Last year we asked over 500 successful fundraisers what they’d like to do next and when they’d like to do it. Want them to fundraise for your charity again? Here are some tips for you to help understand what they need.

1. Help them do it again

A whopping 99% of fundraisers told us that they’d like to raise money for charity again in the future. Wow.

Remember, these people already have an emotional connection to your charity and are likely to support your cause. So make sure that you focus on fundraiser retention as well as acquisition of new fundraisers when planning your events strategy.

2. Let them know about events sooner rather than later

You may feel cautious about approaching people to fundraise again too soon, but in our survey we discovered that most respondents anticipated fundraising again between six months (36%) to a year (49%) after the last event.

Only 1% of fundraisers were planning to leave a gap of five years or more.

So make sure you’re keeping your previous fundraisers up to date about what they could do next for your charity.

3. Suggest new challenges rather than the same old events

A big surprise from our survey was finding out what kind of events fundraisers would like to do next.

It wasn’t all about running or endurance events. Instead, the top five event types were:

1. Giving something up
2. An overnight walk
3. A 5k run
4. A bake sale
5. A 10k walk

The success of events like Cancer Research UK’s Dryathlon and Macmillan’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, shows that there is a real appetite for smaller scale fundraising that everyone can do. And your previous fundraisers may be more inclined to take on this sort of activity rather than taking on another strenuous challenge.

4. Give them a reason to stay loyal

Only 41% of our survey sample told us they would definitely fundraise for the same charity again. So hanging on to these fundraisers is important.

Make sure they get feedback on what you’ve already achieved with what they’ve raised in the past, and how raising more for your cause in the future could continue to make a difference.

If there’s one thing to remember it’s that these fundraisers are already warm leads for your next events series, so keep them up to date and give them lots of opportunities to keep the good feeling they get from fundraising for your cause going.