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Survey for donors post donation

  • December 12, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 13 views
Dalila
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Hey all! 

 

What are your thoughts on donor surveys? I myself have never received one from organizations I donate to, but I would love to get inside the mind of our org’s donors to learn more about how they ended up donating to use and what we can do to get more people like them to find out about organization. 

 

Someone suggested adding a survey as part of the “Thank you” email we send out. Has anyone done this before? Has it helped you to gain new donors/retain current donors? 

 

Does EA have tools that can help with this? 

1 reply

torvic vardamis
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Hi ​@Dalila 

In my experience, donor surveys are super useful, as long as you keep them short and plan to use the answers.

Are donor surveys worth it?

Yes, if you’re clear on what you want to learn. I’ve seen them help orgs figure out things like:

  • Why people give

  • How they first heard about you

  • What they want to hear more about (stories, programs, policy, events, etc.)

You won’t get answers from everyone, and that’s totally fine. Even a small slice of recent donors can show helpful patterns.

Survey in the thank-you email?

I like using the “thank you” moment, but I try not to overload the receipt email.

Things I’ve seen work:

  • A very small survey link in the receipt:
    “If you have 2 minutes, tell us what inspired your gift today.”

  • Or a separate email a day or two later:
    Subject like “Thanks again. Can I ask 3 quick questions?”

Either way, keep it to 3–5 questions. For what you’re trying to learn, I’d include:

  • “What inspired your gift today?” (open text)

  • “How did you first hear about [Org]?” (multiple choice + Other)

  • “What do you most want to hear about from us?”

The big thing is to close the loop later: share back a quick “Here’s what we heard from donors and what we’re doing with it.” That builds a lot of trust.

Does it help with new/retained donors?

On its own, the survey doesn’t magically boost numbers. The value comes from what you do with the info:

  • Targeting channels that donors actually name (social, events, word of mouth, etc.)

  • Tailoring follow ups based on what people care about

  • Spotting “super engaged” folks you might want to invite to events, deeper updates, or 1:1 outreach

When orgs actually use the survey data in their segmentation and messaging, I’ve seen it help with both retention and smarter acquisition.

Can EveryAction help with this?

Yes. In EA you can:

  • Build a short survey as an Online Action / form and link it from your thank-you or follow-up email. (Smartlink would be great here to help streamline the submission process!)

  • Store the answers on the donor’s record (custom fields, activism data, etc.).

  • Use Targeted Email to send a follow-up survey just to recent donors, first-time donors, sustainers, etc.

  • Segment later by “how they heard about you” or “what they care about most” and send more targeted campaigns.

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