A donor who gave $50 three years ago and then went silent hasn’t necessarily stopped caring about your zoo or museum. Usually nobody gave them a reason to come back. A crowdfunding campaign can be that reason: a single, concrete project, a visible goal, and a deadline. Done well, it asks for something smaller and more tangible than “please renew your annual gift,” and that’s often enough to get a lapsed donor to give again.
The hard parts aren’t the campaign page. They’re picking the right people, tracking whether they actually came back, and getting the gifts into Altru cleanly so next year’s lapsed list is accurate. This guide covers all three.
Start with an honest lapsed-donor list
Before you write a word of campaign copy, build the audience in Altru with a revenue or constituent query. Two classic segments:
- LYBUNT (“last year but unfortunately not this year”): gave in the prior fiscal year, nothing so far this year. These are your warmest prospects.
- SYBUNT (“some year but unfortunately not this year”): gave at some point, but not last year or this year. Colder, and bigger.
Then clean the list before anyone sees it:
- Exclude current members if your organization counts membership as giving, or decide deliberately to include them. A member who renewed last month won’t appreciate being called lapsed.
- Exclude deceased constituents, do-not-solicit flags, and bad addresses. If you use solicit codes in Altru, filter on them in the query.
- Check for duplicates. A donor with two constituent records can look lapsed on one record while giving actively on the other. Spot-check your top givers on the list.
- Roll up households if you solicit at the household level, so a couple doesn’t get two separate “we miss you” messages.
Save the query and the output as a static selection or export with today’s date. You’ll need that frozen list later to measure who came back.
Design a campaign lapsed donors will actually respond to
Lapsed donors aren’t the same audience as your loyal annual fund givers, so the ask should look different.
Make it specific and finite
“Help us build the new otter habitat viewing deck” beats “support our mission.” Crowdfunding works because people can picture the finish line. Pick a project with a real cost, a dollar goal you can reasonably hit, and a short window, typically a few weeks.
Lower the first step
For SYBUNT donors especially, the goal is a second gift, not an upgrade. Suggested amounts near or below their last gift are fine. Getting them back on the donor rolls is the win; you can work on size later.
Acknowledge the gap without guilt
A line like “You’ve helped us before, and we’d love to have you back for this one” is enough. Don’t remind them how long it’s been, and don’t send them a generic appeal with the word “lapsed” anywhere near it.
Show progress publicly
A progress bar, a running donor count, or updates when you hit milestones gives people a reason to give now rather than “later.” If you can secure a matching gift from a board member or sponsor, announce it to the lapsed segment specifically; matches tend to motivate people who are on the fence.
Where the gifts get processed
This is the decision that affects your Altru data most. You have roughly two routes.
Process gifts through Altru’s own online donation forms. Gifts land in Altru directly, attached to the right constituent when the donor is matched. The tradeoff is that a standard donation form isn’t a crowdfunding page: if you want a live progress bar or donor wall, you’ll likely need to build that on your website and update it yourself. I’m not aware of a native peer-to-peer or crowdfunding module in Altru; if that matters to you, confirm current capabilities with Blackbaud support before planning around it.
Use a third-party crowdfunding platform. You get the campaign page, progress tracking, and social sharing out of the box. The cost is reconciliation: every gift has to be imported or entered into Altru, matched to existing constituents, and posted. Before you launch, test the import with a handful of sample gifts in a sandbox or training environment if you have one, and agree on who will do the matching. Gifts that create new constituent records instead of matching lapsed ones will make the campaign look like it brought in new donors when it actually reactivated old ones.
Code everything so you can measure reactivation
Set up the campaign coding in Altru before the first email goes out:
- A dedicated appeal (or the equivalent marketing effort) for the crowdfunding campaign.
- Separate source codes or segments for LYBUNT, SYBUNT, and anyone outside the lapsed list who gives anyway.
- A designation that matches the project, so finance can see the restricted funds.
When the campaign closes, compare the frozen lapsed list to the gifts coded to the appeal. The number you care about is how many lapsed donors gave, not just total dollars raised. A campaign that raises a modest amount but reactivates a meaningful slice of your SYBUNT list may be worth more than its revenue suggests.
The follow-up is the real campaign
A reactivated donor who hears nothing until next year’s appeal will very likely lapse again. Plan the next three touches before launch:
- A prompt, personal thank-you that names the project. Reactivated donors should get a slightly different acknowledgment than your regulars, something like “Thank you for coming back to support this.”
- A project update when the work is done: photos of the finished deck, the conserved artifact, the new garden bed.
- A gentle second ask a few months later, often a membership offer or a year-end appeal, while they still remember why they gave.
Use a constituent attribute or note in Altru to flag reactivated donors, so whoever runs year-end appeals can treat them as a distinct group instead of folding them back into the general list.
Quick answers
How long should a crowdfunding campaign run?
Short enough to create urgency. A few weeks is common. Longer campaigns tend to stall in the middle.
Should lapsed donors get the same email as active donors?
No. Use the same project, but write a separate version for the lapsed segment that acknowledges their past support and keeps the ask modest.
What if the campaign misses its goal?
Decide up front whether gifts still go to the project or to a related fund, and say so on the campaign page. Then report back honestly to donors either way.
