Moves Management: How to Build Sustainable Support

Perhaps the most important aspect of a fundraiser’s job is building strong relationships with donors that lead to organizational support. Moves management is one of the most effective methods for cultivating donor relationships by focusing on moving donors through a series of strategic steps or "moves" designed to deepen their engagement with the organization and ultimately increase their level of support. 

By providing a structured framework for building donor relationships, moves management enables nonprofits to cultivate major gifts and build long-term, sustainable support.

Understanding Moves Management

At its core, moves management is a donor-centric strategy that views fundraising as a process rather than a series of isolated transactions. It involves carefully planning and tracking each interaction or "move" with a donor, with the goal of strengthening the relationship and moving the donor toward increased involvement and giving.

The Benefits of Moves Management

There are so many benefits to moves management. By having a strategy surrounding how you engage and cultivate donors, you can: 

1. Increase Major Gifts: By focusing on strategic major donor cultivation, organizations can increase the number and size of major gifts.
2. Improve Donor Retention: The emphasis on relationship-building leads to stronger, longer-lasting donor connections.
3. More Efficient Resource Allocation: By prioritizing prospects and planning moves strategically, organizations can use their resources more effectively.
4. Better Donor Experience: Donors receive more personalized attention and engagement aligned with their interests.
5. Get data-driven results: Organizations can measure the effectiveness of each move to improve and iterate upon the program. 
6. Complement cadence-based fundraising: When combined with cadence based fundraising, fundraisers further cultivate donor relationships with meaningful touchpoints.

Challenges and Considerations

While moves management is a powerful tool, it does have two main challenges.

The first is that it is resource-intensive. It takes a lot of time to set up an effective moves management system. Between donor identification and mapping out the appropriate stages for your move management strategy, moves management requires time and attention.

The second challenge is data management. To successfully move donors from one stage to the next your organization’s CRM or other data repositories need to be clean and regularly updated.

The Moves Management Cycle

Moves management typically follows a cyclical process with several key stages. You can adjust the stages as you see fit for your organizations, but often the stages include:

1. Identification

This initial stage involves finding potential donors who may have an interest in your organization's mission. Strategies include:

• Researching individuals with a history of philanthropic giving
• Analyzing existing donor data for upgrade potential
• Leveraging board members and volunteer networks
• Monitoring news and public records for potential prospects

2. Qualification

Once prospects are identified, the qualification stage determines their potential as major donors. This involves:

• Conducting wealth screening to determine giving capacity
• Researching the prospect's philanthropic interests and history
• Evaluating connections to your organization or cause
• Determining the appropriate timing for engagement

3. Cultivation

The cultivation stage is the heart of moves management and where the relationship-building process truly begins. Key moves in this stage might include:

• Initial outreach and introduction to the organization
• Invitations to events or facility tours
• Sharing tailored information about programs aligned with the donor's interests
• Personal meetings with organizational leadership
• Volunteer opportunities or committee involvement

4. Solicitation

When the time is right, based on the signals received during cultivation, the solicitation stage involves making an appropriate ask. This includes:

• Developing a customized proposal
• Determining the right person to make the ask
• Choosing the appropriate setting and timing
• Presenting a specific giving opportunity aligned with the donor's interests
• Being prepared to address questions or concerns

5. Stewardship

After a gift is made, donor stewardship moves are crucial for maintaining and strengthening the relationship. These might include:

• Prompt and personalized acknowledgment of the gift
• Regular updates on the impact of the donation
• Invitations to exclusive events or behind-the-scenes experiences
• Recognition appropriate to the donor's preferences
• Ongoing engagement to prepare for future giving opportunities

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Streamline Moves Management with Momentum

Moves management can be an incredibly effective method for engaging and cultivating donors, but it is time-consuming. 

Momentum’s AI-powered Donor Engagement platform is designed to support fundraisers in identifying major donors and building authentic relationships. 

→ Using predictive AI capabilities, Momentum helps fundraisers identify not only a donor’s capacity to give but their affinity to the organization’s cause and their likelihood to give. 

→ Once major donors are identified, Momentum creates dynamic donor plans with suggested touchpoints for every donor in your portfolio.

→ You’ll receive an email in your inbox every day, outlining who you should reach out to with what message. 

Explore Momentum

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Tips to implement moves management

1. Define Your Stages: Clearly define the stages in your donor journey, from prospect to major donor, and what markers a donor should meet in order to move to the next stage of the moves management stage. 
2. Set Clear Goals: For each stage, set clear goals and metrics to measure progress. Similar to a donor pipeline, you want to create goals around how many people should be in each stage and the conversion rate between stages.
3. Create a Moves Calendar: Plan out your touchpoints and actions for each donor. This is the most time-consuming element, and we recommend using a donor engagement platform, like Momentum, to seamlessly build and manage individual donor plans. 
4. Use a CRM System: A CRM and/or donor engagement platform can help you track all interactions and moves. If you decide to use a donor engagement platform, ensure that the platform automatically syncs all information to your CRM so you don’t have to spend time updating both platforms. 
5. Regular Review: Conduct regular reviews of your moves management process. The tracking via the CRM/donor engagement platform will help you determine the effectiveness of your moves and whether or not you need to make adjustments. 

Moves management with Momentum 

Moves management is a powerful strategy that can transform a nonprofit's fundraising efforts. By providing a structured approach to donor relationships, it enables organizations to cultivate deeper connections, secure larger gifts, and build a more sustainable funding base. 

While it can be time-consuming to set up and manage, it doesn’t have to be. 

Momentum’s AI-powered Donor Engagement platform helps you:

• Identify the right donors
• Build dynamic donor plans
• Prioritize outreach
• Know when to make the ask

Explore Momentum

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