Donor Cultivation Cycle: Tips for Each Major Stage of Fundraising

A donor cultivation cycle is a systematic process that helps nonprofits build lifelong relationships with their donors through five key stages: identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. 

The relationship between an organization and a donor can take weeks, months, or even years to foster. Despite the length of time it takes to acquire a donor, many nonprofits struggle with donor retention. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, only 8% of first-time donors make a repeat gift. Although the news is a little better for the retention of repeat donors, who account for 37% of all donors, even this loyal group shrunk by nearly 5% from 2023 to 2024. 

Can becoming more intentional in your relationship-building strategies help your organization retain more donors? Yes, by following the donor cultivation cycle, you can strengthen donor relationships that lead to ongoing financial support and deeper engagement with your mission. Discover tactics, tips, and strategies to implement a donor cultivation cycle for your organization. 

Table of Contents

Stage 1: Identification

Whether it’s a first-time annual gift-giver or a major gift prospect, your relationship with a donor begins by identifying the right person for your mission, who not only has the means to give but the affinity to give. For larger gifts, that often involves sifting through vast amounts of data to find promising leads. But even for midlevel and smaller gifts, using a robust identification process can help your organization reach out to all those who have shown interest in your cause. This stage is when you find and begin to nurture relationships that will grow over time, rather than spending valuable time on individuals who are unlikely to become engaged donors. 

Identification Strategies That Use Your Existing Data 

• Leverage your current network: When we think of identifying donors, we typically jump to new donors. While all organizations need new donors, 66% of top prospects fly under the radar unassigned, meaning that your current contact list has a wealth of potential donors. Start the identification process by reviewing your database—it contains a community of people who are already interested in your organization. Make sure you don’t overlook those who have made modest contributions in the past. Many loyal annual donors grow their support over time. 
• Utilize prospect research tools: Invest in tools that can screen large lists for wealth indicators and philanthropic history. Research tools and the native capabilities of your fundraising CRM can help you understand the giving patterns of all your supporters and prospects, not just those considered for major gifts. Look for volunteer service, social media interactions, and other forms of engagement. These insights into a prospect’s interest and propensity to give at any level will prove invaluable to your donor cultivation strategy.
• Analyze event attendance lists: People who attend your events, even if they don’t give initially, have shown an interest. These lists are prime sources for new prospects for annual giving, special campaigns, and major gifts.

Examples of Identification Tactics to Research Your Donors

When it comes to identifying donors, cover all your bases. You want to consider potential supporters at every level. That includes evaluating a donor’s monetary ability to give (large or small gifts), interest in your cause, relationship (if any) to your organization, and understanding the “why” behind their support.

• Wealth screening: Use wealth screening and prospect research tools to assess a prospect’s financial capacity. While this is typical for major gifts, screening can also help you identify prospects likely to make a recurring gift or a larger gift down the road. 
• Philanthropic interest research: Dive into a prospect’s past giving to and involvement with other nonprofits whose mission has an affinity with yours. Even if their support so far has been modest, their interest, engagement, and financial commitment could grow over time. 
• Prospect motivation: Understand the characteristics and motivations of your current donor base, then identify individuals who share those qualities.

Stage 2: Qualification

With donor identification, you’re casting a wide net, finding as many potential opportunities as possible. With the qualification stage, you’re narrowing down those opportunities to find the donors who are the best fit for your organization. This phase helps you prioritize so that you invest time and resources where it’s most beneficial. 

Not every prospect from the identification stage will be a good fit, and that’s okay. If you try to squeeze every prospect into an opportunity, you’ll likely waste effort and end your day feeling pretty frustrated. Instead, it’s a much better use of time (and your sanity) to develop a clear set of criteria that donors must meet to qualify as a lead for your organization. You want meaningful engagement and appropriate levels of contribution, regardless of the size or frequency of the gift. 

Qualification Strategies to Better Understand Your Ideal Donor

The first step to finessing your qualification process is to understand your ideal donor. It’s tempting to want to nurture any donor that comes your way, but by defining your ideal donor you can better target, qualify, and cultivate the people who are the best fit for your organization. 

• Develop an Ideal Donor Profile (IDP): Create a profile of your “ideal” donor at different giving levels, from first-time through midlevel to major gifts. Include financial capacity, philanthropic interests, and potential connection points to your organization. Just as important, determine qualities that are your red flags. This will help you steer clear of donors who aren’t worth your effort. Your IDP will help you customize your engagement strategies for each persona. 
• Incorporate AI into your workflow: By combining the criteria identified in your IDP with AI predictive modeling capabilities, you can determine who is likely to support your cause and in what way. Predictive modeling combines wealth with socio-economic, demographic, behavioral, lifestyle, and past giving data to give you a fuller picture of your potential donors. 

To identify and qualify major donors, St. Joseph Children’s Home taps into Prospect Insights, an artificial intelligence tool in Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®. 

“I previously had to export my list of prospects and conduct manual research to identify which were the best potential major donors. Prospect Insights really elevates my process and keeps me focused on the best direction possible.”—Carrie Fanelli, Development Director

Examples of Qualification Tactics to Prioritize the Right Donors

The tactics of the qualification phase are similar to donor identification. While in donor identification, we’re scratching the surface of these qualities; with qualification, we’re diving deeper, trying to understand the donor’s propensity to give at any level of support to your specific organization. 

• Financial capacity assessment: For major gift prospects, it is essential to analyze wealth, real estate holdings, stock ownership, and business affiliations to estimate giving levels. Also consider giving patterns at all levels—recurring monthly gifts, participation in fundraising events, or smaller but consistent donations. Every donation, regardless of size, can be a meaningful indicator of commitment.
• Philanthropic alignment analysis: Dive deeper into past giving history. Is your potential donor giving to similar types of organizations? Making even modest gifts to like-minded organizations reveals alignment with your mission. 
• Engagement tracking: Monitor how prospects interact with your communications, post comments, attend events, volunteer their time, and engage with your website to gauge their interest and readiness for cultivation.

A prospect with high wealth indicators but no history of charitable giving, or no apparent connection to your cause, might be a lower priority than someone with slightly less capacity but a strong track record of attending your events. By diving deeper across all giving levels, you can be sure you’re providing thoughtful opportunities for connection to every prospect and supporter. 

Stage 3: Cultivation

The cultivation stage is where the magic of relationship-building truly happens. It’s the intentional process of nurturing potential donors, educating them about your mission, demonstrating your impact, and developing a genuine connection. You take these steps through various methods for every gift level, well before making a single direct appeal for funds. This stage is crucial because it transforms a name on a list into an engaged, informed supporter. 

With 41% of fundraisers reporting that fewer than 20% of prospects respond positively to initial outreach, skipping or rushing cultivation can lead to rejection and a wasted opportunity to build lasting partnerships across all donor types.  

Cultivation Strategies to Strengthen Donor Relationships

With cultivation, your goal is to educate donors about your organization’s cause and help them foster a connection to the organization. 

• Develop personalized engagement plans: Create individual roadmaps for prospects, outlining interactions and information to share based on their interests and giving capacity. For major and planned giving prospects, your plan will be more personalized and complex. For annual, recurring, and midlevel gifts, the goal is to match the cultivation plan to their interests and past involvement.  
• Share the vision and mission: Demonstrate how your organization’s work aligns with the prospect’s values. Share your organization’s goals and how a donor’s support, whether large or small, could help the organization achieve those goals. 
• Build trust and rapport: Implement approaches to foster genuine relationships with all prospects, ensuring potential supporters at all levels feel heard, respected, and valued as prospective partners. This could mean asking for their advice on certain programs and getting to know them as a person, such as learning about their family, hobbies, and other interests. 

Examples of Cultivation Tactics That Engage Donors

By building a foundation of trust and shared purpose, you ensure potential donors at every giving level feel connected to your organization long before any “ask” is made. Here are a few tactics to help you cultivate that connection.

• Personalized communication: Send tailored emails, letters, or phone calls that acknowledge a prospect’s interests and connect them to your mission. This tactic is usually more labor-intensive and personal for major donors but should also be part of the plan for donors at other levels. For instance, first-time donors should receive a welcome series of emails and long-term midlevel supporters could receive an impact report with testimonial videos from beneficiaries.
• Event invitations: Invite prospects of all giving levels to special gatherings, reserving exclusive events—such as a behind-the-scenes tour, a donor appreciation event, or a meeting with program beneficiaries—for your highest-level prospects and donors.
• Volunteer opportunities: Offer hands-on experiences that allow prospects at every gift level to directly engage with your mission and see its impact.
• Informational meetings: Schedule “no-ask” conversations with leadership or program staff to discuss your work in more detail and avoid asking for donations.

Stage Four: Solicitation

The solicitation stage is the pivotal moment when you ask for a financial contribution.  Depending on the type of donor (annual, midlevel, major), it could take weeks, months, or even years to get to the ask. Relationships, particularly with major donors or planned gift donors, require significant time and effort before there is enough trust between parties to make the request for a donation. 

At this point in the cycle, you should have a good understanding of the donor’s interests, the amount they could give, and how they prefer to be communicated with. All of these factors make it much easier to make an informed ask and help your donor have a positive experience in the process. 

Solicitation Strategies for Every Donor

The ask is the most nerve-wracking part of the donor cycle, but having all your ducks in a row will help you feel more confident when making the ask. 

• Develop a personalized ask framework: Create a system for tailoring the ask amount and the project/program the gift will support to each donor’s capacity, interests, and demonstrated affinity. Be detailed for major gift prospects, concise and engaging for annual or midlevel donors, and friendly and approachable for first-timers. Always align the ask with their interests and previous engagement. 
• Strategize timing and channel with AI: Plan when and how to make the ask using AI. AI tools can help you consider the donor’s engagement level, cultivation history, and preferred communication methods to inform the timing and the amount to request. 
• Prepare for different outcomes: Have a plan B and C to help you feel prepared going into the ask. For every donor group, develop backup plans for different donor responses and objections so you’re ready to pivot if you need to. 

Examples of Solicitation Tactics for a Well-Planned Ask

A successful solicitation is rarely a cold call for money. It’s often a carefully planned conversation, ideally face-to-face for major gifts, where you present a clear case for support. The key is to be precise about the amount requested and how it will be used.

For major and planned gift donors:

• In-person major gift meetings: Plan a face-to-face meeting with a qualified fundraiser, often accompanied by a board member, to present a specific ask.
• Tailored proposals: Create a detailed written proposal outlining a specific project or need, the requested amount, and the anticipated impact, customized for the donor’s interests. 

For midlevel/annual donors: 

• Personalized email campaigns: Craft emails that speak directly to the donor’s known interests, linking to a specific online giving page.
• Matching gift opportunities: Highlight any matching gift programs from their employer to maximize their contribution.

Stage Five: Stewardship (and then Permanent Stewardship)

The last stage, stewardship, is often the most overlooked. However, it can reap the most rewards! Giving USA’s research found that the average recurring donor sticks around for 8.08 years. Compare that to non-recurring donors, whose average donor lifetime is only 1.68 years. The lifetime value of a donor becomes so much greater than, say, a one-time gift of $100. 

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make at this stage is to send an acknowledgment and thank-you letter or email and then stop communicating. Your donor showed you that they want to be involved in your cause and your organization, so keep them in the loop. 

Stewardship Strategies to Keep up with Your Donors

• Use donor segments: Donor level determines the type of stewardship. For example, a major donor’s stewardship should be much more personalized and include personal check-ins. 
• Prioritize speedy acknowledgment: No matter the donor level, send an immediate acknowledgment and thank you for the donation. 
• Recognize your donors: Ask your donors about their desire for recognition. Some prefer to be recognized privately, while others are comfortable with public displays of appreciation, such as at events, in newsletters, or via social media.
• Highlight the impact: Ultimately, your donors want to know how their donation impacted the cause that’s near and dear to them. 
• Create a donor stewardship matrix: Incorporate the above information in a matrix to define a timeline of stewardship activities for each segment. This stewardship matrix example can guide you.

Implementing Stewardship Tactics to Build Long-Lasting Relationships

Beyond thank-you letters, here are a few tactics and best practices for successful donor stewardship:

• Welcome series: For first-time donors, welcoming them to your organization and subscribing them to a monthly newsletter can be a great way for them to become more familiar with your cause. 
• Impact reports: Regularly share updates on programs with reports and stories that highlight how donor support helps the cause. Tailor reports to focus on the programs your donors specifically supported.
• Events and volunteer opportunities: Ask donors if they’d like to attend events or become more involved through volunteer opportunities. 
• Birthday, holiday, and anniversary emails: Recognize donors on special days and remind them how much their support matters. 

To learn more about stewarding recurring donors post-gift and beyond, watch Blackbaud’s webinar on donor lifetime value. 

Blackbaud Streamlines the Donor Cycle for More Effective Fundraising

By implementing a donor cultivation cycle, organizations can build authentic relationships with each donor, leading to a stronger donor community and greater financial impact. Blackbaud’s comprehensive fundraising suite supports this cycle by making each step of the donor journey more efficient, insightful, and effective.

• Identify: Leverage advanced analytics and prospect research capabilities to pinpoint individuals with the highest giving capacity, aligned philanthropic interests, and connections, saving valuable time and resources. 
• Qualify: Blackbaud’s CRM tools provide a 360-degree view of constituents, allowing you to easily track engagement, giving history, and other key metrics to determine who is truly ready for cultivation. 
• Cultivate: Automate personalized email campaigns, manage event invitations, and track interactions to build deeper relationships. 
• Solicit: Streamline the solicitation process with features like AI-driven suggested ask amounts, optimized online giving forms, and powerful proposal tracking. Use tools to help you make the right ask at the right time, whether it’s for major gifts, annual campaigns, or recurring donations.
• Steward: Deliver timely, personalized acknowledgments and demonstrate impact with ease. Create impact reports, manage recognition programs, and keep your donors involved in your organization.

With Blackbaud, you’re getting more than software. You’re gaining a strategic partner dedicated to helping you build stronger donor relationships, increase revenue, and ultimately, achieve your mission. Explore how Blackbaud’s fundraising solutions, including Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, can enhance your donor cycle and drive greater impact for your cause.