Moves management is a structured fundraising strategy that guides donors through the donor lifecycle using intentional, strategic actions called moves. 

Once you understand the steps a donor takes to get through that journey and apply a moves management process, you can personalize your messaging and use strategic outreach (or moves) to get big fundraising results. Moves management is a critical piece of a major gift strategy and can help identify opportunities you might otherwise overlook.

Every nonprofit has donors and prospective donors who feel passionately about the same mission. Often, these people are more than willing to support efforts to help that mission.

Moves management isn’t about trying to squeeze money out of donors. Rather, it’s about looking at a cohort of donors and communicating the immense additional good that can be done with a little more. It’s about offering opportunities to your donors, backed by a plan for how their donation will help. Your goal is to communicate your story and your mission in a way that lets people realize how much they care about this cause. 

Many nonprofits treat moves management as a checklist of activities. High-performing fundraising teams treat it as a strategic donor pipeline system, where every move is documented, measured, and refined based on engagement signals. 

In this article, we will look at what moves management is, identify the stages in moves management, discuss the moves your nonprofit can take to connect with your donors at every stage, and share what you can learn from measuring the right metrics. 

What is Moves Management? 

There are some universal truths about your donors. 

• At some point, they learned about your nonprofit. 
• They began investigating your organization or comparing you to similar organizations. In short, they were shopping. 
• Something triggered them to convert or make a donation. 

After you have the donation, there are two more steps to this journey: 

• You want them to donate again, so you must retain them. 
• You want them to feel passionate about your nonprofit and discuss it with their friends. 

In a nutshell, each of those stages can be influenced by actions your nonprofit takes to engage with the donor. 

Moves management is defined as the process by which a prospective donor moves through that journey, and the moves/tasks an organization takes to bring in donors, establish relationships, and retain donors. 

Moves management is closely tied to the broader donor lifecycle, which describes how individuals move from awareness to long-term commitment and legacy giving. 

It is most often associated with identifying and nurturing major donors. The principles, though, are applicable to all groups of donors. 

The moves your nonprofit makes must be carefully thought out and strategic. The better your moves management is, the more engaged your donors will be, the higher your donor retention rates will be, and the more effective your fundraising will be. 

When we talk granularly about moves management, we are referring to the process of segmenting your audience (easily done with a nonprofit CRM), deciding what activities will move each segment forward, and measuring those results to refine them and enhance their effectiveness.  Moves management is, at its core, donor lifecycle management. 

Moves vs. Stages

One of the most confusing parts of moves management is figuring out moves vs. stages. 

A move is a specific action taken to advance the donor relationship. It can be a thank-you call, a personalized impact report, a meeting, or a proposal. Moves are tactical and intentional.

A stage is where the donor is in the traditional phases of a donor journey. So a donor's stage would be awareness, consideration, conversion, retention, or advocacy.   

In short:

• Moves are the actions.
• Stages are the phases.

Moves happen within stages, and multiple moves typically occur before a donor advances to the next stage.    

Understanding this distinction helps fundraising teams plan intentional outreach instead of reacting to donor behavior. 

The Moves Management Cycle

Moves management is not linear. It functions as a cycle that reflects an evolving donor relationship.

Donors move through stages, but they also loop back, deepen engagement, and re-enter cultivation after stewardship. This cycle mirrors the broader donor lifecycle and helps fundraising teams plan long-term relationship growth and sustainable revenue, rather than focusing on one-time transactions. 

There’s been a lot written about the donor journey and donor journey maps, and understanding the steps a person takes to do anything – join a club, buy a car, or donate to your nonprofit – can give smart marketers the chance to figure out how to engage them at each stage. 

When we talk about moves management, we have stages that are somewhat different from the donor journey. Rather than focusing on what the donor does, we focus on the actions a nonprofit can take. 

Here are the six stages of moves management:

Awareness 

Awareness is the first stage of moves management. It’s where prospective donors first encounter your mission, and your goal at this stage isn’t to ask for a gift; it’s to capture attention and spark interest.

Think about where your audience might first see you: events, social media, or direct outreach. 

If your mission isn’t local, social campaigns can raise awareness just as effectively. Rover highlighted this with a campaign from the Animal Protective Association of Missouri that encouraged people to adopt older dogs — a reminder that memorable creative can break through the noise and stop someone mid-scroll.

Once someone shows interest, direct them to your website where they can take a low-commitment action, like signing up for your newsletter, volunteering, or learning more about your work. 

What can you measure in this stage? 

Think of awareness as building your database. Track newsletter signups, event registrations, social media engagement, and other signals that someone is willing to hear from you again.

Awareness is where every donor begins, and investing in visibility fuels the next moves in the cycle.

Identification 

In this step, you will want to get to know your donors. A robust nonprofit CRM can make this easy! 

Segment your donors according to giving habits: one-time donors, monthly sustainers, major gift prospects, lapsed donors, etc. Segment them according to giving amounts. Segment them in as detailed a way as you can, because you are going to be able to personalize the messaging to a greater detail if you have specific characteristics of a group. 

A caveat: if your donor information is not good, if your technology is not accurate or has messy data, this step won’t be helpful. 

After you segment your audience, take a look at which group has the greatest potential to impact your fundraising. Is it those major gift prospects? Or the one-time donors? Start by focusing on one group and one moves effort at a time. 

Identify a new group of supporters you would like to engage. 

Once you have all your groups segmented and you’ve chosen the top group (or groups), begin to consider what moves would be applicable to each of them. Consider their demographics: Are they local? Concentrated in one geographic area? What age are they? You will reach Boomers differently than Millennials!  

Moves management helps you build and manage a structured donor pipeline, ensuring high-potential supporters receive appropriate engagement at the right time. 

What can you measure at this stage? Measure where your fundraising is and set goals for each campaign. If, for example, your goal is to get one segmented list to increase monthly donations by $10, you can calculate and set that goal. 

Part of a moves campaign is usually major gifts. This is why a private school, let’s say, would have a capital campaign to renovate. They know they need to raise a million dollars. They would break down that million into an average amount most families would donate, any events they had planned, and how many major gifts and at what amount would be needed. 

You might not be looking for major gifts yet, but you do want to set a lofty but achievable goal. Then you’ll be able to back into your lists and consider the moves that will be effective. 

And you’re still not asking for a donation. 

Qualification 

You will want to qualify every segmented group. While you already know a lot about them because you built the lists, you want to understand who they are and what their giving capacity is. What triggers them to donate? Are there reasons they support you, such as a family member with a disease you’re working to cure?  

It’s recommended that you look at giving history, giving frequency, volunteer data, event attendance data, engagement with emails or texts or social media, and generally decide how engaged they are. Recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) scoring is a common framework in donor segmentation and major gift strategy. We offer a free RFM calculator to quantify the recency, frequency, and monetary value of donors. 

CharityEngine partners with Wealth Engine to identify prospective donors. You can also look at large donors to similar campaigns or nonprofits. 

If one segmented list is regular donors who donate less than $50 a month, what moves could get them to $60 a month? Perhaps every qualified donor gets a delivery of swag or an invitation to a webinar with your executive director.  

What can you measure at this stage? We had you set your goal, now set your baseline. What are the fundraising, volunteering, registration numbers for your groups? Measure what it is you intend to improve with your campaign.  

Cultivation  

So now you ask for money, right? No. 

Cultivation is the stage at which you focus on building the relationship with the donors in your segmented group. This is where the rubber hits the road: whatever moves you’ve identified and implemented will happen at this point. 

Think of this stage as an opportunity for your donors to learn more about your mission and your nonprofit, as you learn more about their behaviors and obstacles. Ask a lot of questions, which will help inform donor personas and help you hone your moves campaigns. You can also use targeted moves that strengthen major donor cultivation and deepen long-term engagement. 

You know a lot about your groups now, so find a way to get in front of them. Maybe it’s a Zoom call for a coffee break. Maybe it’s an email campaign. Maybe it’s an event. Offer donors or potential donors something beneficial in exchange for learning about your mission and how their support can help. 

Engaging at this stage can include event volunteers or volunteers at your headquarters. It can be a survey you send. It can be a day during which your team makes phone calls to a list of donors. Use a tool like Vidyard to create videos that let recipients put a face with a name.  

The most important part of cultivation is personalization. Count on your CRM to autofill names on emails or give you phone numbers to call or text. But you can also handwrite a note on direct mail or send specific donors a report or website you thought they might like. 

What can you measure at this stage? Count on your CRM for measurements now. Measure conversions or engagement.  How many times were your emails opened, your videos viewed, your social media posts clicked on? Website views, donation page views, or any way in which your audience engages with you should be measured. 

Solicitation 

Now you’ve identified donors, qualified them, and built a relationship with them. It’s time to make a direct ask for support. 

Make a smart ask. You want to ask for an incremental difference…it won’t be easy to get a one-time donor to hand over a major gift! Ensure the ask is proportionate to the behavior they’ve already exhibited, and just up it a notch. 

Are all donations money? Not at all. You can ask for in-kind donations, participation in a peer-to-peer event, or purchasing a premium table at your gala.

It’s important that you’re clear in what you’re asking for. Tie it back to your goals. Explain how what you’re asking for supports the goal.  

And when you’re asking for major gifts, try to do it in person.  

How can your CRM support you? If it offers payment processing, you can take advantage of the features your payment processor offers. CharityEngine clients, for example, can benefit from one-click giving and many different giving options. They also benefit from high security standards and fraud protection. 

Look to your CRM for event software that can help you manage registrations, ticketing, volunteers, and even auction items. If your moves include a text-to-give campaign or a peer-to-peer event, software can make your job easier with automations and updates to the donor record, which will inform tools like giving probability calculators. 

What can you measure at this stage? What are you trying to accomplish? Measure your results. It can be number of new donors or amount raised. Track your progress in your CRM so you can tell which channels and tactics are working and which might need to be tweaked to reach your goal. Share a thermometer or other representation on your website, and if you’re working in your community, even a large plastic one outside your office. 

Stewardship 

This is a drum we beat often. Show your donors some love. Build your donor relationships with communication, transparency, friendliness, and respect. Thank them for any engagement: attending an event or clicking donate; dropping off canned goods or serving as a marshal at a 5K. 

Which methods of outreach were the most effective? Use those channels to thank your donors. It can be engaging to highlight donors on social media (with their permission, of course) or your website. Pick up the phone, write a note, send a video or a gift, craft an email sequence.  

Always try for in-person communication if it’s possible. The idea of ambassadors in towns where you have multiple donors is to create more opportunities for in-person engagement, which is always critical in developing personal relationships. 

Ongoing donor care means consistent, thoughtful, personal interaction with your donors. Make notes in your CRM about significant details so all team members can personalize communications. 

Good stewardship leads to donor retention, which builds your fundraising base and provides you with security even when donor retention numbers dip. And once they’re regular donors, don’t forget about them. Donor stewardship lasts the lifetime of the relationship. 

After stewardship, donors often re-enter cultivation with a higher level of engagement, continuing the moves management cycle. So a moves-centered donor engagement strategy ties it all together nicely.

What can you measure at this stage? Donor retention is the key metric to measure. And once you’re keeping them, is their engagement growing? Maybe they’ve gone from sporadic donations to monthly giving, or maybe they bought tickets to an event. If you’re doing all the right things and they’re not becoming more engaged, it’s worth going back to the drawing board and seeing how and why they’ve engaged in the past. If all else fails, pick up the phone and ask them!

Legacy and Planned Giving 

For many organizations, moves management doesn't end with annual or major gifts. As relationships deepen, planned giving and legacy conversations become a natural extension of donor evolution.

Donors who have been thoughtfully cultivated and stewarded over time are more likely to:

• Include the organization in their estate plans
• Establish charitable gift annuities or trusts 
• Create named endowments 

Planned giving represents the long-term horizon of the donor lifecycle. Effective moves management lays the foundation for these transformational commitments.

Examples of Moves to Use at Each Stage

These examples illustrate the types of moves nonprofits commonly use to guide donors through each stage of the moves management cycle. 

Early Stages (Identification and Qualification)

• Personalized introductory/welcome email 
• Thank-you call after first major gift 
• Invitation to an informational event
• LinkedIn connection request

Cultivation Stage

• One-on-one meeting
• Impact report tailored to the donor's interests
• Program tour or virtual briefing
• Thank-you note from leadership or the board

Solicitation Stage

• Formal proposal presentation 
• Customized giving opportunity menu
• Campaign-specific case for support
• Follow-up call after proposal delivery

• Major donor appreciation event
• Quarterly impact update
• Anniversary acknowledgment
• Public recognition, if appropriate

KPIs to Track in Moves Management

To evaluate the effectiveness of your moves management strategy, track measurable indicators at each stage. Here are some common metrics you can consider:

• Donor retention rate
• Average gift size
• Stage conversion rate
• Time spent in each stage
• Number of moves per donor
• Proposal close rate
• Upgrade rate for major donors

Tracking these metrics helps fundraising leaders identify bottlenecks, optimize engagement strategies, and allocate resources more effectively.

Tools That Support Effective Moves Management

Successful moves management requires coordinated systems and visibility across donor data. Essential tools include:

Fundraising CRM

A centralized CRM tracks donor history, gift activity, meeting notes, stage progression, and assigned moves.

Prospect Research Tools

Wealth screening and data enrichment tools help identify high-potential donors and inform qualification.

Segmentation and Reporting Capabilities

Advanced reporting helps track stage movement, conversion rates, and donor trends.

AI and Personalization Tools

Modern fundraising teams increasingly use AI-driven insights to prioritize outreach,  recommend next best moves, and personalize communications at scale.

Frequently Asked Questions About Moves Management

Is moves management only for major donors?
While moves management is often associated with major gift fundraising, the framework can be applied across all donor segments, including recurring donors, mid-level donors, and planned giving prospects.

How many moves should a donor receive before solicitation?
There is no universal number. The right sequence depends on engagement level, giving history, and capacity.

What software supports moves management?
A fundraising CRM with segmentation, task tracking, and reporting capabilities is essential.

How is moves management different from a donor journey map?
A donor journey map focuses on the steps a donor takes when engaging with an organization. Moves management focuses on the intentional actions a nonprofit takes to guide and strengthen that relationship. While a donor journey describes behavior, moves management defines strategy and execution.  

What are the stages of moves management?
Most moves management frameworks include awareness, identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. Some organizations also include planned or legacy giving as a long-term extension of the donor lifecycle. The exact terminology may vary, but the goal remains the same: guide donors from initial interest to long-term commitment. 

Why is moves management important for donor retention?
Moves management increases donor retention by ensuring consistent, personalized engagement at every stage of the relationship. When donors receive thoughtful communication, strategic outreach, and clear impact reporting, they are more likely to give again, upgrade their gifts, and remain loyal supporters over time.

How do you build a moves management plan?
To build a moves management plan, start by segmenting your donors based on giving history, engagement level, and capacity. Define clear stages in your moves management cycle, then outline specific moves for each stage, such as thank-you calls, personalized emails, meetings, or proposals. Establish measurable goals for each segment, track key performance indicators like retention rate and stage conversion, and refine your strategy based on results. A fundraising CRM can help manage tasks, monitor progress, and ensure no donor relationship falls through the cracks.

Continuing the Moves Management Cycle

Moves management is an ongoing process. What changes over time is the audience you’re targeting and the specific moves you use to advance them along the donor journey. 

Moves management is targeted donor management — building relationships, sharing needs, and making the right ask at the right time. 

Check with your CRM vendor to ensure your software includes moves management features. When they’re robust, it’s easy to use the technology to find and manage opportunities, track progress with major gift asks, grant proposals, or other workflows, link transactions to outcomes, and pull the reports that give you actionable data. 

 It’s easy to focus heavily on metrics and results, and that focus is often necessary. And sometimes it’s worth it to zoom out and remember that your donors are people who care about the same mission you do. Helping feels good to them, and you transforming that “help” into action for your shared mission feels great to you.  

When executed strategically, moves management transforms donor relationships from transactional interactions into long-term partnerships that drive sustainable revenue growth