How to Personalize Major Donor Experiences to Grow Your Fundraising

Map your major donor journey with key touchpoints

Understanding how donors move from awareness to engagement is key to improving their experience. Donor journey mapping allows you to step into your donor’s shoes and build a roadmap that reflects their motivations and behaviors.

Here’s how to start:

• Spot meaningful touchpoints – Identify when and how donors are interacting with your organization, such as through your website, email campaigns, event attendance, donation forms, surveys, or thank-you calls.
• Tap into motivations – Are they impact-driven? Recognition-oriented? Inspired by peer influence or legacy goals? Do they have pets?
• Segment wisely – Group donors by giving level, preferred channels, animal interests (e.g., dog lovers, wildlife conservationists), past involvement in shelter events like adoption drives or galas, or program interests.
• Eliminate friction – Be sure giving is seamless across devices, and that receipts and acknowledgments are timely.

For donors who support your initiatives, you may reflect on their motivations, such as: Are they sponsoring an animal enclosure? Funding emergency veterinary care? Supporting rescue transport or a capital campaign for a new animal intake facility?

Mapping helps you shift from reactive communication to intentional relationship-building, especially for major donors who want their experience to feel personal and rewarding.

Pro tip: A mapped major donor journey reveals opportunities to engage major donors across multiple channels—from strategic thank-yous to seamless online giving to unexpected moments of outreach.

DonorPerfect helps nonprofits simplify online giving with integrated fundraising forms that are mobile-friendly, branded, and flexible for all types of donations.

Build major donor trust with personalized outreach

Trust is built when major donors feel seen, valued, and understood. Personalization is about proving, through every message and interaction, that a donor’s support matters and their priorities guide your work. When donors recognize that your communication reflects their values and impact, their trust in your mission deepens.

Here are some high-impact ways to personalize major donor communications:

• Reference past gifts and results – Acknowledge the donor’s role in supporting specific programs or campaigns.
• Share stories that match their interests – Send curated updates that reflect their giving priorities.
• Assign a relationship manager – Give each major donor a consistent point of contact who understands their goals.
• Tailor your communication style – Some donors prefer formal emails; others appreciate casual texts or video updates. Track these preferences in your nonprofit CRM.
• Bring it back to your cause – For example, you can share stories and updates on rescues they helped fund, video footage of enrichment programs they made possible, or naming opportunities for enclosures or adoption centers.

Personalized outreach shows your major donors that you’re going beyond tracking donations and making a meaningful effort to invest in a stronger, long-term relationship.

Pro tip: Consistency is everything when communicating with donors. A dedicated relationship manager builds trust, maintains momentum, and helps steward donors toward their next gift.

With DonorPerfect’s built-in email marketing tool, Constant Contact, busy fundraisers can send quick, tailored messages that speak directly to each major donor’s interests and giving history.

Deliver gratitude, flexibility, and responsiveness to major donors 

Great donor experiences require intentionality. Your ability to respond quickly, offer flexibility, and express genuine thanks makes a lasting impression.

Here are some ideas:

• Thank-yous that feel real – Combine personal messages, videos, and handwritten notes to make appreciation stick. Pair a handwritten note with a video of a rescued animal they helped save. 
• Flexible giving options – Offer recurring gifts, stock transfers, Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs), crypto, or employer match support. Let donors choose to fund medical procedures, feed a species, or underwrite community pet wellness events. Remember, monthly donors can be current or future major donors, too. 
• Responsive communication – Treat questions and follow-up needs like a priority, not an afterthought.

While your impact stories keep donors inspired, your accessibility and responsiveness keep them engaged.

Pro tip: Empower your team to respond faster by setting internal benchmarks for reply times and using task assignments in your donor management system.

DonorPerfect can improve your team’s efficiency by streamlining follow-up tasks and organizing donor interactions in one place.

Automate stewardship to grow major donor relationships

With a nonprofit CRM, you can automate personalized stewardship in ways that feel genuine and efficient.

Ways to use automation tools effectively:

• Trigger milestone-based actions – Automate thank-yous on gift anniversaries, birthdays, or program impact updates, such as when a donor’s sponsored animal is adopted, reaches a recovery milestone, or a campaign they supported hits a key goal.
• Schedule personal touchpoints – Set up reminders for check-ins, upcoming events, or report sharing. For example, send updates when new litters arrive or when anniversary gifts like kennel plaques need renewal. 
• Streamline giving forms – Accept a wide range of payment types with a clear, intuitive design. Use impact statements on your donation forms to show donors exactly how their gifts make a difference. For instance, make it easy for donors to fund specific needs like veterinary care, food supplies, or new habitats with just a few clicks.
• Track every interaction – Build a relationship timeline your whole team can access and update. For example, log when a donor attended an event or toured your shelter to ensure future outreach reflects their involvement.

Pro tip: Pair automation with human follow-up to maximize both efficiency and warmth in your donor communication.

With DonorPerfect’s automation feature, SmartActions, you can schedule follow-ups, personalize thank-yous, and keep major donors engaged without manual effort.

Create experiences that reflect a major donor’s legacy

Major donors are imagining a better future that your nonprofit can help create, and they want to feel confident that their support is shaping that vision.

To reinforce that legacy mindset:

• Recognize big-picture impact – Share multi-year outcomes and strategic wins their gifts have supported. For example, highlight how a donor’s multi-year commitment led to a decrease in euthanasia rates, expansion of wildlife rehab capacity, or construction of a new adoption center.
• Involve them in planning – Invite input on campaigns or new initiatives when appropriate. Offer donors a preview of upcoming sanctuary expansion plans or naming opportunities for new habitats.
• Show continuity – Highlight how their past gifts continue to influence current and future work. Let them know that a new reptile habitat or primate enclosure they funded continues to provide refuge thanks to their initial support.

Pro tip: Show major donors the lasting results of their generosity by highlighting multi-year outcomes and long-term impact. When donors see their support creating change over time, they feel part of a legacy worth sustaining.

With DonorPerfect, you can track multi-year donor involvement and reflect each supporter’s legacy in every conversation. For more donor engagement strategies and tips, explore the DonorPerfect Fundraising Guide. 

Every interaction with a major donor is a chance to strengthen trust and deepen their commitment to your mission. When giving is simple, options are flexible, and your team responds with care, donors feel valued in a way that inspires lasting support.

A nonprofit CRM like DonorPerfect helps make that possible by handling the details—automating follow-ups, organizing donor data, and surfacing opportunities for meaningful connection—so your staff can focus on what matters most: building genuine relationships.

Ready to optimize your major gift fundraising strategy? Schedule a demo to see how DonorPerfect’s nonprofit donor management system helps animal welfare organizations inspire major donors to support animals in need.