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Customer journey mapping for non-profits: Where to start?

Key takeaways:.

• Customer journey mapping (CJM) is valuable for non-profits to understand stakeholder experiences and improve engagement.
• CJM helps non-profits target fundraising, increase impact, optimize volunteer programs, and boost advocacy efforts.
• To start, non-profits define personas, map their journeys, empathize with experiences, identify pain points, and collaborate across departments.
• Continuous iteration and improvement of CJM ensures alignment with organizational goals and evolving stakeholder needs.
• CJM empowers non-profits to foster change, build communities, and empower individuals by enhancing stakeholder experiences.

In the non-profit world, impact is everything. It’s not just about raising funds; it’s about fostering change, building communities, and empowering individuals. But how do you know if your efforts are truly reaching the right people and making a difference? That’s where customer journey mapping (CJM) comes in.

While CJM might seem like a tool reserved for the corporate world, it holds immense value for non-profits too. By mapping the journeys of your donors, volunteers, beneficiaries, and even advocates, you can gain invaluable insights into their motivations, challenges, and experiences. This knowledge empowers you to:

Maximize engagement: Identify the most effective touchpoints to connect with your audience and nurture lasting relationships.

Target fundraising efforts: Understand what motivates donors and tailor your appeals to resonate more deeply.

Increase impact: Align your programs and services with the actual needs and challenges faced by your beneficiaries.

Optimize volunteer programs: Design volunteer experiences that are meaningful and rewarding, leading to higher retention.

Boost advocacy: Empower supporters to become vocal champions for your cause.

But where do you start? CJM for non-profits can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s a practical guide to get you going:

1. Define your personas

The first step in customer journey mapping for non-profits is to identify and define your personas . This may include donors, volunteers, beneficiaries, staff members, partner organizations, and any other individuals or groups involved in or impacted by your organization’s activities.

2. Map out the journey

Next, map out the journey of each persona – start by identifying the key stages or touchpoints in their journey, from initial awareness and engagement to ongoing support or participation. Consider the various channels and interactions through which stakeholders engage with your organization, both online and offline. Depending on the complexity of your operations, you may not need to create a separate customer journey for each persona – Out of Dark allows you to assign multiple personas to a single touchpoint/activity.

3. Empathize with the personas

As you map out the journey, put yourself in the shoes of your personas and empathize with their experiences. Consider their emotions, motivations, and pain points at each stage of the journey. This empathy will help you identify areas where you can enhance the experience and better meet the needs of your personas.

4. Identify pain points and opportunities

As you map out the journey, pay close attention to pain points and opportunities for improvement . These may include barriers to donation or volunteering, communication challenges, or gaps in service delivery. By identifying pain points and opportunities, you can prioritize initiatives that address the most critical issues and create positive experiences for your personas.

5. Collaborate across departments

Customer journey mapping is a collaborative process that involves stakeholders from across your organization. Involve staff members from fundraising, marketing, program management, and other departments to gain different perspectives and insights. Collaborative input ensures that the journey mapping process is comprehensive and that solutions are aligned with organizational goals and objectives.

6. Iterate and improve

Customer journey mapping is not a one-time exercise but rather an ongoing process of continuous improvement. As your organization evolves and persona needs change, revisit and refine your journey maps accordingly. Solicit feedback from your personas, track key metrics, and iterate on your initiatives to ensure that you’re delivering value and making a meaningful impact.

Do you want to create an interactive and easy-to-use customer journey map with powerful touchpoints, personas, automatic KPI import & monitoring, and much more?

Related articles, how can your new marketing and cx hires self-onboard using a customer journey map, customer journey mapping as a solution to governmental bureaucracy, 6 little-known advantages of creating a customer journey map, 6 ways how customized customer journeys can increase your revenue.

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Mapping the Nonprofit Customer Journey: A Beginner’s Guide

by Panorama Consulting Group | Mar 15, 2023

If you’re like most nonprofits, you’ve probably found that making the most of your limited resources has become increasingly challenging. You might have considered improving your processes or even pursuing digital transformation to continue effectively carrying out your mission.

Before you do this, it’s important to understand one of the key success factors in these types of projects: customer journey mapping. Today, we’re sharing tips for mapping the nonprofit customer journey.

Why Nonprofit Customer Journey Mapping Matters​

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the steps a customer takes when interacting with an organization. Mapping the customer journey can help you better understand your stakeholders’ needs and identify areas for improvement.

If you’re a nonprofit, there are several benefits of creating a customer, donor, or member journey map:

1. Helps You Clarify Your Mission​

Have you considered your organization’s purpose from your stakeholders’ perspectives? This can help you clarify your mission and identify areas where you may need to make changes to better align with your stakeholders’ needs.

2. Helps You Understand Your Stakeholders

Understanding your stakeholders’ behaviors, preferences, and pain points can help you create targeted messaging and programs that resonate with your audience.

3. Increases Stakeholder Engagement

By mapping your stakeholders’ journey, you can identify areas where you can increase engagement. For example, you might be able to provide more personalized experiences or expand your communication channels.

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In helping the client get its project back on track, one of our primary focus areas was decreasing their customization needs by improving their processes to align with the system's best practices.

How to Map the Nonprofit Customer Journey

1. define your personas.

A persona is a representation of your ideal customer or stakeholder.

To define your personas, you need to gather data, such as demographic information and information on their interests, motivations, and pain points. You can collect this information through surveys, focus groups, and interviews, or by analyzing data from your CRM or ERP system .

Based on your findings, you can create personas that represent different segments of your stakeholder base. For example, you might have a persona for a young adult who is passionate about social justice, or a persona for a retired professional who is looking for ways to give back to their community.

2. Identify Touchpoints​

The next step is to identify the touchpoints between your stakeholders and your organization. Touchpoints can be both online and offline and might include actions like donating, volunteering, attending an event, or receiving an email communication.

To identify touchpoints, ask yourself questions like:

• What are the different ways donors, members, and volunteers interact with our organization?
• What channels do they use to communicate with us?
• What events or activities do they participate in?
• What information are they seeking from us?

3. Map the Customer Journey

This is when you create a visual representation of the journey using a tool like a flowchart or diagram. Using your personas and touchpoints as a guide, map the steps your stakeholders take when interacting with your organization.

4. Identify Opportunities for Improvement

As you create your customer or donor journey map, be sure to include any pain points or obstacles that donors or members may encounter. For example, you might have a confusing donation process or a lack of information on your website.

To identify opportunities for improvement, look at each step of the journey and ask yourself:

• Is this step necessary?
• Is this step easy for stakeholders to complete?
• Is there any confusion or uncertainty at this step?
• Is there an opportunity to personalize this step based on the stakeholder’s persona?

5. Implement Changes and Measure Success

To address pain points, you might find you need new ERP software or a dose of business process reengineering . This is why customer journey mapping is a critical component of most organization-wide projects – it ensures your new processes and technology align with your vision for the customer journey.

As you begin digital transformation, be sure to track metrics, like website traffic and donor engagement. This can help you identify what is working and what needs improvement, allowing you to refine your customer journey over time.

Does Your Stakeholder Journey Align With Your Organization’s Mission?

Your digital transformation project or process improvement initiative will only succeed if you prioritize customer journey mapping.  

This process isn’t as difficult as it seems. The nonprofit customer journey is unique, but certain universal principles apply when creating a journey map.

You can use this blog post as a starting point for improving your processes and technology to ensure greater engagement, retention, and support. Then, contact our business process reengineering consultants with any questions or for assistance with ERP selection, implementation, or process improvement.

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How Nonprofits Can Use Customer Journey Mapping

A Nonprofit's Guide to Creating a Donor Journey Map

X marks the donors: a nonprofit's guide to creating a donor journey map.

For centuries, we've relied on maps to get us where we need to go. From grabbing a free road map at the gas station to sailing across oceans for a chest of gold doubloons, maps have helped us navigate unfamiliar territory and reach our goals. And that's just what a donor journey map can do for your nonprofit.

What is the donor journey?

The donor journey is the entirety of interactions and experiences a donor has with a nonprofit organization, from first learning about a cause to becoming a recurring and active donor. The initial acquisition steps are often likened to a donor funnel, as donors are brought into the nonprofit's fold.

Here's the thing: when a potential donor becomes aware of your organization, they don't just Google your website, fill out a donation form, and hit "submit." They research your nonprofit. They read an annual report and maybe a blog post. And they carefully consider whether (and how much of) their hard-earned money should go to your cause. In the long term, their journey may end after a $5 donation. Just a quick trip! Or, they might go from a first-time donation to a monthly donation to becoming a major donor and eventually chairing your board.

The point is that every journey is different, but you can control what type of journey your donors are on. By carefully considering all the touchpoints a donor encounters as they move from the awareness stage to that online donation and become a consistent donor, you can create a journey that's long, enjoyable, and memorable. But to do that, you need a plan. And that means you need a good map.

Why your nonprofit should do donor journey mapping

Just like drawing a map without Google Maps is a lot of work, so is mapping your various donor segments' journeys. So, why should you put in the effort to create a nonprofit customer journey map? 

Donor retention

If you want prospective donors to become first-time donors and first-time donors to stick around, you need to offer them an easy and intuitive experience with your charitable organization. The better the constituent experience, the more loyal donors you'll cultivate.

Donor recruitment

In addition to improving your donor retention strategy, effective journey mapping can help with your marketing efforts, driving visibility and attracting new donors. You can see what's working and what's not, then implement those lessons to meet your fundraising goals.

Foster donor empathy

Nonprofits spend a lot (A LOT) of time trying to figure out how to get additional donations. Now, you can walk in your donors' shoes and experience exactly what they experience, pain points, and all! Huh, suddenly you realize that your CTA is really confusing and that marketing content is pretty darn grating.

Deepen donor relationships

Sometimes, nonprofits put so much energy into recruiting new donors that they forget to put in the effort with existing donors. But when individual donors feel like you see them, whether it's through a personalized donor engagement strategy or a volunteer onboarding process that anticipates their every question, they trust your organization. 

Lay groundwork for predictable revenue

The more carefully you map the donation process as well as your various donor touchpoints, the more patterns you can identify to create a reliable framework for generating revenue. 

Volunteer recruitment

If people have a great experience with the donation process, their journey won't end with a one-time donation. With a well-thought-out journey, you can highlight volunteer opportunities while supporting your fundraising efforts, building out your community with minimal effort.

Improve personalization

By understanding all the different paths donors can take and what they respond to, your fundraising team can create more personalized communications and experiences for everyone. And that's a recipe for success.

Donor journey map vs. customer journey map: What's the difference?

A donor journey map is a type of customer journey map. It focuses on donors' interactions and experiences with a nonprofit organization, while a customer journey map refers to customers' interactions across any one business, brand, or product rather than just a nonprofit.

So, while the two maps may have a different target audience, they both have the same goal: optimizing the user experience. Just as a great sales and purchasing experience can turn one-time visitors into lifelong customers, a great giving experience can turn one-time donors into loyal supporters. As such, customer journey mapping offers valuable lessons for nonprofiteers seeking to ensure a rewarding expedition for all your donor-travelers. For starters, the five phases that customers go through on their journeys also apply to donors: awareness, consideration, decision/purchase, retention, and loyalty/advocacy.

How does a donor journey differ from a volunteer journey?

Everyone who interacts with your nonprofit is on their own journey, including donors versus volunteers. So, the donor journey is the experience potential and current donors have with your nonprofit, while the volunteer journey refers to the interactions of your volunteers.

Since every journey is unique, you want to personalize the experience based on your audience segment. Just as taking a cross-country road trip requires a different map from finding the closest coffee shop, so do the different members of your donor base require their own paths for an optimal experience. A volunteer's journey will look very different from a major donor's journey, which will look quite different from the journey of a monthly donor.

How do you map a donor journey?

With all those different types of journeys out of the way, you can finally move on to the actual donor journey mapping. To map your donors' journey, you create a visual representation of all the touchpoints a donor goes through when interacting with your nonprofit. You can then use this outline to better understand the donor experience and optimize it going forward.

So, where do you begin? Let us map the journey mapping process.

Journey maps start with donor personas

Before you can start your map, you need to know your donors. And when you want to connect with your key audiences, your most powerful tool is ... (drumroll, please) donor personas . Basically, a donor persona is a representation of a type of ideal donor. You take all your demographic data and key insights and behavioral information and use that to create profiles that help you understand motivations, preferences, and needs for key donor segments.

For example, an animal shelter might have Carolina, a 30-something professional who doesn't have time for a pet but loves animals, as well as Richard, a retired man who loves dogs and finds himself with extra time on his hands, among two or three others. What attracts them to your nonprofit? What types of opportunities and interactions appeal to them? Write up a profile for each one. Then, with that information, you can start exploring what the journey with your nonprofit looks like for each persona.

Stages of the journey

With donor personas in hand, we can start mapping for real. Remember those five customer journey stages? Now, we're going to determine how you address critical needs for each donor persona at each stage. As you go through each stage, write down key donor touchpoints to see what the journey looks like for each persona.

In the awareness stage, you're examining what your digital marketing strategy looks like in terms of spreading awareness of your cause. Before donors ever know your organization's name, how do they realize you exist? Maybe you rely on social media posts to spread the word, or perhaps you buy targeted ads. It could be that someone Googles your industry and your site pops up, or they hear about you through a peer-to-peer campaign. At this stage, you're not trying to get a donation; you're just getting the word out.

Consideration

Now, your donors know that you're a thing—congrats! Once they know your name, they start wondering if they should make a gift, and that means you need to prove that you're the best option out there, taking names and making an impact. Just like for-profit organizations that are convincing a customer to buy, buy, buy from them, you want to use various communication channels to convince would-be donors to give, give, give. This is where educational and informative websites and social media channels pay off.

Your Instagram account was amazing, and now, you have a potential supporter waiting in the wings—they're on the cusp of opening that donation form! Here, you're moving away from educational pieces of content and helpful articles and focusing instead on closing the deal. They decide to sign up for that newsletter, and through personalized emails with clear CTAs, they complete the donation process.

Hurray, a donor donated to your cause! Now, you want to use good donor management practices to get those previous donors to stick around for years to come. Send a donation receipt, say thank you, and start nudging them in the direction of lifelong supporters. Here, it's about providing a consistently positive experience, including personalized communications, regular follow-up, and steadfast support. 

Loyalty/Advocacy

Finally, there's the loyalty stage. Loyal donors are in it for good, and they're doing more than just making a donation every once in a while. They have a meaningful relationship with your nonprofit, and they'll spread the word near and far. From participating in P2P campaigns to singing your praises on social media channels, you have a loyal partner, so don't mess it up.

How donor data affects the journey

One more must-address area before we get to the map itself: To get your personas and map into tip-top, most-useful shape, you've got to follow the data. Data is your secret weapon when it comes to understanding donors' journeys with your organization. By analyzing demographic and behavioral data, you can curate a personalized experience for your donors and optimize future engagement. Data helps you create a content strategy that resonates with your donor segments, choose communication channels that connect with your base, and identify persona-specific touchpoints for maximum effectiveness. Happily, Funraise has you covered with data and dashboards that provide all the essential insights to craft a top-tier digital strategy.

Simplified donor journey map template

Organizational objective What's your goal for the journey mapping process?

Donor personas Note: You do not need to fill out every section below for every persona; aim for a complete profile for each one.

1. Name     Age     Education     Average donation     Location     Job     Communication preferences     Goals     Frustrations     Motivations

Donor journeys Choose your most common persona to start and map the journey. Then, you can replicate the process for other personas later.

Journey map obstacles

Of course, no journey is without its obstacles. Here are a few hazards you may encounter along the way.

Limited resources for innovation projects

Sometimes, an optimal journey requires an innovative approach, but innovation often requires ample resources. Nonprofits, alas, are often short on those, so you may have to compromise your ideal vision in the name of budget and practicality.

Traditional structures and extended decision-making periods

Nonprofits with hierarchical structures and a tendency to draw out the decision-making processes might struggle to agree on a course of action that takes into account changing donor expectations and needs.

Involvement of multiple stakeholders

Too many cooks is a real problem when it comes to implementing effective journey maps. Managing input and getting alignment among various stakeholders can be challenging and may slow down the process.

Not treating the map as a living document

Just as your project and strategies change, so does your donor pool. Your map is not static, and you'll need to revisit and update it regularly to ensure you're consistently meeting donors' changing needs and behaviors.

Small audience

Smaller nonprofits may move through the decision-making process more quickly, but a smaller donor base means limited data, which can be a challenge for creating detailed personas or conducting in-depth analysis.

Difficulty moving donors through the funnel

As with any journey, sometimes, participants get stuck. Likewise, some donors may get stuck at certain stages, and you'll need to motivate them to progress to the next level of engagement. 

What happens after a donor has... journeyed?

Trick question! The donor journey never ends, my friend. Creating an intentional and thoughtful digital journey for your various donors is a lifelong process, and you'll need to continue to tweak your communication strategies, email marketing, social channels, website, and interactions to meet donors where they are and ensure they stay engaged with your organization.

Effective donor journey map tools for nonprofits

If you really want to dive into the world of journey mapping, you'll want a journey mapping tool to help you visualize the comprehensive donor journey. Here are a few places to get started:

• Lucidchart . Lucidchart lets you drag and drop to make visually appealing, easy-to-navigate diagrams for workflows and project management.
• Smaply . Smaply is all about managing the customer experience, with tools for journey mapping, stakeholder mapping, and persona mapping.
• WebMaxy . WebMaxy 's data-driven marketing platform has specific tools to analyze the customer (or donor) journey, allowing you to see your website from the visitor's perspective.

Even for the most experienced and confident nonprofiteers, the rugged landscape of the nonprofitsphere can sometimes leave you feeling unsure or lost. Luckily, you can build a donor journey map to find your way out of the deepest darkness. Gear up, intrepid adventurers, and let's go!

Donor journey: Key takeaways

• The donor journey encompasses the series of interactions a donor has with a nonprofit, from the initial awareness stage to becoming a loyal supporter.
• The nonprofit customer journey can be highly varied, with different donors taking different paths. Some make a one-time donation, others become volunteers, and others become lifelong supporters.
• Mapping the donor journey is a powerful technique that involves understanding the donor's POV by identifying touchpoints at each stage of the journey.
• The customer (and donor) journey consists of five stages: awareness, consideration, decision, retention, and loyalty/advocacy.
• Donor data is essential for effective mapping, enabling personalized engagement and targeted communication for different donor segments.

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• October 20, 2020

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In today’s time where customer experience is intrinsic to the business success of most brands, charitable and non-profit organizations are still struggling to understand their customer needs. According to Stanford Social Innovation Review , 88% of leaders in the social innovation sphere consider “customer feedback” as important but find it difficult to implement. 

There are around 10 million non-profit and non-governmental organizations in the world. As donations are the primary source of funding for these organizations, it becomes more important for them to enhance their donor experience. Moreover, two-thirds of donors either donate to organizations they know or the ones recommended by their family/ friends (without doing any research before giving). Considering the massive boost in donations related to disaster relief, i.e. from $212,000 in 2015 to $862,000 in 2017 (approx 300% of median cash), the growth of nonprofits has always been on the rise.

Therefore, nonprofits need to adopt the business model of the profit-world and start treating their donors/stakeholders as customers. Let’s dig deeper to understand it further:

Download Now:  5 Customer Experience Survey Templates

Customer experience is ubiquitous

There’s no doubt that commercial businesses always strive to please their customers. Likewise, nonprofit organizations need to focus on building strong relationships with their donors as they fund their mission. So, the big brands and nonprofits sail in the same boat – as neither of them can ignore their customer experience . Since the donors of a nonprofit program do not receive any service in exchange for money (like customers who get a product/service for some dollars), managing a successful relationship with donors can be an intricate process. With the continuous increase of nonprofit organizations out there, how will you grab your donors’ attention and strengthen their commitment to your organization? As nonprofit customers can be seen wearing multiple hats – as a donor, volunteer, client, stakeholder, or an advocate, there’s a need for a better sophisticated model as compared to the one used for simple transactional experience. In fact, the volunteers may prove to be the ideal donors- by donating twice than the non-volunteers, if engaged through efficient volunteering. Thus, the notion of CX becomes more crucial for nonprofits.

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Prioritizing customer-centricity in nonprofits

Connect with your donors emotionally.

Start by delighting your donors in a personalized way. While 92% of marketers find personalization helpful in brand building, 87% of them consider it effective for lead generation.  Choosing innovative and out-of-the-box methods to “wow” your donors can drive engagement with your nonprofit organization. Throwing in exciting surprises, tweeting a personalized thank you note, or sending a humorous email to infuse some fun could be a great idea.

Share the impact of contributions made

Communicating the impact of donor contributions is an essential aspect of your marketing plan. As donors contribute to your cause, let them know how their money is being used and the changes imparted by your organization. Ask donors how they feel about the impact created by their donations and if the difference was inline with their expectations.

Help your staff surpass expectations

When customer advocacy is ingrained into your organization’s culture, everyone onboard focuses on being adventurous yet creative to become a happiness hero for their clients. Encouraging your employees to embed personalized communication can help drive donor loyalty. Giving your staff the freedom to perform not only improves your fundraising strategies but also makes your donors feel valued.

Give your donors a voice

Soliciting feedback from donors helps to understand them better and strengthens engagement across your nonprofit organization. Also, it bolsters the donor’s belief in self-advocacy by giving them a prominent seat at the decision table. Conducting omnichannel surveys can help you uncover donor trends and follow a data-driven approach to donor satisfaction. Moreover, it will empower you to personalize communication with donors and interact in a targeted way.

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Like in any business relationship, delivering exceptional service is essential for an organization to meet its mission and vision. As the nonprofits are scrutinized largely, it’s imperative to treat your donors/stakeholders right which makes them feel valued. 

In case you’re exploring some options for social research , we empower nonprofits conduct social research surveys and track the impact of their studies globally. With over 45 years of experience servicing the social research space, Voxco’s robust and flexible platform is known to support complex sampling strategies and sophisticated programming needs. Our powerpacked solution manages data of varying volumes and complexity with ease.  Get in touch with Voxco for best-in-class solutions to transform every touchpoint into a positive donor experience.

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Why Customer Experience Matters to Non-Profits, Too

Estimated Reading Time : 4 mins

Who is your client? In the for-profit world, it’s pretty clear: To attract the business and continued patronage of clients and customers around the world, you must provide an excellent customer experience around your products and services. Actually, the philosophy to motivate nonprofit donors isn’t far off that same course of action.

What’s the point of providing an amazing customer experience? It’s creating passionate fans who proclaim to everyone how wonderful your brand is and who come back time and again to purchase. Wouldn’t it be great if donors and others felt the same loyalty and motivation to continue to give and to proclaim from the rooftops how wonderful your non-profit is?

While it’s easy to identify shoppers, customers, subscribers, end users, and others who benefit from a company’s products or services, it’s harder to appeal to donors and stakeholders in the non-profit realm. In fact, according to The Chronicles of Philanthropy, less than 25% of Americans invest in charitable giving — a big indicator that you need to do something different to stand out.

How to identify a non-profit’s customer experience

Your non-profit can turn stakeholders into raving fans . A non-profit’s customer can be donors, volunteers, contributors, and anyone else who supplies tangible or intangible support. An easy way to look at this designation is to think of anyone your non-profit would consider a “friend.” This term encompasses anyone who believes in supporting your non-profit’s mission and vision, regardless of how or what they give. You wouldn’t want to call them “customers” because it’s a limiting term. Instead, consider their role: Perhaps they are friends ready and willing to support your mission-critical initiatives, volunteers or contributors who help you meet program needs, or even beneficiaries of your services.

Your goal is to provide an experience that turns your “friends” into fans who recommend your non-profit to others and shout from the rooftops how wonderful you are. Close to what for-profit enterprises do to create engaging and impressive customer experiences, a non-profit must ensure every communication speaks directly to their desires, fears, or needs .

Consider how a for-profit airline speaks to its customers and prospects. While they might point out their competitive airfare costs, they’re more likely to focus on how their customer service goes above and beyond others. Who wouldn’t want to fly with an airline that provides adequate comfy seating with free treats, or one that provides one-on-one customer service to make sure you’re comfortable and have everything you need for your flight?

If you’ve ever flown on a a budget airline, you know how important an amazing customer experience is. In fact, you’re probably willing to spend a few more dollars to ensure you get the customer experience you expect.

Creating raving fans for your non-profit entity

Your donors and friends have a choice: They can choose your non-profit because you ring all their bells, or they can donate or volunteer with another agency that sounds really good. It’s up to you to first, understand exactly what your donors and volunteers need, and second, how to reach them with engaging and compelling words that draw them in.

You must create raving fans . You have a few options. Your donors and friends provide the essence of what you need to fulfill your mission. But don’t forget about your target audience who hopefully will some day turn into volunteers or donors. You should treat your beneficiaries as well as you treat donors because someday they can and will “pay it forward.”

Regardless of your friends, donors, beneficiaries, and other involved in your program, show appreciation for their abilities. Consider how transparency helps you with your mission and vision, as does gratitude for everyone and communications that speak to that gratitude.

Don’t forget to envision the steps your friends and donors go through as they become raving fans. You must visualize their”customer experience” from beginning to end to make sure you accommodate donors along the journey. Once you understand your customer experience journey , you can help funnel them into the marketing tracks you’ve set up to meet or exceed their needs.

Empower your staff to exceed expectations

When everyone on board assimilates the organizational culture, understands intimately the customer experience, and focuses on being creative, adventurous, and open-minded, you can create magic for your target audience. When you empower your staff to address these issues, they can create donor loyalty through effective, personalized communications based on your nonprofit’s work philosophy.

Giving your staff freedom to tap into their creativity can boost not only your marketing and volunteer management program, but enhance fundraising strategies. When you align each arm of your nonprofit to the same strategic initiative, your chances of donors feeling valued and inspired skyrocket.

Final thoughts

Creating a solution for your nonprofit’s extensive outreach program doesn’t mean you must put your mission and vision aside. Rather, creating a “customer experience” that donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries can connect with puts you at the top of the list for customer satisfaction. Because while they may not be as obvious as with for-profit organizations, non-profits have customers, too. Each customer category has different wants, needs, desires, and fears, and it’s up to you to understand and reach out to them as personally as possible. Making these connections allows you to better serve your customers and to continue to grow your impact.

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Mapping the Nonprofit Customer Journey

by yourbusinessmarketer | Mar 25, 2022 | Non-Profit

Marketing is a complex beast. Throw in the intricacies of the nonprofit world and you have a recipe that can quickly result in chaos. Because time and resources are at a premium, having a clear understanding of your marketing roadmap and, more importantly, the customer journey is essential to executing a successful campaign.

Where many nonprofits go astray is in assuming that their message alone can carry the weight of the organization. While it comprises a large portion of the marketing strategy, that piece alone will fall short without the proper supporting cast. 

Creating a Roadmap = More Than Just Point A to B

Chances are you heard the word “roadmap” and immediately thought of a direct line that leads from vision to success. First and foremost, there are no direct lines in marketing. Even the best laid marketing strategy will have twists and turns that need to be accounted for if you are to achieve your overall goals.

For the time being, we will assume that you have a good handle on your mission statement, or your “why.” In the most simple terms, this is what makes your organization tick, and why people should care about your cause.

Beyond that there are three areas of focus that must be attended to when mapping your customer journey.

Who is Your Audience?

For most of history, nonprofit organizations operated within a tiny bubble. While there were a handful of larger organizations that spanned the country or the globe, the vast majority of nonprofits were localized, and their marketing reflected that fact.

While you are still likely to have a local audience, social media has opened the doors for even the smallest nonprofits to have a global digital footprint. Because of this, it pays to know who your audience is on a granular level.

The more detailed that you can become, the more adept you will become at approaching the various groups that make up your audience.

Start with demographic data and build buyer personas. These profiles act as a guide to help you decipher which messages will resonate with a specific type of buyer. An important thing to note is that you can have a variety of personas within each target audience and your message should be adjusted accordingly.

Where Will Your Audience See Your Message?

As previously mentioned, social media has been a game changer for marketers, but posting frivolously will chew through time and resources like a puppy with a shoe fetish. When creating a strategy around a variety of platforms, keep the following in mind.

1. How you will deliver your message is important . Video killed the radio star, and it dominates on most social media platforms. That being said, It doesn’t have to be professional or super expensive. Keep it authentic and to the point for the best results.

2. Plan on engagement. If you are posting to social media, don’t ignore those messages (DMs); they will help you build trust and will play into the platform’s algorithm to give you better exposure.

3. A/B test like crazy. Each persona will act differently to specific messages. Someone that is analytical will like to see hard numbers on where your organization is spending donation money. Others simply want to know that they are making a difference, also known as the “feel goods.”

4. Follow the data. Test the water, but follow Hansel and Gretel’s lead and track those breadcrumbs. Nuggets of data will help you understand which messages are working and when you should pivot. Remember, that you can’t measure what you don’t track.

How Will You Convert Them to Your Cause?

You didn’t get this far into this article without expecting us to cover how to transform that prospect into a donor/customer. That is likely why you clicked on the link. You have a goal to reach and want the inside scoop on how to achieve it: that’s what nonprofit marketing is all about.

Our best advice is to keep it simple and be a storyteller. Think back to memorable nonprofit marketing, like the ASPCA commercials ingrained in your memory along with “I will remember you,” by Sarah McLachlan. That story pulls at your heartstrings because most people want to help suffering animals. This is a perfect example of their organization telling a story without actually saying a word and having a clear understanding of their “why.”

Dig deep and fill your marketing content with the same type of message. If you are helping inner city youth, don’t just tell people that you are helping inner city youth. Tell them why, why they should care, and how they can get involved.

Follow up each message with a call to action. CTAs can take on a variety of forms, among which should be a big shiny “Donate NOW” button on your website or Facebook page. If your message resonates, leave no doubt about what their next step should be, then make it as easy as possible for them to contribute.

Turning Customers Into Evangelists/Advocates

Once you have moved a prospect from your audience to your customer base, the next step is to get that person fully on the bandwagon. Don’t get us wrong, one time donations are great, but what if that person became more than just a random donor? 

From a marketing perspective, these individuals should fall into their own separate category. The message should be more personal, and there is a good chance you will see a much higher level of engagement.

Newsletters and regular updates are a great way to keep donors engaged well after the initial pledge. Think of each touch point as an investment into creating an army of advocates that will help you spread your message far and wide.

Mapping Your Customer Journey

You don’t have to be Magellan, out there mapping uncharted territory alone. There are numerous resources available to help you get started. The most important thing to remember is that no two nonprofits are exactly alike. While similarities might exist, you need to adjust your customer’s journey to fit your organization.

If you are struggling with creating your marketing roadmap, or getting a firm grasp on your customers journey, the Your Business Marketer team is ready to help you right the ship. We have extensive experience in helping nonprofits of all shapes and sizes and can help create a unique roadmap for your organization. Learn more about YBM and connect with our team today.

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Customer service tips for the nonprofit world

When you think of your nonprofit organization, do you think customer service as a part of what sets you apart? If you dive deep into it, nonprofits are in the service industry and although there are differences in how operations work when compared to for-profit companies, excellent customer service is a value-add. By concentrating on excellent customer service, you can retain first-time donors and develop advocates for your organization.

Think differently, know your audiences

A nonprofit has to think differently than most service industry-based businesses , curating relationships and interacting with donors and members in a non-sales format, yet in a way that makes them feel welcome and part of the journey.

At a high level, nonprofits have two main audiences; participants (donors) and recipients (those that benefit from your organization).

Participants, aka donors

Storytelling and convenience to give drives great customer service with your donors. Understand what drives their contributions and how to provide easy ways to give as well as quick or easy-to-find answers and responses to their questions. Donor thank you processes are a huge part of this. In addition, your development department plays a role in customer service, identifying strong donor prospects and managing those relationships.

And while we tend to think of monetary donations when we hear the word ‘donor,’ those donors can be individuals who volunteer and give their time to your organization. Understand their wants, their needs and what drives them to give back to your organization through their actions. Develop great customer service protocols for these participants as well.

Those in need of your services need two things: Education to understand what services are available and convenience to receive those services. Think easy processes for applying, quick ways to get information out to populations who may not have access to traditional forms of communication, etc. You are impacting people in positive ways; treat your program recipients with the same level of importance as your donors; guide them from start to finish and be a helpful hand throughout the process.

4 ways to develop great customer service for nonprofits

1. understand the customer journey.

Map out your donor, volunteer and recipients’ customer journeys to better how they interact with your nonprofit, what makes them feel valued and appreciated, and where they get tripped up in the process. This provides you with information you can use to improve or keep at the things that are working well.

2. Build loyalty and dedication

Response time and communication can set your organization apart from the rest. Train your team to return phone calls and emails promptly and be quick to troubleshoot. If you are using email marketing or social media as communication tools to reach donors and recipients, ensure you’ve identified key people within your organization to monitor those accounts and respond promptly there as well. Doing so can help build loyalty and dedication to your organization. Using a personalized approach to communicating makes people feel like their time is valued and they have enough resources within your organization.

3. Be transparent and build trust

Donors should be able to get full details about where the money is going and who their dollars benefit. Develop education materials, one-sheets or key talking points internally so that your team members can provide clear answers to how money is being used when asked. Showcase that information on your donor landing pages and digital channels; this not only shows transparency, but it tells the story of how dollars coming in truly impact your organization and the people you serve.

4. Encourage feedback

Without feedback, you don’t know what you are doing right or wrong. When you provide good customer service, you are more likely to get open and honest feedback. Develop online surveys or ask people to provide their opinions in a chat or email or set up a call to go over their experience. No matter the feedback, always communicate with individuals in an understanding and thankful manner. Check out our Getting donor feedback: Q&A blog post for some helpful tips for better connecting with your donors.

When you create efficient customer service you build an atmosphere of warmth and trust; this can move your nonprofit to the next level and maximize the efforts you’re already putting forth. Think about the last time you received amazing customer service. How did that make you feel? That is the feeling we want to give to our donors and recipients all year long.

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Ronald is the President and Founder of 4aGoodCause , the fundraising CRM that makes recurring, monthly giving a breeze for small nonprofits.

For over 25 years, Ronald has had the joy of doing what he loves, building online solutions that make a difference in the world. He’s helped raise millions of dollars online for small nonprofits across the country. Connect with Ronald on LinkedIn .

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How to cre­ate a donor jour­ney map, ally smith of fundrais­ing kit shows you how to cre­ate a donor jour­ney map and shares why they’re impor­tant to your fundrais­ing strategy..

For centuries, maps have helped us navigate foreign countries, complex city streets, and even our own hometowns. As fundraisers, maps can help us navigate relationships with our donors.

Donor journey mapping is the process of  stewarding your non-profit’s supporters  and potential donors to become recurring donors and advocates for your cause. This process can be visualised using a map that illustrates the key stages supporters go through as they move along their journey. 

This article will explore the importance of creating and using donor journey maps to develop  stewardship plans  for your most promising supporters. It will also highlight the key stages of your donor journeys.  

Why your non-profit should create a donor journey map

Building a donor journey map is a valuable exercise for every fundraising team. ‘ Why ?’ you might ask? Well, when you know when, where, and how your donors are connecting with you, you can be better equipped to understand your fundraising successes and shortfalls. 

This practice is also a great way to get your team focused on donor-centred stewardship practices and strategies. Additionally, it will help your team understand the decisions your donor base makes as you nurture your relationship with them. 

An effective donor journey map will help your non-profit team to do the following: 

• Learn more about your donors:  By understanding where your donors are and how and why they’re giving, your team can identify the key factors that motivate donors and create a strategy around those factors.  
• Keep your team aligned:  The donor journey map provides a framework that your entire team can use to promote donor engagement. Additionally, it will help your team stay on the same page. 
• Improve donor experience:  As your team creates  donor journeys , they’ll start to understand opportunities and gaps in your strategy and develop opportunities for improvement. 
• Visualise the future:  An essential part of non-profit development involves forecasting and  projecting fundraising outcomes . With a donor journey map, you can predict what donors will contribute over time and use that information to estimate outcomes.
• Monitor your progress:  Mapping the donor journey can help you understand the stages where you’re losing donors or converting donors well. Then, through mapping your success, you can spot areas for improvement.

How to create a donor journey map to increase revenue

Let’s walk you through an example donor journey map using an animal rights advocacy non-profit as an example: 

Nancy is a baby boomer and an active donor who supports animal rights causes. Nancy’s annual salary is approximately US$100,000, and she is prepared to donate US$50 to US$70 each month to this non-profit.

Now, let’s look at what a donor journey map would look like, and as we explore it, we’ll discuss how Nancy’s journey plays out. 

Your map should have three components: giving stages, fundraising touchpoints, and the donor's point of view (POV). 

Let’s start by looking at the giving stages component.

Giving stages

You are likely already familiar with the donor giving stages: awareness, research, decision, appreciation, and repeat. 

Donors interact with your non-profit at each of these stages.  

By progressing through these stages, you strive toward the goal of encouraging donors to become repeat or  recurring donors . Achieving this goal can take a while and will require patience. 

In practice, donors might actually loop back to the research stage after the decision stage or even skip the research phase altogether. However, the most important factor is that they keep moving between stages. 

Fundraising touchpoints

Fundraising touchpoints are the recorded interactions you’ll have with your donor during each giving stage. It’s vital that you develop communications from the donor's perspective.  

Here is an example of what that might look like in Nancy’s case: 

Donor point of view (POV)

Working your donor POV into your donor journey is critical and involves considering your donors’ long-term goals, thoughts, and activities as they go from one stage to the next. 

When assuming a donor’s POV, you should begin by clearly defining your audience. Then, if you use a  non-profit customer relationship management, or CRM , you can analyse your database to learn more about your best supporters and most consistent donors. This process will give you some insight to help you anticipate the POV of promising supporters with similar characteristics. 

Make sure to consider the campaigns that your supporters tend to contribute to. Additionally, take note of their age, gender, preferred communication methods, and average gift size.  

Let’s go back to Nancy. Based on your donor base analysis, you’ll need to think strategically about what Nancy would think as she progresses through her giving stages. Here’s what that might look like:

Once you’ve established Nancy’s POV, you have everything you need to monitor her progress and help give her the donor experience she’s looking for and deserves. 

When you put these three pieces together (giving stages, fundraising touchpoints, and donor POV), you’ll have a complete donor journey map that’ll inform your non-profit’s fundraising strategy. So, take some time to create a donor journey map for your organisation’s most impactful supporters and increase your fundraising success

Remember, you should begin this process by identifying your ideal donors. To do that, you can use  KIT’s free Donor Profile Template  to organise your donors’ information and identify your most engaging donors. 

Good luck! We are excited to hear how you create these journeys and continue to raise more funds for your cause.

About the author: Ally Smith

Ally Smith (she/her) is a freelance content writer for Fundraising KIT. With a background in politics, a stint in the start up world, and a landing in social innovation, she brings a unique perspective to tackling social issues with innovation, collaboration and community engagement.

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Create a Connected Constituent Experience with Journey Mapping

Nonprofits have never faced more challenges than now with the quickening pace of generational, competitive, channel,  and technological change. Nonprofits can only meet these challenges by:

creating greater cooperation between internal teams

improved coordination of different communication channels and different levels of giving

having a deeper, more donor-centric view of their supporters

One of the best tools to help reveal these hidden pitfalls is constituent experience (CX) journey mapping. Over seven years ago, hjc brought the Stanford Design School-inspired approach to customer experience (CX) journey mapping to the charitable sector. However, we like to call it “constituent experience” journey mapping in the charitable sector.

In this guide, you’ll get a snapshot of how CX journey mapping can improve cross-functional communication between departments, increase revenue, and have a positive impact on fundraising initiatives.

Connect with all donors personally

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• Responsive Fundraising

How Donor Journey Maps Improve Responsive Fundraising

• March 28, 2022

In responsive fundraising, donor journey maps play a pivotal role—focusing on tailoring experiences to each donor’s unique journey. This customized approach leads to enhanced engagement and greater fundraising efficiency. Adapting to the individual preferences and history of each donor—nonprofits can forge stronger, more meaningful, more responsive relationships with their supporters.

All of your donors are on a journey with your organization. Whether they’re loyal givers to your year-end fundraising campaign, first-time givers who are just getting to know you, or even people who haven’t made a gift yet, they are having an experience with you. You need a plan for how you’ll build deeper connections with each donor so you can strengthen relationships, engage more deeply, and you’ll inspire even more generosity.

The foundation for deeper relationships and better fundraising is a donor journey map. With a plan in place, your team will understand exactly what they need to do to drive generosity. You’ll also be able to create better donor experiences and, ultimately, help your nonprofit do more good. 

Building Better Donor Journeys

Want a quick overview of the six steps to building donor journeys? Check out this video, or watch our entire Donor Journey training here.

Donor Journey Maps Start with Donor Personas

Before you can create an actionable donor journey map , you must create donor personas. Donor personas are character studies built from characteristics and demographics that your ideal donors share.

Having personas will help you think of the who, what, when, where, and why that drives your interactions.

For example, if your persona is Stephanie, a 60-something living in the northeast who loves birdwatching, you can target your birdwatching messaging to the people who are “Stephanies” in your database. Knowing how she would respond will help you send the best messages to all the people who would respond similarly, while excluding the other personas who wouldn’t resonate quite as much.

Most nonprofits have 3 to 4 donor personas that represent all of their donor base.

There are a few different ways you can identify your most important donor personas. Most nonprofits find it best to identify actual individuals in their donor base that they have direct experience with. Knowing a bit about those kinds of interactions can help determine characteristics that can represent a donor persona as a type. From there, they create donor profiles with wealth data , engagement drivers, passions, and other demographic data. 

If you aren’t in a position to pull from your current donor database, think of an ideal donor you’d like to attract. Add the same kinds of information based on your general knowledge of people who engage with you currently. 

In either case, make sure that you’re highlighting information based on motivations. While demographic information (location, age, occupation, etc.) is helpful, it’s not as critical as what drives people. Better responsive fundraising relies on knowing what pushes people to give, what creates a deeper connection, and what activates them to advocate for you. 

Once you’ve created your donor personas, start tagging each individual donor in your database with one of the personas. With each individual tagged, you can begin collecting engagement data from every donor. These donor signals are the starting point for better responsive fundraising. 

Responsive Fundraising Strategies from The Donor Journey

When your system is collecting data from each individual donor as well as adding details to each donor persona, you can start implementing better responsive fundraising strategies . Here are just a few ways your donor signals can create a more efficient donor journey. 

1. More Efficient Conversion Points

The goal of your efforts boils down to increasing generosity. In order to do that, you have to know exactly what your donors need to hear and at what time to push them into action. The donor journey map will specify conversion points for each donor persona, giving you a way to track where they are converting and where they’re dropping off. 

Over time, you might notice that new donors want to provide a wealth of information about themselves upfront, when their excitement to join your community is at its peak. Conversely, you might find that donors need you to build trust before giving you more. Or, you might find that donors want a high volume of conversion opportunities in the first 6 months, but react better with a slower pace after 9 months. 

By collecting engagement and website behavior data and comparing it to your donor journey map, you’ll see right away how each donor persona is reacting to your conversion points. Your team will be better able to predict the right time to suggest the best action for each donor. The result will be higher returns and more efficient fundraising. 

2. Better Suggestions for Each Individual Donor

Reporting on the different touchpoints of your donor journey map also helps you make more relevant suggestions to your donors at the right time. As you know from The Responsive Framework , not all suggestions to donors will be financial asks. More often than not, your suggestion will simply be to learn more or connect with your nonprofit. 

What a donor journey map reveals to your teams is how often you are engaging with donors in between asks. Remember, responsive nonprofits connect more than they suggest. Rely on the donor journey map to keep track of each suggestion, how each resonates with donors, and which ones need to be changed in order to give donors what they want at the right time. 

Each donor persona will require different engagements, including a different frequency and variety of suggestions. As you report on engagement and conversions, make sure to segment your audiences by personas. You don’t want to risk losing trust or making your donors feel alienated by serving the wrong message at the wrong time.

3. More Relevant Follow-Up After Donations

Closing the loop with donors is essential to improve donor relationships and increase revenue. With a comprehensive donor journey map, your organization can see how many times you follow up with each donor. If you’re missing opportunities to explain the impact to your donors, or skipping them entirely to ask for another donation, consider updating your donor journey.

Responsive fundraising works because it pulls the donor closer to the cause. It highlights their contribution to your cause, which wouldn’t be possible without them. With the donor journey map, you not only have a guide to ensure you close the loop, but you also have a way to check their relevance with donors. 

As with all engagements, some donors will want more information, and some will only want high-level details. As you test each engagement and report on performance, you’ll start to see which donors want which kinds of updates. The result is more relevant content delivered where your donors are most likely to engage with it.

More relevant content with your donor at the center will inspire loyalty, advocacy, and more generosity. 

4. Faster New Donor Recruitment

Perhaps the best part of using a donor journey map for your responsive fundraising strategies is the insight it provides for new donors. Your existing donors are the perfect teachers for learning how to recruit new donors and inspire them to give. 

First, analyze the awareness and consideration phases for ways to improve your donor recruitment strategies. Listen for signals that donors want more from you or different messages. If a communications piece is particularly effective at inspiring generosity, try sending it sooner to potential donors. Speed up your timeline or slow it down.

By testing the strategies for converting a potential donor into a new donor, you increase your opportunities for giving. 

Remember, many of these touchpoints can be automated with a marketing automation platform. These tests, engagements, and reports can be running while you’re focused on other responsibilities. Let your system carry out the tasks for you so you can do the broad strategic thinking necessary to create a better donor experience for your nonprofit. 

5. Deeper Community Relationships

Finally, your donor journey map will reveal opportunities to build deeper connections with your existing donors. Often, nonprofits overlook the ways individual donors are treated after their first gift. They simply move those contacts into a mass-marketing machine. But with an intentional donor journey, you’ll start to be more thoughtful about how your donors are treated. 

Marketing automation and responsive fundraising tactics give you the tools you need to make personal connections with each donor without adding extra hours to your work day. Your team sets the foundation and makes adjustments along the way. But largely, you can accomplish better donor relationships without adding staff or hours. 

If it means recurring generosity and a better connection to the people who care most about your cause, the choice is obvious. 

Create Your Donor Journey Today

To learn how to create your donor journey and donor personas, download our guide . We’ll give you a step-by-step tutorial for creating the donor journey strategy necessary to improve fundraising and do more good. 

What you should do now

Below are three ways we can help you begin your journey to building more personalized fundraising with responsive technology..

See the Virtuous platform in action .   Schedule a call with our team for personalized answers and expert advice on transforming your nonprofit with donor management software.

Download our free Responsive Maturity Model and learn the 5 steps to more personalized donor experiences.

If you know another nonprofit pro who’d enjoy reading this page, share it with them via Email , Linkedin , Twitter , or Facebook .

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• Expert advice

5 cogent reasons to create a donor journey map for non-profit organizations (+template)

Existing to help those in need, charities and nonprofits themselves cannot exist without help and support from the outside. Donors are the backbone of almost every successful charity or nonprofit initiative.

Sometimes such organizations forget about the importance of donor experience. But effective fundraising is not about seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions, it's about building long-term and valuable relationships with supporters. 

Donor journey mapping can help nonprofits and charities get more insight into the process of interactions with their contributors and even more. 

• 1 Shining a spotlight on your donors
• 2 Identifying touchpoints and improving their performance
• 3 Getting more supporters
• 4 Revising your fundraising strategy
• 5 Keeping your hand in life and developing empathy
• 6 The ready-to-go template

There are 5 key reasons to map this journey out.

Shining a spotlight on your donors

Since charities and nonprofits are inherently focused on those in need and therefore are person-centered, focusing on their active supporters seems reasonable. Committed people are the most valuable resource of any social initiative. At the end of the day, any good idea fades without enthusiastic support.

By mapping your donor experience, you put yourself in the shoes of your contributors and see what guides, encourages, and engages them. You will inevitably find out the challenges and problems your donors face. You will also see what can ruin your relationship with them to revise and fix it later.

Pro tip: Before diving into mapping the donor journey, create personas describing your major donor groups. Usually, 3-4 personas are enough to cover your donor base. Then, you can choose one or several personas to focus on first. 

Identifying touchpoints and improving their performance

Donor journey mapping helps you reveal touchpoints — physical and non-physical interactions between your nonprofit or charity and your supporters. By understanding your personas’ experience at each of the touchpoints, you will be able to see what needs to be improved and make these changes, ultimately enhancing the whole experience. For example, you can extend a range of donation options, establish a straightforward membership procedure, simplify billing, and divide the responsibilities among your team members.

When you get the idea of touchpoints, it is easy to plan the routine activities at your organization based on the improvement ideas. 

Getting more supporters

Having a detailed donor journey map in front of your and your colleagues’ eyes, you will see the journey stages where your supporters are actively converting and dropping off and the reasons behind their actions. 

For instance, after making the first donation, your supporters may never donate again because of the negative experience during the money donation stage or because they never heard back from you and don’t know about your new initiatives.

To improve their experience, you may think of introducing additional communication channels and making your offerings more relevant to your contributors. For instance, change your content strategy by using annual reports along with testimonials from other supporters and infographics to attract new admirers. 

Additionally, customizing the way your personas interact with your project can help you win their trust and inspire their loyalty. 

Plus, having information about target personas and their journeys will be beneficial for non-profit digital marketing agencies that help you promote your campaigns.

Revising your fundraising strategy

Donor journey mapping also highlights some of your efforts and activities as an organization. Going through the stages your supporters take step by step, you can detect problematic points referring to your fundraising strategy gaps.  

For example, trying to draw people’s attention to your project, you launch a pretty expensive Google Ads campaign. The number of your daily visitors is increasing, but the number of donations is the same. Where is the problem?

Maybe before donating, your potential donors want to understand what is behind your project. They may be interested in the background of your organization, the people involved in your activities, and your goals and values. But as your website is outdated and it contains too little information about your organization and its mission, they may not go further and look for an alternative initiative to donate to. 

Keeping your hand in life and developing empathy

The best thing about donor journey mapping is the ability to co-create a map together with your team. The team members, who join this process, will better empathize with your customers as they will know every step your donors take throughout their journey. It helps your nonprofit or charity stay intentional and strategic in making decisions. 

Besides, you can use the map during onboarding new teammates. It will be easier for them to get into your ideas and develop a sense of belonging to the organization.  

The ready-to-go template

Our new donor journey map template is for charities and nonprofits who want to become more donor-focused and improve their donor experience by identifying existing flaws and gaps and fixing them. Healthcare-related organizations will find it helpful, too.

We built our Donor Journey Map around a 58-year-old architect Judith who is looking for a charitable organization to support.

It covers all the actions that she takes, like choosing a charity and a program to support, signing a donation agreement, making her first donation, and so on.

We also added some tips on delivering the best experience to your potential donors in this donor journey map template, so be sure to check out the "Best Practices" section😉

Ready to see what’s inside?

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In my experience, donor connections are often very personalized, there is no one-fit-all approach. But we still find donor journey mapping helpful in making sure we’re sending the right message, provide enough communication channels, and make the process as seamless as possible.

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Data and Technology Insights

How Nonprofits Can Leverage Journey Mapping to Solve Their Challenges

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Running a non-profit organization can be a truly rewarding experience. However, there are a lot of challenges that can hinder your growth, decrease your impact, or shut down the organization altogether. Some of such challenges take place in the environment such as changing regulations, tax reforms, and increasing competition for both donors and volunteers, while others happen on the inside, such as lack of internal resources and talent retention . According to Nonprofit Leadership Impact Study , a few of the biggest challenges facing nonprofit leadership teams were lack of resources (54%), donor acquisition (39%) and retention (25%), and staff turnover (35%). Below we would like to show how you can leverage journey mapping to solve such challenges in your organization.

Funding/Lack of Resources

Lack of resources has been named the leading challenge nonprofits faced in 2019. This is something they share even with for-profit businesses. An inadequate resource pool is a multifaceted problem that needs to be tackled from multiple fronts. The two main contributors to not having enough resources to effectively operate are difficulties with donor acquisition and retention and the high turnover of fundraising staff. So how can journey mapping help you address these challenges? Let’s have a look .

Donor acquisition and retention

A donor journey map helps your operational and executive teams understand the full donor experience across the lifecycle stages, channels, and touchpoints. Donor journey mapping is the process of designing, outlining, and charting the engagements, interactions, and activities a donor has with your organization. The journey map visualizes all the interactions a person has with your not-for-profit as well as the internal or external influences affecting his or her behaviors. Such a map can vary in detail and complexity, depending on what you want to chart on it , from a donor experience following an acknowledgment when they make a gift to a year-long onboarding plan for new donors.

Such a comprehensive blueprint allows your non-profit to identify opportunities to improve the donor’s experience and drive more value for the organization. In the current competitive environment, where the number of non-profits is increasing every year, more and more organizations are competing for donor money and resources. Without a clear understanding of how your organization creates value with and for donors, what their requirements and aspirations are as well as how you can optimize your donor experience, you are running at risk of being left behind. Research shows that brands that manage their customer journeys outperform those that don’t.

Donor-centered fundraising is about putting your donor first , looking at your organization through their eyes, nurturing positive relationships with them, and ultimately increasing their loyalty and exceeding your fundraising goals. By creating your donor journey map, you gain invaluable insight into who your donors are (donor persona), align your internal teams to optimize, and build a more meaningful connection with your donors, thus improve your donor acquisition and retention.

Talent Retention

Transitions in staff is another huge challenge non-profit organizations face. Here they compete with both commercial and other non-profits as well as the changing job market . This is why understanding your employee experience and making it more positive is imperative to help ensure stability in staff recruitment and retention. And here is where employee journey mapping comes to the rescue.

Interested in what the future will bring? Download our 2024 Technology Trends eBook for free.

Employee journey mapping is a method to help ensure your employees have positive experiences with your company from their first moment forward. Much like a donor journey map, an employee journey map is a blueprint of end-to-end interactions that an employee has with your organization. Such a technique helps you evaluate employee experience and identify areas for improvement.

A more satisfied employee is a more engaged and loyal employee. According to research , staff with lower engagement are four times more likely to leave their jobs than those who are highly engaged. Such a high turnover rate comes at a high cost, amounting up to 199% of a salary cost . For non-profits, these numbers might be even higher, as they can lose donors and volunteers who work closely with those employees who decide to leave your organization. In order to ensure your employees are engaged and stay with you for a long time , you need to know what makes them happy. Creating your employee personas is another tool you can use to get to know your employees better.

An employee persona is a made-up person, who is created based on your real employees. By learning about your employees’ traits, values, experiences, aspirations, and pain points, you can work on matching their values with organizational values. By creating an employee journey map and acting on the insights you get from it, you can retain your organization’s most valuable assets and secure your future growth.

Improving client experience

Ultimately, the goal of any organization is to consistently satisfy its customers and increase its customer base. For a non-profit, this comes down to serving your service or product recipients the best way possible. In order to do that, you should know your customers’ needs and goals well and ensure that your organization meets them. And customer journey mapping is an invaluable tool in this process. A customer journey map helps your internal teams put the customer first, hence create a more relevant customer experience, increase your productivity and improve resource distribution. In turn, this will help you identify ways to increase your efficiency and accomplish more with less.

No doubt, non-profit organizations face a lot of challenges. Competitive landscape, external influences out of your control, new players in the market, bringing in new requests and standards, make donor retention and employee engagement increasingly harder. To thrive, non-profits need to shift to a more people -centered orientation, putting their donors, employees, and customers first.

Customer journey mapping is an invaluable tool that can help your company go through this transition faster and come out the other side with more value to offer to all your internal and external stakeholders.

About Tatsiana Levdikova

Tatsiana Levdikova is a Head of Content at UXPressia , a collaborative CX platform where you can create customer journey maps, impact maps, and personas. She enjoyed writing about technology, UX, CX, and related topics.

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How to Create a Customer Journey Map

Customer Journey maps are a visual interpretation from an individual’s perspective of their relationship with an organization, service, product or brand.

This whiteboard animation (and article) shows you how to create a Customer Journey Map.

Despite best intentions and mountains of data, many organizations continue to offer lackluster experiences for their customers.

Many organizations function with an internal focus, and that becomes apparent when customers interact with their various products, services and employees. Every interaction a customer has with an organization has an effect on satisfaction, loyalty, and the bottom line. Plotting out a customer’s emotional landscape by way of a Customer Journey Map, or Experience Map, along their path sheds ­­­­light on key opportunities for deepening those relationships.

What is a Customer Journey Map?

A Customer Journey map is a visual or graphic interpretation of the overall story from an individual’s perspective of their relationship with an organization, service, product or brand, over time and across channels. Occasionally, a more narrative, text-based approach is needed to describe nuances and details associated with a customer experience.  The story is told from the customer’s perspective, but also emphasizes the important intersections between user expectations and business requirements.

Inspired by user research , no two journey maps are alike, and regardless of format they allow organizations to consider interactions from their customers’ points of view, instead of taking an inside-out approach. They are one tool that can help organizations evolve from a transactional approach to one that focuses on long term relationships with customers built on respect, consistency and trust.

All organizations have business goals but leveraging customer journeys as a supporting component of an experience strategy keeps customers (or members, patients, employees, students, donors etc.) at the forefront when making design decisions. They can be used in both current state review and future state visioning to examine the present, highlight pain points and uncover the most significant opportunities for building a better experience for customers.

How Do We Use Them?

Customer engagement is not simply a series of interactions, or getting people to visit a website, “Like” something on FaceBook, or download a mobile app.  Genuine engagement centers on compatibility, and identifying how and where individuals and organizations can exist harmoniously together. Giving thought to how your organization/product/service/brand fits into customers’ lives is crucial.

I also use journey maps to gain internal consensus on how customers should be treated across distinct channels. Holding collaborative workshops with cross-disciplinary teams mixing people who otherwise never communicate with each other can be extremely valuable in large organizations in particular.

Illustrating or describing how the customer experience could be brought to life across channels allows all stakeholders from all areas of the business to better understand the essence of the whole experience from the customer’s perspective. How do they want to be spoken to, what are they thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, and doing? Journey maps help us explore answers to the “what ifs” that arise during research and conceptual design.

What Components Does a Journey Map Include?

• Personas : the main characters that illustrate the needs, goals, thoughts, feelings, opinions, expectations, and pain points of the user;
• Timeline : a finite amount of time (e.g. 1 week or 1 year) or variable phases (e.g. awareness, decision-making, purchase, renewal);
• Emotion: peaks and valleys illustrating frustration, anxiety, happiness etc.;
• Touchpoints : customer actions and interactions with the organization. This is the WHAT the customer is doing; and
• Channels : where interaction takes place and the context of use (e.g. website, native app, call center, in-store). This is the WHERE they are interacting.

Nice-to-haves

• Moments of truth : A positive interaction that leaves a lasting impression, often planned for a touchpoint known to generate anxiety or frustration; and
• Supporting characters: peripheral individuals (caregivers, friends, colleagues) who may contribute to the experience.

The Process

1. review goals.

Consider organizational goals for the product or service at large, and specific goals for a customer journey mapping initiative.

2. Gather Research

Review all relevant user research, which includes both qualitative and quantitative findings to provide insights into the customer experience . If more research is needed, get those research activities in the books. Some of my favorite research methods include customer interviews, ethnography & contextual inquiry, customer surveys, customer support/complaint logs, web analytics, social media listening, and competitive intelligence.

3. Touchpoint and Channel brainstorms

As a team, generate a list of the customer touchpoints and the channels on which those touchpoints occur today. Then brainstorm additional touchpoints and/or channels that can be incorporated in the future journeys you will be mapping. For example, the touchpoint could be “pay a bill”, and the channels associated with that touchpoint could be “pay online”, “pay via mail” or “pay in person”.

4. Empathy map

Empathy maps are a depiction of the various facets of a persona and his or her experiences in a given scenario. This exercise helps me organize my observations, build a deeper understanding of customers’ experiences, and draw out surprising insights into what customers need. Empathy maps also provide a foundation of material to fuel journey mapping. The goal is to get a well-rounded sense of how it feels to be that persona in this experience, specifically focusing on what they’re thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, saying and doing.

5. Brainstorm with lenses

The goal of lensed brainstorming is to generate as many ideas as possible in a short period of time. To gain focus as I generate ideas I use “lenses”—words representing key concepts, brand attributes or mindsets that help us look at a problem or scenario in a different way. For this exercise I recommend that the team agree on 3-5 lens words (for example: accessible, social, comforting), then set the clock for 2 minutes per lens word. Each person individually writes down as many ideas as they can think of in that time. After 2 minutes switch to the next lens word until all lens words have been used as idea inspiration. This ensures that every voice on the team is heard and generates a huge inventory of ideas.

6. Affinity diagram

This is a method to visually organize ideas and find cohesion in the team’s concepts. Affinity diagramming helps us shift from casting a wide net in exploring many possibilities, to gaining focus on the right solutions for this audience. All team members should put their ideas generated in the lensed brainstorming activity up on the wall. Have someone sort the ideas into categories and label them. As a group, begin to consider where you might combine, refine, and remove ideas to form a cohesive vision of the future customer experience.

7. Sketch the journey

Drumroll, please. This is the part you’ve been waiting for! It’s now time to put together all the pieces: timeline, touchpoints, channels, emotional highs and lows, and all the wonderful new ideas the team generated for how to improve the future customer journey. Get creative with how you lay it out—it doesn’t have to be a standard left to right timeline. It could be circular or helical. It could be one large map or it could be an interactive, clickable piece with embedded video. There are no templates, and there are infinite possibilities.

8. Refine and digitize

Journeys don’t always become a sophisticated deliverable—sometimes they begin and end as sticky notes on a wall or sketches on a whiteboard. But most of the time, when you go through the activities to arrive at a solid customer journey map, you want to polish it, leverage it in your work and share it with colleagues across the organization. If visual design isn’t your strong suit, consider collaborating closely with a visual designer who can transform the journey map sketch into an impressive artefact.

While journey maps are usually a tangible deliverable, like the one above, the process of journey mapping is what’s most important – it pushes us to think deeply about how we can use experience design to have a positive impact on our customers.

9. Share and use

It can be beneficial to maintain journey maps over time. For example, you could set a time each quarter or year to evaluate how your current customer experience matches your documented vision journeys. If your organization tracks quantitative KPIs, you can integrate these into a journey benchmarking process. Socializing journeys among stakeholders is critical in moving your organization toward action.

In addition to prioritization, the output of a journey map can serve as a backbone for strategic recommendations and more tactical initiatives.

For example, if you’re a mortgage company and you identify the closing process as a key area of frustration, anxiety and opportunity for engaging with the customer and designing for the “moment of truth”, then mark this as a high priority and get that on your strategic roadmap.

Schedule enough time to properly go through the recommended process. I’ve found that you can document a current state journey in about 3 hours, and a future state journey in about 5 hours. This makes for a full day to do both for one persona.

Make sure a good mix of people are involved in the journey map creation. It’s helpful to have stakeholder participants from many areas of the organization, as well as people of varying levels of seniority.

Once the journey maps are created, share them with zeal. Shout them from the rooftops and display them prominently in common areas.

Megan Grocki

Megan Grocki is an experience strategy director at Mad*Pow. With over 15 years of experience in research, experience design and strategy, she helps clients discover the expectations and behaviors of their audiences and identify opportunities for engagement. She has presented and led workshops at several UX, healthcare, and strategy industry events. In her spare time she is earning her master's degree in gastronomy with a concentration in food policy at Boston University. She hopes to leverage her design and strategy chops to educate the public about the connections between their health and what they eat, and use design to help affect changes in food policy at local, national and global levels.

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49 comments.

The post is incredibly good and very well explained. Well done Megan. Thanks UX Mastery for gathering this content and people.

Thanks Justin—I agree Megan did a great job explaining it, and we’re pretty proud of the resulting animation!

Keep an eye on the site as we tackle other UX techniques .

Megan – can you kindly post a better quality image to your final visual please – it certainly seems it will be worth reading your output. Good work!

That’s been done, Max.

Excellent Post Megan! Your process and explanations are easy to follow and very useful. I love the video too. I help people & groups as they through change and an early step in creating a compelling future is gaining a shared understanding of where we actually want to go. Techniques like the ones you’ve described here are so important to structuring the kind of dialogue needed to build that understanding! Thanks for sharing! -Steve

Great article, I agree with everything you’ve written. In my daily workflow, I use Mediatoolkit.com for media listening activities and I highly recommend it, because it enables me to be careful around the challenges you mentioned. :)

Great article Megan! As a Customer Journey Research provider from The Netherlands, it’s very interesting to read. The process and examples are well explained!

This is a really great article. It is well written and a step-by-step tool for mapping and exploring user journeys. The video is also excellent! Thanks!

Hey Megan!!

Just doing a little bit of research on customer journey maps for a talk and boom!! here you are!! This is very helpful information!!!

Great work. Thanks for sharing your methods.

Thanks for this article! However, several points are still unclear. For example – step 5) Brainstorm with Lenses. What exactly is the team brainstorming for? What ideas are we looking for? Shouldn’t the customer journey map be based on observing what frustrations and triumphs people have at each stage in the journey?

Similarly, I didn’t understand clearly how affinity diagramming fit into this process. Is it simply gathering and organizing all the data from research into potential steps in the customer journey?

Hope to hear from you soon! :) And thanks again!

Best wishes, Eureka UX Researcher at Piktochart

I had the same thought. I assume these are the steps for creating a future state journey map, not a current state.

Great post Megan! Thank you for the explanation and process mapping.

Thank you for your post and the video! We use it sometimes to explain our students in just several minutes how to build CJM. On step 4 we also try to identify mood (experience). And on step 10 we usually say “Iterate!” (: We also created a tool to create customer journey maps online – http://uxpressia.com .

Beautifully explained…Amazing how relevant this is for transporting your customer to a virtual world during a sales demo!

Hello Megan,

Very nice article & informative vide, ths for the share.

Regards, Ayman

Thanks for the great information. Very helpful and well-outlined. Much appreciated!

Love the intelligence and delivery. Off to put to good use hopefully! Thank you Megan.

Thank you for your thoughtful post. I’m finding that different groups in my company (engineers, sales, client services) all want and could benefit from user research assets such as personas and journey maps. However, they each prioritize different content. Do you happen to know of a tool that enables storing and maintaining a lot of content pieces (modules) about a persona and enables dynamic updating of “child” content? For example, if I tweaked the empathy map in the master, all the child artifacts that included the empathy map would be updated. I’d be happy to pay for a good solution, but have not found any. I also work on a mac… Thanks in advance for your help!

hi Megan thanks for your post being a student I have to create an assignment of a customer journey map of any service or any product can you tell me which software is to be used for this purpose.

Hello Megan for sharing extreamly good idea about customer journey map.Really Great Work.Keep it up

Thanks for brilliantly mapping the steps in visual form!

Excellent Megam, process mapping really well done.

Hey guys, what tool do you use Megan for the journey map? Can people recommend good free alternatives?

Great stuff… very helpful video.

1+1=3 Ger dig snabbt en bild av värdet i kundresan ur kundens perspektiv. vilka tjänster skall jag erbjuda med utgångspunkt från kundens resa

Well Done Megan! Great video.

One thing I’d maybe add for what it’s worth is the idea of interviewing Stakeholders as you begin the process. They can add some great ideas into what they perceive the customer pain points and relevant journeys to be. But more important than that, is that the Stakeholders will be more “bought-in” to your feedback when you present the final Journey Map product. That part is priceless.

Thank you for putting this together!

Hi, thanks for such an a valuable and insightful article. I’m just curious to understand more about affinity diagram. Could you elaborate more? From my understanding, I gathered that affinity diagraming is more of an activity than a documentation that requires a team discussion to gain consensus and categorize the deliverables from the preceding procedures into something more visual/documented? Could you elaborate more and point me in the right direction?

Trying to get in touch with Mad Pow Megan Grocki, does someone have her direct email address?

Thanks, Paul L

Some time has passed since we did that, but I think it’s still actual for the community. This year we’ve published a list of free customer journey maps templates here – https://uxpressia.com/templates . It is a pretty bunch of customer journey maps templates created for different business domains (including Healthcare, Travel, Banking, Telecom, etc.). All of them are based on the actual experience. You can download the template as PDF or start creating online map inside our tool based on that template.

All perfect and fine, but what I am always missing in discussions about user journeys is an overview of what we are ‘competing’ with. To achieve a touchpoint (meaning the client or user gives his or her attention to my app, or my service, or simply to me), what else is screaming for attention that the user then has to ignore.

I tried to discuss this here: http://www.expressiveproductdesign.com/competing-for-attention/

And did an attempt to create a template to help uncover the competition here: http://www.expressiveproductdesign.com/stickiness-creating-products-services-make-people-come-back/

Not sure if I am there yet. What do you think? Is ‘competition’ an issue in user journey mapping, and how do we best deal with this?

Great article!! In addition to all the pointers mentioned, would like to add the importance of CRM in regards to customer journey mapping. Traditionally retail stores, call centers, social media, and other channels were separately managed. However, now businesses cannot take the risk of handling these channels separately as it will result in a disjointed customer service.

Today the objective should be to have a broad single channel with multiple touch points. And that is only possible when all channels are merged.

Buisnesses who use a robust CRM software like ConvergeHub, Zoho or Infusionsoft are able to combine all communication channels to have a consolidated view of the customers and deliver consistent experience across all channels. So whether customers want to make a purchase, renew a service, or resolve a problem, they can do so in any of their preferred channels.

As the customers move across physical store, online e-commerce, social media and call centers, businesses can map the entire customer journey to provide a unified experience.

I dont see the highs and lows in the CJM?

This post illustrates well on this concept, thanks Megan, hope I have chance to translate the article into Chinese soon.

This is an awesome and very helpful post! Thanks for sharing these tidbits! I’d love to learn more.

This is immensely resourceful and precise. The nuances of user journey and the process explained in a lucid manner, keeping in mind the user journey of the reader. That’s a story within a story, using your technique to explain your technique. Thanks a ton, Megan. God bless!

Ditto. Very helpful, clear process to follow and great sample of the outcome. A watershed moment for me in documenting my own businesses CJM

Great post and video, thanks.

Wonderful post Megan

Great work, thank you very much!

Thanks for sharing, very useful post.

Thanks Kevin.

This is a really great article…concise with a great visual that really ties everything together well.

However, I struggle making these types of documents because of the abstraction. Frank isn’t real and the behavior pattern (the “journey”) has never happened. I know you pulled this from real data, but since I can’t tell what is real and what isn’t from this doc I am treating real behavior with equal weight to behavior you made up.

In fact searching for Healthrageous reveals a postmortem that admits they overbuilt and didn’t focus enough on market fit. This document fully embraces that admittedly flawed business approach…almost celebrates it. Do you think this document contributed to a false sense of security? Do you think it would have helped to surface more about what was real and what wasn’t, or is this document format more a symptom of this client’s approach than a cause?

Hi, I’am a trainee from Huawei Tunisia, i want to create a customer journey map and i’m looking for some examples of customer journey map for a telecom operator. Can you help me please with some design examples? I will be very grateful. Thank you.

This is a very informative document. I can’t wait to apply them. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you so much!!! Loved it:) Simple language & full of quality information:) Good job :)

Thank you so much its good

Hi, how to write the customer journey as a critical narrative. can u guide

Gorgeous 3-D Journey Map concept. Wish it was just a little less blurry!

Further reading

The Ethical Considerations, Trust, and Responsibility in Designing Voice UI

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Success in ResearchOps: An indicator of UX maturity

User research is not just an integrated part of business, but rather teams of people supporting the research process with the practice of ResearchOps...

How to Organize and Reuse Research Insights

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if we reused research insights? Lucky for you - it's easy! Zack Naylor from Aurelius teaches us how.

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Use Customer Surveys to Measure and Improve Nonprofit Programs

A simple measurement solution exists beyond evaluation and monitoring: asking nonprofit clients to take surveys about their customer experience. Lean Data and Listen for Good show how.

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By Melinda Tuan & Jessica Kiessel Nov. 7, 2018

For decades, social organizations have struggled to gather meaningful data to prove programs work. Yet a simple and often overlooked measurement solution exists beyond evaluation and monitoring: directly asking constituents for their feedback. The corporate sector relies on customer feedback for insights, testing assumptions, and improving products and services. And though the social sector faces a unique set of barriers to including user voices , new tools and smart tactics can help mission-driven organizations listen and innovate as well.

Two New Tools: Lean Data and Listen for Good (L4G)

Lean Data, developed by Acumen, provides guidance on collecting better customer data in a publicly available guide and through an online course . Over the last year, Omidyar Network has worked with Lean Data to collect feedback on more than 40 companies in its portfolio. Lean Data uses simple 10- to 15-question surveys to gauge the social benefit that companies bring to the people they serve. These include common business metrics such as the Net Promoter Score , which asks: “How likely is it that you would recommend [our company/product/service] to a friend or colleague?"

Omidyar Network and its investees have used customer feedback from survey data to better serve constituents. For example, in response to Lean Data survey findings, one nonprofit investee working on government budget transparency added new resources to its website and launched a program to better reach those who could benefit most. The new tools and outreach increased the overall use of their budget transparency and accountability portal. In another case, after an existing investee received negative feedback on the user experience of its tech platform, Omidyar Network helped build tech capacity for the group to implement a more effective system. “Lean Data has given us insight into our portfolio companies’ customers and their perceptions of how much impact these services deliver, which has enabled us to improve our support to companies and their missions,” as Amy Klement, partner and global education lead at Omidyar Network notes.

L4G, a program and survey tool from Fund for Shared Insight and SurveyMonkey, helps more than 200 nonprofit organizations collect, analyze, and respond to feedback from their participants. It uses a semi-standard, five-question survey that includes the Net Promoter Score. At this time, only organizations funded by Shared Insight can participate in L4G, but a more public and accessible version of the program is expected to be available within a couple years.

Some survey feedback results in sweeping changes to improve the beneficiary experience: At ECHOS, a health, social, and educational resource organization in Houston, staff reworked the entire participant intake process based on responses expressing frustration with long waits and unfriendly service. Other feedback leads to quick fixes: A food bank in Akron and Canton, Ohio, installed an awning outside one of its distribution sites after clients noted it was often unpleasant to stand outside in bad weather while waiting in line to pick up their food.

When social impact measurement systems, such as randomized controlled trials or pre-post outcome surveys, are not available or feasible, organizations can repeat feedback surveys at intervals to measure the perceived changes in their customers’ experiences. “Using Listen for Good to gather feedback from the 75 youth we work with has allowed us to survey our students and measure the results of our program in a cost-effective way,” says Aaron Neal, elementary curriculum director at HYPOTHEkids , a New York City K-12 STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) education organization that had not previously evaluated the program.

While customer feedback isn’t a substitute for good monitoring and evaluation systems, it is an important and valuable complement: Almost two-thirds of L4G nonprofit organizations reported making changes in at least one area, including operations, programs, and staff-client interactions, as a result of listening.

Five Feedback Tactics

So, how can your organization get the most out of customer feedback? Follow these recommendations:

Identify your customer. It is important to be clear about which of your various customers you want to survey so you can target your questions and learning goals. For nonprofits, the customer may be donors, staff, board members, volunteers, or the program clients. For impact investors, the customer may be staff, entrepreneurs, or customers of the companies. With L4G, the target customer is always the program clients.

Start internally. Be a role model by collecting internal feedback for your organization before collecting it from clients. Omidyar Network realized it needed to collect feedback from its portfolio companies since it was going to ask the companies to collect feedback from customers. The Wright Center, a health services provider in Scranton, Pennsylvania, decided it should first ask staff members for feedback on their experiences working for the organization before asking those same staff members to collect feedback from patients.

Provide resources for feedback collection. While collecting customer feedback is less expensive than conducting rigorous impact evaluations, funders and investors should recognize costs and build the capacity of organizations to implement high-quality feedback systems. For example, Shared Insight makes capacity-building grants alongside nominating co-funders to help nonprofits pay for the staff time and technology required to implement L4G.

Develop plans to apply feedback. Customer feedback provides a window into the way entrepreneurs and leadership teams respond to data and learn from failure. To make the most of feedback, funders, investors, and investees must develop plans for how to use it and nurture the skills of gathering and applying feedback to improve organizational practice. For example, at Our House in Little Rock, Arkansas, the feedback is regularly reviewed by a community council that is made up of individuals who benefit from the nonprofit’s services and programs. They interpret the feedback and make suggestions to staff about how and what to improve.

Make feedback part of your ongoing business analysis. Collecting customer feedback in the social sector is a relatively new practice but one with great potential for generating insights and illuminating areas for improvement. Investors and organizations should continually collect and embed feedback in their performance management systems to see whether and how customer experience improves over time.

Most importantly, social sector organizations should resolve to consider customer voice —the feedback of their clients—as an integral part of their analyses, evaluations, and decision-making. It can be a powerful and cost-effective element of measurement, growth, and mission-driven improvement—and it all starts with the simple act of listening.

This article is part of a series that was produced for  Stanford Social Innovation Review  by Milway Media with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Support  SSIR ’s coverage of cross-sector solutions to global challenges.  Help us further the reach of innovative ideas.  Donate today .

Read more stories by Jessica Kiessel & Melinda Tuan .

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Entertainment

Taiwanese rock band Mayday donates S$200,000 to Singapore special education non-profit

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The donation was given to My Inspiring Journey Hub (MIJ Hub), an organisation dedicated to teaching special needs individuals academic and life skills. 

Taiwanese rock band Mayday donated S$200,000 to a Singapore special education non-profit MIJ Hub. (Photo: Instagram/imayday55555)

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Taiwanese rock band Mayday has donated S$200,000 (US$147,217) to a Singapore non-profit organisation teaching academic curriculum and life skills to special needs students aged four to 40, to express gratitude for support from Singapore fans.

The contribution was given to My Inspiring Journey Hub (MIJ Hub), which sees students with learning differences across six diagnoses: autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cerebral palsy, dyslexia, down syndrome, and global developmental delay. And the sum will benefit 22 students, said the non-profit in a media release on Wednesday (Jun 26). 

Mayday's contribution marks their 25th anniversary this year, and comes ahead of the Singapore leg of their anniversary concert scheduled for Jan 11 and 12, 2025. 

"We have always felt a deep connection with our fans in Singapore, and this donation is our way of giving back to a community that has given us so much over the past 25 years," said band leader Monster, whose real name is Wen Shang-yi.

"We are also grateful to Kallang Alive Sport Management (KASM) and Live Nation Singapore for their continued efforts to bring us to Singapore and for playing an instrumental role in facilitating the memorable connections with our fans."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by 相信音樂 B’in Music (@binmusic.ig)

Brokered by the South East Community Development Council, over half of the donation will be used to support the Readiness Adult Programme for two years, which helps students identify and understand their abilities, ultimately helping them secure internships or job placements.

The remaining funds will be used for two years in the Early Intervention Preparatory Programme, preparing preschool students for a smooth transition to enrolment in primary school.

Executive director of MIJ Hub Muhammad Nasrul Rohmat said Mayday's contribution exemplifies the spirit of giving back, and enables organisations like MIJ Hub to thrive and make a difference. "It is heartening to see such a renowned group giving back to the community in Singapore," he said.

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