727. Working Session: The Automation Playbook That Added $200K at Year End - Rachel Bearbower
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Today’s Guest
Rachel Bearbower | Founder, Nonprofit Automation Agency
About This Episode
One client added $200,000 at year-end from a single 15% retention lift — no new campaigns, no bigger team. Rachel Bearbower, founder of the Nonprofit Automation Agency, says losing donors isn't a caring problem; it's a systems problem, and systems can be automated.
In this We Are For Good working session, she walks hosts Jonathan McCoy and Becky Endicott through the five stewardship automations that carry a new donor through their first 100 days — the same playbook that's moved clients from 35% to 50% retention and won back 20+ hours a month, all without losing the human touch.
What You'll Learn in This Working Session
The case study behind the $200K: how reclaiming a 15% retention lift translated into roughly $200,000 at year-end — and why it's repeatable
Why donor retention and staff capacity are two sides of the same coin — and why the fix is a better system, not more willpower
The five stewardship automations that guide a new donor through their first 100 days: affirm the gift, activate with a personal thank-you, welcome them in, show impact, and ask for the second gift
Powerful Quotes
"We've seen everything from increasing donor retention by 15% — and it resulted in an additional $200,000 at year-end." — Rachel
"You can really think of automation as consistency, not as a replacement. You don't want to remove the human. You just want to make sure that the human shows up every single time without having to remember it." — Rachel
"Donor stewardship — it's not coming from a place of you don't care. Obviously, you care. It's becoming a systems problem." — Rachel
"Start with whatever the highest-leverage thing is that you are not doing." — Rachel
"Clean data — that's the good stuff. Once you have clean data and you're confident about your donor list, you can do some really powerful things. But that's the foundation, and it has to happen first." — Rachel
Episode Chapters
Meet Rachel and the Nonprofit Automation Agency (00:52)
The two connected problems: retention and capacity (01:55)
The five donor-stewardship automations (03:32)
Thinking beyond week one: the first 100 days (07:17)
Case study: a 15% retention lift worth $200K (08:09)
Where to start + why your CRM is your source of truth (09:16)
Keeping automation human and building a voice guide (11:31)
Tools: Zapier, native integrations, and using Claude (14:40)
Your first automation today (15:38)
One Good Thing: the DIKW pyramid and clean data (18:06)
Where to find Rachel (20:11)
Resources and Next Steps
Connect with Katelyn
Nonprofit Automation Agency -- Rachel’s agency helps nonprofits build donor-stewardship systems that run automatically -- nonprofitautomationagency.com
Rachel Bearbower on LinkedIn -- Weekly nonprofit email tips and trends --linkedin.com/rachelbearbower
Connect with Becky
Come be part of the We Are For Good Community—totally free.
Join fellow changemakers, share takeaways from this working session, and keep collaborating in a space built for connection, inspiration, and real impact: www.weareforgoodcommunity.com
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