Verdict: Moves management is the highest-leverage donor retention habit a small nonprofit can build, and you can run it entirely inside a free CRM.
What works: A weekly 60-minute review block, five stage tags, saved smart filters, and logging every touch within 24 hours.
What doesn't: Trying to personally cultivate every donor, running the system on spreadsheets, or skipping stewardship after the gift.
Best for: Small nonprofits with 50+ active donors who want to beat the 43.3% average retention rate without hiring a gift officer.
Worth considering if: You are a one-person development shop or all-volunteer board that needs a habit you can actually keep, not a pipeline tool.
Table of contents
Moves management replaces ad-hoc donor outreach with a system: every supporter has a known next step, and every interaction gets logged. Done well, it deepens relationships through the donor cycle and turns one-time givers into long-term partners.
But most moves management content is written for nonprofits with full-time gift officers and 100-donor portfolios. If you are a one-person development shop or an all-volunteer board, that framing is the problem. You do not need a pipeline tool. You need a habit you can actually keep.
This guide reframes the five stages as a workflow a small nonprofit can run inside one free donor CRM: tag, filter, segment, email, log the touch. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project's Q4 2025 report, overall donor retention sat at 43.3% for 2025. A systematic approach to "moves" is one of the few levers a small org can pull to beat that number without hiring.
Small-nonprofit verdict: if you have fewer than ~50 active donors, you do not need a separate moves system. You need a recurring weekly review of the contacts you already have. If you have more, the workflow below scales without a paid CRM bill.
What is moves management?
Moves management is the practice of tracking and deepening donor relationships through planned interactions, or "moves." Each move guides a supporter from first awareness toward a deeper commitment: a first gift, a recurring pledge, a major gift, a planned gift, or a volunteer role tied to your mission.
The process involves five things:
- Mapping a clear next step for every donor based on giving history and engagement
- Planning specific touchpoints that match where the donor is in their journey
- Logging every interaction so the next person on your team picks up where you left off
- Acting on the data: who is warming up, who is going cold, who is ready to be asked
- Moving donors to the next stage only when they are ready, not when your fiscal year is ending
A concrete example of one donor moving through all five stages: Maya gives $50 online after a friend shares your year-end appeal (identification: she lands in your CRM). You see she opened your next three emails and clicked on the program update (qualification: she is engaged). You invite her to a small site visit and send a handwritten note (cultivation). Six months later you ask her for a $500 recurring pledge tied to the program she cares about (solicitation). After she says yes, you send quarterly impact updates and call her on the anniversary of her first gift (stewardship). That is one donor. Moves management is doing this with every donor on purpose, not by accident.
Small-nonprofit verdict: the five stages are not a sales funnel. They are a memory system. If you can remember what every donor told you and act on it before the relationship goes cold, you are doing moves management.
Why moves management matters for donor retention
Overall donor retention sat at 43.3% in 2025 (FEP Q4 2025 report). More than half of last year's donors will not give again unless something changes. For a small nonprofit, that math is brutal: every donor you do not retain costs you the acquisition spend, plus the lifetime value you never collect.
Moves management is the practical fix. It works for three reasons.
It personalizes engagement. Instead of sending the same appeal to your whole list, you track how each donor interacts with your org and engage them on what they actually care about. For example, if you notice a donor who supports your after-school program also engages heavily with your social media posts about career readiness, you might invite them to mentor high school students in their professional field. That targeted approach turns a $50 annual donor into a long-term advocate.
It focuses your time on the right donors. A one-person dev shop cannot personally cultivate 800 people. Moves management says: identify the 20 to 30 who could become recurring or major givers, work them every week, and put everyone else in a saved segment for batch cultivation. Resources go where they have the biggest return.
It builds steady, predictable revenue. Peak giving seasons get crowded. The orgs that do well on Giving Tuesday are the ones that started cultivating in March. Moves management forces you to plan touches across the whole year, not cram them into November.
The bottleneck for most small orgs is not the framework. The framework is well-documented. The bottleneck is having one place where notes, tags, last-touch dates, and the next ask all live together, instead of three spreadsheets and a board member's inbox. That is the problem the next section solves.
Small-nonprofit verdict: if retention is your weakest number, moves management is the single highest-leverage practice you can adopt this quarter. It costs nothing if you already have a donor CRM.
The 5 stages of moves management (and what to do at each)
Zeffy's canonical donor-relationship spine is four verbs: identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward. Moves management adds a fifth stage (qualification) between identify and cultivate, because not every prospect is worth your weekly attention.
For each stage below, you will find: a plain definition, the specific action to take, an example opener (sample wording you should customize for your org and voice), the SMART goal to set, and the signal that tells you the donor is ready to move to the next stage.
Stage 1: Identification (finding potential donors)
Definition: finding individuals or organizations likely to support your cause and getting them into your CRM.
Specific actions:
- Pull every name from your last three campaigns into one list
- Add event attendees, newsletter subscribers, and volunteer applicants
- Tag each contact with the channel that brought them in (event, peer-to-peer, social, referral)
- For larger orgs, use prospect-research tools to find new prospects beyond your warm list
Sample opener (customize for your org): "Hi Maya, thanks for joining us at the Tuesday volunteer night. I noticed you mentioned your daughter is in our reading program. Would it be useful if I sent you the program's impact report when it comes out next month?"
SMART goal example: add 50 qualified new prospects to the CRM this quarter, each tagged with their source channel.
Tools to consider: for prospect research beyond your warm list, platforms like WealthEngine, DonorSearch, and iWave help nonprofits analyze financial capacity, past giving, and philanthropic interests. They are most useful once you have exhausted your existing network. For most small orgs, starting with your warm list is enough.
Signal to advance: the prospect has engaged at least twice (opened an email, came to an event, replied to a message). Move them to qualification.
Stage 2: Qualification (prioritizing the right donors)
Definition: deciding who deserves your weekly attention and who belongs in a batch-cultivation segment.
Specific actions:
- Score each engaged prospect on two axes: connection to mission and capacity to give over time
- Look for behavioral signals: opens, clicks, event attendance, volunteer hours, repeat small gifts
- Ask three or four conversational questions to confirm fit before investing more time
Sample opener: "What first made you support [program]? Is there a part of our work you feel most connected to?" Two open questions tell you more than any wealth-screening score for a small org.
SMART goal example: qualify 20 of this quarter's new prospects into the cultivation stage by month two.
Signal to advance: the prospect has confirmed interest in a specific program or outcome, and you have at least one piece of personal context (their motivation, a story, a connection). Move them to cultivation.
Stage 3: Cultivation (building strong donor relationships)
Donor cultivation is everything you do to connect with a donor before asking for a donation. The goal of cultivation is not to ask. It is to make the eventual ask feel obvious.
Specific actions:
- Send three to five planned touches over the next 90 days: an impact update, a thank-you with a specific outcome, an invitation to a small-group event, a handwritten note
- Share real data, a beneficiary story, or a behind-the-scenes update, not generic "newsletter" content
- Track open and click rates per donor so you can tell which touches are landing
Sample opener: "I wanted to share something that made me think of you: the reading program just hit 200 kids served this year. Your support last spring helped get us there. Here is a two-minute video from one of the families."
SMART goal example: deliver at least three meaningful touchpoints to each cultivation-stage donor over 90 days, with an average open rate above 35%.
Signal to advance: the donor has actively replied, attended an event, or shared a personal story back. They are warmed up. Move them to solicitation.
Stage 4: Solicitation (making the right ask)
Definition: turning cultivation into a specific, well-timed ask.
Specific actions:
- Match the channel to the donor: in-person for major gifts, a personal email with a pre-filled donation link for everyone else
- Anchor the ask to a specific program and outcome, not a general operating budget
Sample opener: "Maya, the next reading program cohort starts in September and we are $4,000 short on books and supplies. Would you consider a $100 monthly gift for the year? That covers a full classroom set."
SMART goal example: close five recurring asks at $100+/month this quarter from the cultivation pool.
A study in the Journal of Marketing found that framing an ask as a gift rather than a donation can lift giving. The cultivation work above is what tells you how to frame each ask.
Signal to advance: the donor said yes (or said "not now, but ask me in six months", both are signals). Move to stewardship.
Stage 5: Stewardship (maintaining long-term relationships)
Donor stewardship is everything you do after a donor contributes to secure continued support. The thank-you is table stakes. The relationship is the goal.
Specific actions:
- Send a personal thank-you within 48 hours, plus an automatic tax receipt
- Report back on impact within 90 days: where the money went, what changed
- Celebrate giving anniversaries and milestones
- Invite the donor to a private update or behind-the-scenes moment they cannot get as a non-donor
- Plan the next touch before the current one is even sent
Sample opener (90-day impact update): "Your $100 a month bought books for 12 kids this quarter. Here is what one of the teachers said. I would love to bring you to the next classroom visit in October, interested?"
SMART goal example: retain 80% of recurring donors year over year and convert 20% of one-time donors into recurring givers within 12 months.
You can also turn a major-gift ask into recurring support during stewardship, a one-time donor who renews monthly becomes a long-term partner. Track open and click rates on your stewardship emails so you know which donors are still warm and which need a phone call.
Signal to re-cultivate: the donor stops opening emails for 60 days, or skips an expected renewal. That is a re-cultivation move, not a write-off.
Small-nonprofit verdict on the five stages: do not try to perfect all five at once. Pick the weakest stage (for most small orgs, it is stewardship) and fix that one first.
How to set up your moves management system
The five stages are a framework. This section is the operating manual: how to run them inside one free donor CRM, in 20 minutes of setup and 60 minutes a week of execution.
Decide what counts as a "move" for your org
A move is any intentional, logged interaction that advances the relationship. For most small orgs, the working list is short: a personal email, a phone call, a handwritten note, an in-person meeting, a site visit, a small-group event, a printed report sent by mail. A mass-blast newsletter is not a move. An open of a mass-blast newsletter, however, is a useful signal.
Set portfolio size honestly
Commonly cited fundraising guidance suggests around 100 to 150 donors per gift officer for active cultivation. But that assumes the org has gift officers. If you do not (most small nonprofits do not), here is the honest small-org translation: your executive director or lead fundraiser owns the top 20 to 30 relationships personally. Everyone else stays in a saved segment for batch cultivation, email, and event invitations. As the org grows, the personal portfolio grows. Until then, 20 to 30 is plenty.
Build the pipeline in your CRM with tags, filters, and segments
You do not need a paid "moves management module" with a pipeline view. You can replicate one inside Zeffy's free donor management software in four steps.
- 1. Create five tags, one per stage: stage:identification, stage:qualification, stage:cultivation, stage:solicitation, stage:stewardship. Tag every active contact with exactly one stage tag.
- 2. Add a portfolio tag for personally-owned relationships: portfolio:executive-director, portfolio:board, etc. Everyone without a portfolio tag is in batch cultivation by default.
- 3. Build one saved smart filter per stage so you can see, in one click, "everyone in cultivation, sorted by last touch date." That is your pipeline view.
- 4. Use donor history (notes, past donations, emails sent and opened) to log every touch. The next person on your team, or you, three months from now, can pick up where you left off.
Block 60 minutes a week to "do the moves"
Same time every week. Open the saved filter for each stage in order. For each donor, ask: what is the next move, when is it due, and who is doing it? Log the touch the moment you make it. Without the weekly block, the system dies in three weeks.
Set team documentation policy (even if the team is one person)
Generally accepted best practice across small-org fundraising operations: every interaction gets logged in the CRM within 24 hours. Notes are factual and specific, not interpretive. Who owns each donor is written down. The next move and the due date are written down. If a board member meets a donor at an event, they log it (or email you so you log it). The reason: the moves system only works if it survives staff turnover. A handoff from a departing ED to a new one should take an afternoon, not a quarter.
Small-nonprofit verdict: the system above is the entire moves management product for an org under $500K. You do not need anything else until you have multiple dedicated gift officers and 200+ active prospects.
Your moves management checklist
Use this on-page checklist to set up your moves system. Fill in the blanks for your org as you go.
Foundation (one-time setup, about 90 minutes)
- [ ] Choose your CRM: ______________________
- [ ] Import every contact from the last 3 years
- [ ] Define what counts as a "move" for your org. We count: ______________________
- [ ] Decide your portfolio size. Personal portfolio owner: ______________________ Top relationships count: ______
- [ ] Create 5 stage tags: identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, stewardship
- [ ] Create portfolio tags for personally-owned relationships
- [ ] Build 5 saved smart filters, one per stage
- [ ] Tag every active contact with exactly one stage tag
Weekly review (60 minutes, same time every week)
- [ ] Weekly block scheduled on: ______________________
- [ ] Open the identification filter. Decide who advances to qualification
- [ ] Open the qualification filter. Decide who advances to cultivation
- [ ] Open the cultivation filter. Plan or send the next touch for each personal-portfolio donor
- [ ] Open the solicitation filter. Confirm asks are scheduled with a specific amount and date
- [ ] Open the stewardship filter. Send one thank-you, one impact update, or one anniversary note
- [ ] Log every touch in the donor record before you close the tab
Each new donor (do once per donor)
- [ ] Tag with the source channel (event, social, referral, peer-to-peer)
- [ ] Tag with the program they care about
- [ ] Log first conversation: what motivated them, who they know in the org
- [ ] Schedule the first cultivation touch within 14 days
- [ ] Set the next planned move and due date
Quarterly review
- [ ] Pull retention rate by donor cohort
- [ ] Review who went cold (60+ days no engagement) and plan a re-cultivation move
- [ ] Review solicitation close rate. What worked, what did not
- [ ] Celebrate one win with the team
Technology that makes moves management easier
You have three realistic options. The honest comparison:
|
| Spreadsheets | Free | Familiar; flexible; no learning curve | No interaction tracking; no email integration; falls apart across team handoffs; impossible to filter by stage and last-touch date together |
| Paid donor CRM | Often $100 to $300+ per month | Purpose-built; pipeline views; integrations | A real budget line; setup time; often more features than a small org actually uses |
| Free donor CRM (Zeffy) | Free | Tags, smart filters, saved segments, donor history, email-from-dashboard with open and click stats, offline donation tracking, recurring donations | Not a fit for enterprise gift-officer teams that need stage-progression dashboards out of the box |
For most small orgs, spreadsheets fail at the moment your moves system most needs to survive: a staff handoff or a six-month gap in attention. A paid donor CRM seat solves that, but $100 to $300 a month is a real budget line for a small org. The third option is the one most small nonprofits do not realize exists.
Zeffy's free donor management ships with the exact primitives moves management needs: custom tags, smart filters and saved segments (your pipeline view), donor history with notes and past donations, email from the donor dashboard with open and click stats, automated reminders, pre-filled donation forms for solicitation, recurring donation support for stewardship, and the ability to record offline donations so a cultivation meeting and a mailed check live in the same record as an online gift. Zeffy is 100% free for nonprofits. No platform fee, no transaction fee, no credit card fee. Ever. More than 100K+ nonprofits have raised $2B+ on the platform without paying a cent in fees.
A note on scope: Zeffy is a fundraising platform with donor management built in, not an enterprise grant-management or case-management system. For small orgs running moves management on tags, filters, and a weekly review block, that is exactly the right size.
Small-nonprofit verdict: if you are running moves management on spreadsheets, the upgrade to a free donor CRM is the single biggest jump in reliability you can make this quarter.
5 common moves management mistakes (and how to avoid them)
Mistake 1: Moving too fast to solicitation
The pressure to hit a fundraising goal pushes you to ask before the donor is ready. They say no (or worse, a small yes followed by a lapse). Fix: require at least three cultivation touches with positive engagement before any ask above $250. Write the rule down so your future self honors it.
Mistake 2: Not documenting interactions
Notes live in your head, in three inboxes, and in a board member's memory. A donor mentions her daughter's name at an event; six months later, no one remembers. The relationship resets.
Fix: log every interaction in the CRM within 24 hours, what you discussed, what they care about, what the next move is. The donor CRM tracks every interaction so the next person on your team picks up exactly where you left off.
Mistake 3: Treating all donors the same
Sending the same year-end email to a $25 first-time donor and a $5,000 recurring supporter signals that you do not actually know either of them. Fix: at minimum, segment by stage and by giving level. Three messages instead of one. A small lift in personalization, a big lift in response.
Mistake 4: Focusing only on major-gift prospects
Major gifts are exciting and rare. The bulk of long-term revenue for most small orgs comes from recurring small and mid-level donors. Fix: spend at least half your moves time on the cultivation and stewardship of $25 to $250 donors who could become $50 to $100 per month recurring givers. The lifetime value is often higher than a one-time $5,000 gift.
Mistake 5: Letting stewardship lapse after the gift
The thank-you goes out. The receipt goes out. Then silence until next year's appeal. The donor feels used. They give once, then drop off.
Fix: schedule the next three stewardship touches the moment the gift is logged. A 30-day thank-you with an impact preview, a 90-day update on outcomes, a 180-day invitation to something private. Build it into your CRM workflow so it happens automatically.
Moves management best practices
Review your portfolio every two weeks
The weekly 60-minute block is for execution. Every two weeks, spend an extra 20 minutes on portfolio review: who has gone cold (no engagement in 60 days), who has warmed up unexpectedly, who is ready to advance a stage. Tag adjustments are part of the discipline.
Have a written plan for donors who go cold
Cold does not mean gone. It means the current cultivation approach stopped working. Try a different channel: if email is silent, try a phone call. If a phone call gets voicemail, try a handwritten note. Three different channels over six weeks. If still cold, move them to the batch-cultivation segment and stop investing personal time, but do not delete them.
Set clear goals for every interaction
Every move should have a SMART goal attached: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound. "Send Maya the impact report by Friday so she opens it and replies with a question" is a SMART goal. "Reach out to Maya" is not.
Segment donors for personalized engagement
Group donors by giving history, interests, and engagement level. Each segment gets messaging that resonates with their specific connection to your mission.
Celebrate milestones and loyalty
Anniversaries of first gifts, cumulative giving thresholds ("you have now given for three years running"), birthdays. A two-line personal email beats a generic e-card. Track these in your CRM with date fields and a recurring reminder.
Celebrate wins with your team
If you have a team, the weekly 60-minute block ends with one win shared aloud: a donor who replied warmly, a closed ask, a re-engagement after cold. If you are solo, write it down in a "wins" doc. Moves management is a long game; visible wins are the fuel.
Evaluate and refine quarterly
Once a quarter, look at the numbers. Retention rate by cohort. Average days from qualification to first gift. Solicitation close rate. What is working, what is not. Adjust the system, not the goal.
Small-nonprofit verdict on best practices: if you only do two of these, do the weekly 60-minute block and the every-interaction-logged rule. Everything else compounds from those two.
What is moves management in fundraising?
Moves management is the practice of tracking and deepening donor relationships through planned, intentional interactions called "moves." Each move guides a supporter from first awareness toward a deeper commitment: a first gift, a recurring pledge, a major gift, or a long-term volunteer role. The five stages are identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. For a small nonprofit, it is essentially a memory and habits system: every donor has a known next step, and every interaction gets logged so nothing falls through the cracks.
What is a moves analysis?
A moves analysis is a way for nonprofits to measure the success of their donor engagement strategies. It involves reviewing donor interactions, tracking how donors respond to outreach efforts, and assessing whether they move closer to deeper involvement or larger contributions. By analyzing data from emails, events, donation history, and other touchpoints, nonprofits can see which strategies work best and refine their approach. This helps improve donor retention and ensures that time and resources are spent on the most effective engagement tactics.
What are the principles of moves management?
Moves management is guided by several key principles that ensure donor relationships are nurtured effectively:
* Intentional outreach: every donor interaction should have a clear purpose, whether it is thanking them, updating them on impact, or inviting them to an event.
* Data-driven decisions: tracking donor behavior and responses helps shape future engagement strategies.
* Consistency: regular, meaningful communication keeps donors connected and engaged.
* Stewardship: engagement does not stop after a donation; nonprofits should continue building relationships through recognition and ongoing involvement opportunities.
How many moves does it take to get a major gift?
Commonly cited fundraising guidance suggests around 7 to 10 meaningful touchpoints before a major gift, but the honest answer is: it depends on the donor's prior relationship with your org, their giving capacity, and the size of the ask. For a warm donor who already gives recurring, three to five well-timed cultivation moves may be enough. For a cold prospect, you may need a dozen or more. Track your own data over time, your number matters more than the industry average.
What is the difference between moves management and major gift fundraising?
Major gift fundraising is the specialized practice of cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding donors capable of large gifts (typically $1,000+ for small orgs, much higher for large institutions). Moves management is the broader system that organizes how you move every donor, small, mid, and major, through the relationship stages. Major gift work is one application of moves management, not a substitute for it.
How do I prioritize my moves management portfolio?
Score each donor on two things: connection to your mission (how engaged are they? what do they care about?) and capacity to give over time (recurring potential, not just one-time wealth). The top 20 to 30 highest-combined-score donors get personal weekly attention from whoever owns the portfolio. Everyone else goes into a batch-cultivation segment with planned email touchpoints. Re-score quarterly. Promote donors up, move donors who have gone cold down. The portfolio is a living list, not a fixed roster.
Can a small nonprofit run moves management without a paid CRM?
Yes. You can run a complete moves management system using free donor management software. The core primitives you need are custom tags (one per stage), saved smart filters (your pipeline view), donor history with notes, and email from the dashboard with open and click tracking. Zeffy's free donor management includes all of these, with no platform fee, no transaction fee, and no credit card fee.
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