For the past 30+ years, many not-for-profit organizations have relied on a donor acquisition model built almost entirely on rented or traded lists. It worked because it was simple: if someone had donated to another charity, there was a decent chance they’d donate to yours.
However, in the past year, privacy rulings in Quebec and broader shifts in how donor data can be shared have disrupted that entire system.
Suddenly, those intent signals (the backbone of NFP acquisition strategy) are disappearing.
At the same time, the traditional baby boomer donor pool is shrinking, media costs are rising, and it’s clear: not-for-profits are being forced to rethink how they bring dollars through the door.
I’ve had conversations with dozens of NFPs over the past six to eight months, many of whom have come to us looking for alternatives. And here’s what I tell them: you’re in the same boat as everyone else now. You can no longer just assume someone is primed to give. You have to build a relationship first.
This blog is for NFP marketers who are navigating that shift. Below, I’ll walk through three core changes I believe every NFP organization needs to make to move from an intender model to an acquisition strategy.
Shift #1: Replace Borrowed Intent with Real Donor Understanding
For years, not-for-profits have relied on donor intent without doing much to generate it themselves.
Now, you can’t borrow intent via traded lists; you have to build it.
This is where profiling becomes essential. When you don’t know that someone’s already a donor, you need a smarter way to determine whether they’re worth reaching. At a minimum, that means understanding:
- Do they resemble your current best donors?
- Do they have an affinity for giving?
- Are there opportunities in segments that I’m not currently reaching?
- Do they have an affinity for your cause?
Without those answers, you’re not targeting, you’re guessing. And when you’re no longer able to rely on traded lists to pre-qualify your audience, guessing gets expensive.
Shift #2: Increase the Granularity of Your Donor Profile
Most organizations are still applying a single national profile to their donor acquisition efforts. Same strategy coast to coast.
What we’ve found is that in almost every case, donor profiles vary meaningfully by region. Your donors in Ontario likely don’t look the same as your donors in BC. And within a province, urban and rural markets can behave entirely differently. In fact, we’ve worked with provincial organizations that discovered three distinct markets just within their own boundaries.
This regionality matters. If you’re using one generic set of filters, say, “women 35–54 with a household income of $150K,” and applying that nationally, you’re probably misfiring in a lot of markets. The geography changes the makeup of your lookalike audiences.
When you stop relying on intent signals, you must start actually understanding who your donors are and how their profiles shift across the country.
Shift #3: Expand the Donor Journey to Include Acquisition
One thing not-for-profits tend to do really well is manage the donor journey once someone’s already inside the funnel. You’ve likely built robust systems for stewardship and retention. However, the reality is that most of those journeys start too late.
Historically, the donor journey began after the intent signal, once someone showed up on a list or had made a donation elsewhere. With that starting point gone, NFPs now need to go further upstream.
You can’t wait for someone to raise their hand. You need to build a relationship before you consider making the ask.
That means adding a true acquisition phase to your donor journey.
This is a big shift for a lot of NFP teams, because traditional acquisition hasn’t typically been the approach. Now, you may need to engage people who haven’t given yet. People who might not even be thinking about giving. You need to educate, inform, and earn attention long before any dollars change hands.
And just like in any other sales funnel, smaller engagement signals matter. Did they like a post? Share an article? Sign up to learn more? Those early touches are now critical indicators. They’re how you start to understand what someone cares about and whether they might have a future affinity with your organization.
The donor journey doesn’t start with a donation anymore. It begins with curiosity. And your job as a marketer is to guide that curiosity toward commitment.
Shift #4: Evolve Your Media Strategy to Support Acquisition
If you’re going to expand your donor journey to include acquisition, your media strategy has to follow.
The traditional cadence of renting a list, running a direct mail or email campaign, and seeing results within a set window? That model no longer applies.
You’re no longer marketing to known givers. You’re trying to build awareness, affinity, and trust with people who don’t know you yet, which requires a very different approach.
In conversations with NFP clients, we talk about what it means to truly shift from a list-based model to an acquisition model. It’s not just about changing creative or messaging; it’s about fundamentally rethinking how you go to market. You need to move from a transactional outreach cycle to a media mix that supports the full funnel:
- Building brand awareness
- Creating meaningful engagement
- Nurturing interest over time
- And ultimately, driving conversion
That means embracing a broader, more integrated mix of channels, especially in a market where the competition for donations is everywhere.
You see it at retail point-of-sale, on the street, at the liquor store checkout, even in fast food lines. Every day, people are being asked to give, often in highly regionalized, attention-grabbing ways. That noise makes it even more important for NFPs to show up consistently, across touchpoints, and in a way that builds lasting relevance.
And it’s not just about reach; it’s about repetition and relationship. Reaching someone once won’t cut it. If you want them to participate in your donor journey, you need to meet them where they are, more than once, in ways that reinforce who you are and why you matter to them.
The Future of Donor Acquisition Starts Here
If there’s one thing I want NFP marketers to take away from all of this, it’s that the old way isn’t coming back. You can’t rely on rented or traded lists anymore. The intent signals that once made acquisition feel easy have been stripped away, and now, it’s time to rebuild with intention.
That means doing the work:
- Building out deeper, more nuanced donor profiles
- Recognizing that your audience isn’t the same from province to province, or even from city to city
- Expanding your donor journey to start before someone’s in the funnel
- Evolving your media strategy to reach and engage your next best donors.
I’ve said it a few times, but it’s worth repeating: not-for-profits are in the same boat as everyone else now. You have to earn the relationship before you earn the donation. And for those who are willing to make that shift, there’s a huge opportunity to grow, even in a more competitive, noisier market.
So, don’t just replace the list. Build something better in its place.
intelligentVIEW helps not-for-profits go beyond guesswork and legacy assumptions by offering data-driven insights that make acquisition smarter and more efficient. It gives you the power to:
- Understand who your current donors really are — demographically, behaviorally, and geographically
- Identify new lookalike audiences who match your best donor profiles
- Uncover regional differences in giving patterns, values, and media habits
- Discover underdeveloped markets where your organization has low penetration but high potential
- Optimize your media strategy using local, postal-code level insights to target audiences more precisely
The future of donor acquisition isn’t about what you’ve always done. It’s about what you know now and how you act on it.
Ready to find your next best donors? Get a sample intelligentVIEW Insights Report to see for yourself how the platform can help you find and reach those most likely to give to your organization.
