Community Cathy
• Age: 45
• Occupation: Elementary school teacher
• Income: $50,000 annually
• Demographics: Suburban mom with two kids
• Psychographics: Passionate about improving access to education, empathetic, and motivated by tangible outcomes like seeing photos of children using donated supplies.
• Giving Habits: Prefers monthly giving ($25/month), attends local fundraising events, and shares on social media to inspire others to get involved.

Cathy’s Motivations:

• She wants her donations to make a direct impact, like providing a backpack filled with school supplies.
• She’s loyal to causes focused on children’s education and values updates showing how funds are used.

Cathy’s Preferred Engagement:

• Emails with success stories and impact visuals
• Fundraising events where families are welcome, like fun runs or school supply drives
• Opportunities to volunteer with her kids at the nonprofit

By visualizing Cathy, your team can craft marketing tailored to her values, like personal emails thanking her for donations and photos of students benefiting from her contributions. Cathy’s persona also helps refine your outreach channels (email and social media) and align campaigns with her interests.

What Influences Donor Behavior?

We get asked this question all the time, and unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to capturing the motivations behind why people give to nonprofits. The real secret to influencing donor behavior is something you have to discover through first-hand conversations and first-party data. Strongly built personas, however, are the key to transforming that research into an actionable strategy. Donor personas ensure you can envision how your specific donors act, feel, and think, and what will cause them to support your organization.

Build Donor Personas with an Agency that Gets It

We speak nonprofit. (It’s our favorite language.) So Big Sea is here for the change you’re making – from grassroots community programs to mutual aid organizations and national brands. And with us, you’ll see real results. We’re particularly proud of the work found in these case studies.

Contact us today to learn how we can help you build a meaningful, memorable brand strategy for your nonprofit.

FAQs

What is the 33% rule for nonprofits?

The 33% rule refers to a fundraising benchmark where at least one-third of total revenue comes from individual donations. This rule encourages nonprofits to cultivate a sustainable donor base and avoid over-dependence on limited funding streams like grants or corporate sponsorships. Diversifying income is essential to long-term financial stability.

How to get donors for your nonprofit?

Finding donors starts with understanding your audience. Use your donor personas to guide outreach. Tactics include:

• Running Facebook and Instagram fundraising ads targeted at your audience
• Hosting virtual events that attract like-minded individuals
• Networking with local businesses to form collaborations
• Donor databases like Bloomerang or DonorPerfect can be used to identify and connect with potential donors

What is a donor portfolio?

A donor portfolio is a strategically curated list of prospective and current donors assigned to a fundraiser or team for personalized stewardship. Portfolios typically include giving history, giving potential, communication preferences, and notes on past interactions. This helps nonprofits systematically manage relationships and optimize their approach to cultivating and retaining these donors.