Do You Report Back After Donors Are Surveyed?

Your survey to donors is only half the picture.

You have to report back your findings. 

In this blog post, we are modeling for you how to report back, so that you in turn can do the same with your donors.  

You see, hundreds of LAPA’s 70,000+ blog readers and webinar attendees recently took an Audience Survey on their experiences of using our thought-leadership content—our weekly blog post, our webinars, our white papers, and sample cases for support, and Laurence’s books. Here’s what they said.  

You can use our format to report back to your donors following having surveyed them. Your content would obviously be tailored to whatever your donors had to say. 

LAPA’s Report on What our Readers Have to Say 

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with LAPA Fundraising through our 2021 Audience Survey. 

Your input is incredibly valuable to us — and it will help ensure that we’re delivering content that will support your work, and advance your revenue program. 

We gained important takeaways from your responses. Yet there was one lesson that stood above all others: you are looking for us to deliver advanced fundraising guidance that is both practical and timely. 

While that has been our goal since day one, and, according to the survey, we often hit the mark, we are also recommitting to keep content fresh, relevant, and forward thinking. 

Three-quarters of those who completed the survey said LAPA’s webinars are significantly more or somewhat more useful than other webinars aimed at nonprofit audiences. We were elated.  

And more than one-third of our readers and webinar attendees have raised more money because of ideas they’ve learned about through our content. That’s the icing on the cake. 

But we aspire for more — and we will take your input to refine our content to ensure that we can help grow the number of nonprofits that are finding tangible value our thought leadership content. 

Here are ways we’ll be refining our content based on your responses: 

• We’ll be creating more forward-looking content that provides timely guidance on what to expect in the face of current events and trends.
• We’ll be making it easier for you to share useful content and ideas with colleagues.
• We’ll be developing content that shows nonprofits how to measure fundraising Return on Investment.
• We’ll be enlisting more outside experts and sources to ensure that we’re connecting you with diverse perspectives and innovative ideas. 

We’ll also continue to reach out to you and your colleagues to gauge our performance and ensure that we’re continuing to meet your expectations. We welcome your feedback along the way. Feel free to email us. 

Back To You 

What do you think of our report? While LAPA does not have donors, we do have a large audience of nonprofit advancement professionals (YOU) who we aim to serve just as you serve your donors.  

Can you see yourself emulating our report to use with your donors?  

Did you notice in the report that we gave a contact method if they have more to say? Did you notice that we kept to the most salient points that we think interest our readers? 

In our case we email this report to our various audiences, and we will also repeat it in our quarterly LAPA newsletter. We encourage you to both email your donor survey results, and to mail the report to them as well.  

If you are in need a model donor survey, see here.

By reporting back your findings to your donors, you are creating community among them. You will see a greater shared donor experience emerge.