The Best Way to Collect a Nonprofit Customer Testimonial from Your Supporter

As a nonprofit organization owner, you probably already understand the importance of having testimonials from your supporters in order to generate consumer trust in your organization and to build a following for the nonprofit brand. When collecting a nonprofit customer testimonial from a supporter, there are several options available that you should consider exercising, but most importantly, you want to be sure that your supporter doesn’t feel put off, pressured, or otherwise uncomfortable with the request to provide their testimonial review.

To help you achieve the desired number of customer testimonials from your nonprofit community, we’ve put together a list of some of the easiest ways for you to collect a nonprofit customer testimonial that can then be used on your website, in your marketing campaigns, and across your social media channels to build trust among your audience and promote further support of your nonprofit brand.

Decide on the Type of Testimonials You Need

Before you can collect a nonprofit customer testimonial, you’ve got to spend a little bit of time planning out the type of testimonials that you need. This really depends on what kind of stories you’re looking to gather to share with your prospective audience? 

For example, will you collect a nonprofit customer testimonial from a volunteer that works with your brand or would you be better off collecting testimonials from your current staff? Consider the following groups of people involved with your cause to potentially harvest testimonials from for your nonprofit:

• Volunteers that work with your nonprofit organization.
• Staff members that are employed by your nonprofit organization.
• Donors that provide monetary or tangible donations for your nonprofit organization.
• Benefactors that are the recipients of support from your nonprofit cause.
• Community leaders that your nonprofit organization actively engages with.

Much of how you decide on the type of testimonials to gather for your nonprofit organization will depend on where and how you intend to use the testimonials. For instance, will you share them on your website, will they be shared on a landing page promoting an upcoming event, or are they to be included in your email marketing campaigns? Where you share testimonials will influence the type of testimonials that you need.

How to Collect a Nonprofit Customer Testimonial

The steps that you take to collect a nonprofit customer testimonial from those who support your cause in some way will largely depend on what kind of testimonials or stories you’re trying to collect and who you intend to get the testimonial from. Consider the following ways to collect your nonprofit customer testimonial:

• Ask for testimonials on your social media platforms.
• Ask for testimonials on your website, on specific pages that are associated with your various causes, or on your homepage or blog.
• Include a “Share Your Story” page on your website, blog, or in your email outreach campaigns so that your audience can easily connect and share.
• Run a campaign that encourages user-generated content so that you can collect testimonials from your nonprofit community.
• Reach out to individual people that support your nonprofit directly. Consider each of the supporters that was previously listed, including staff, volunteers, benefactors, community leaders and others.

These are just some of the most basic opportunities that you can use to request nonprofit customer testimonials from those who support your organization or cause, but there are certainly many other opportunities for testimonials.

How to Collect Nonprofit Customer Testimonials without Being Pushy

What happens if you’ve asked your close supporters for reviews or testimonials, you’ve pushed your supporter campaign in an attempt to gather testimonials, and you’ve placed the testimonial marketing in all of the right places, but you’re still not getting the testimonials that you want or you’re just not getting as many as you would like? How can you collect a nonprofit customer testimonial in this kind of situation without appearing overly pushy or needy?

Just keep building your relationships with those who support your nonprofit, keep showing them how valuable their support is to your nonprofit, and be honest about how testimonials impact the nonprofit’s success too. Consider sharing the following important details about how valuable customer testimonials can be for a nonprofit:

• Prospective supporters find nothing more valuable to their decision to support a nonprofit than hearing from peers about their experiences with the organization, programs and services.
• 72% of consumers say positive testimonials increase their trust in a nonprofit.
• 70% of people trust reviews from strangers.
• 88% of consumers trust online testimonials and reviews as much as they trust recommendations from friends or family.
• 72% of consumers will only take action after they have seen a positive review.

Sharing these figures, as well as your own actual statistics or facts about how valuable customer testimonials are for your nonprofit can help to get your supporters more engaged in taking further steps to support your organization by providing their own testimonials and reviews when you ask.

So what’s the best way to collect a nonprofit customer testimonial from your supporters? Make it easy for supports to provide their testimonial, ask nicely, provide details that support how valuable testimonials are for your organization, and be patient.

Ready for some help filming the testimonials that your nonprofit needs for success? Give Beverly Boy Productions a call!