What is a supporter journey?

Supporter journeys play an important part in helping donors return to the charities they support. How simple it is to give money, and how positive the donor experience is, can be the difference between one donation and five.  

 

The chances of supporters making multiple repeated donations rises significantly if charities manage to retain them after their first gift, according to an eGuide from marketing software provider Apteco.  This is particularly crucial at a time when demand for services is likely to rise, as well as costs.  

 

The ongoing cost-of-living crisis suggests that more charities than ever are competing for a potentially shrinking pool of donations, meaning that, more than ever, meeting your supporters where they are will become a crucial part of your charity’s fundraising strategy. 

 

In this article, we explore the growing importance of supporter journeys and how charities can maximise their full potential to improve their fundraising, with insight and advice from Apteco’s free eGuide, Unlocking the full value of supporter journeys. 

 

 

What is a supporter journey? 

 

Apteco’s eGuide defines a supporter journey as the sum of your supporters’ experiences whenever they interact with your organisation, whether offline or online.   

 

A supporter journey includes everything from “the moment of discovery, through to research and consideration, the first gift, and finally to cultivating a lasting relationship based on trust, loyalty, and advocacy”.  

 

Every supporter journey is different, just as every supporter is different. Some may prefer to receive regular updates about their money’s impact from charities once they have donated, while others will want to be contacted sparingly.  

 

Finally, a supporter journey is not finite – it evolves over time and depends on what stage supporters are at with your charity. Someone who has just discovered a charity could eventually become one of its regular donors, and how they interact with you should change accordingly. 

 

Find out how to create a supporter journey

 

Why is understanding my supporter journeys so important? 

 

Apteco has created a dedicated eGuide to help charities understand the importance of their supporter journeys.  Unlocking the full value of supporter journeys offers best practice advice for charities on using their data to create meaningful supporter experiences. 

 

It covers, among other things, the different stages of the supporter lifecycle, how to break down your data so you can understand supporter behaviour at each stage, and how to adapt your fundraising approach to suit them. 

 

For example, the eGuide outlines the difference between supporter journey analytics and supporter journey mapping. Mapping is only a part of analytics, used to map out how donors move through their journey.  

 

A map allows charities to work out how they will reach supporters at each section, but it is important to create a realistic reflection of how donors behave rather than an ideal journey taking them from one-off donor to legacy giver.  

 

The report also highlights the barriers charities must overcome to create good supporter journeys. It points out that inefficient supporter journeys lead to wasted resources as charities contact the wrong supporters at the wrong time.  

 

Data silos, poor collaboration, and failing to look at solid data are all reasons that supporter journeys can fall short. Manually tracking behaviour means that charities often rely more on guesswork than data while automating these

processes is better at spotting trends and saving fundraising teams’ time. 

 

The report explains, “When manually analysing the supporter journey, it’s also easy to focus on a small number of events rather than look at every single touchpoint. This is a common mistake. Forbes points out that some actions are easier to spot than others, which can lead to incorrectly assuming that they are more important. 

 

"But when trends are identified, it is easier for charities to deliver a more unified experience, with a level of personalisation “that makes donors feel recognised, appreciated, and understood”. 

 

To find out more about creating an excellent supporter journey, click below to download the report.