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Designing & Scaling a Donor Retention Strategy In 2025 with Christine Robertson and John Mark Vanderpool

In this special episode of The Responsive Lab, co-hosts Carly Berna and Scott Holthaus bring you a featured session from the 2025 Responsive Nonprofit Summit. Join Christine Robertson from NPact and John Mark Vanderpool from Social Impact Solutions as they sit down with Virtuous DBA-in-residence, Kayla Schneider, to tackle one of the biggest challenges in nonprofit fundraising: donor retention.

This episode dives deep into practical strategies for increasing donor loyalty by using better data, smarter segmentation, and personalized multi-channel outreach. From reducing duplicates and calculating your churn rate to aligning your entire team around shared goals, Christine and John offer tactical advice grounded in real nonprofit experience.

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The Responsive Lab is brought to you by Virtuous.

Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver. With that in mind, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Learn more about Virtuous and download your free Nonprofit CRM Checklist at virtuous.org/crmchecklist. 

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Riley Young
The Responsive Maturity Model
5 Steps to More Personalized Donor Experiences
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How to Build a Consecutive Giving Program That Strengthens Donor Loyalty

How to Build a Consecutive Giving Program That Strengthens Donor Loyalty

TL;DR: Consecutive giving programs reward donors for giving year after year, regardless of gift size, and they can have a significant impact on retention rates The University of…
Overcoming the Competition for Connection with Nathan Chappell

Overcoming the Competition for Connection with Nathan Chappell

Nonprofits aren’t competing for dollars, they’re competing for connection. Nathan Chappell shares how to build radical relationships that grow giving.
Fixing What’s Broken in Nonprofit Email Marketing with Katelyn Baughan

Fixing What’s Broken in Nonprofit Email Marketing with Katelyn Baughan

Nonprofit email underperforming? Katelyn Baughan shares tips to boost retention, build welcome series, and automate for better donor engagement.

Grow generosity with Virtuous

Virtuous is the responsive fundraising software platform proven to help nonprofit organizations increase generosity by serving all donors personally, no matter their gift size.

“Virtuous truly understands nonprofits and the importance of our mission. And their open access to data and built-in custom reports gave us access to the data we need.”
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