What happened when IRC branded its giving tiers

Your $20/month sustainer and your one-time $50 donor opened the same email this morning. 

One of them has been giving for three years, and the other found you during a crisis and might not come back. Nothing in the email reflects that difference.

The International Rescue Committee faced the same problem and decided to tackle it.

The problem
IRC had three giving program brands: Rescue Partners for sustainers, Compass Collective for mid-level donors, and Partners for Freedom for planned giving. 

Two of those names don’t reference IRC or the word “rescue” at all, and each had its own visual identity.

The result: donors had no sense that they were part of a connected ecosystem. 

There was no structured way to move people between tiers, and the benefits didn’t reflect donors’ actual preferences.

When IRC surveyed mid-level donors about how they preferred to be recognized, newsletters ranked first at around 40%. 

Branded gifts like pens and keychains ranked dead last.

The rebuild
At NTC in March, IRC’s Ishmam Raidah Rahman and Big Duck shared how they consolidated everything under one umbrella called “Rescue Collective” with three tiers: Partners (sustainers), Leaders ($1,000+/year), and Changemakers (planned giving).

IRC transitioned from messaging that positioned donors as saviors to a framing built around authentic partnership and investment.

Each tier got its own email identity: tier-specific @rescue.org addresses, monthly spotlight emails, and separate newsletters with color-coded visuals.

IRC launched tiers externally on World Refugee Day across email, direct mail, and web.

One-time donors, including people acquired during crisis campaigns, stay on IRC’s standard email program. They’re not automatically part of the Rescue Collective.

But when it’s time to level folks up, IRC now has a destination to point them toward. 

“Become a Rescue Collective Partner” is a different pitch than a generic monthly giving ask because it comes with a community, a newsletter, and a name.

The content within each tier reinforces the upgrade path as well. The Partners newsletter includes a section promoting the next level, so every send shows them where to go next.

The results
The donor retention gains are modest but consistent across every tier.

Mid-level Leaders saw first-year retention climb from 45% to 51% year over year. Overall Leader retention went from 70% to 72%.

Sustainer Partners improved too: six-month retention went from 66% to 70%, and twelve-month retention from 50% to 54%.

On a file the size of IRC’s, these numbers matter.

How to apply this to your program
Audit your welcome series by donor type. If a new sustainer and a one-time donor get the same first email, there’s your opening.

Give your monthly giving program a name. It doesn’t need a full rebrand, but even a simple identity gives you something to invite donors into beyond “sign up for recurring gifts.”

Survey your donors to determine which recognition they value. IRC’s data suggested most want content (newsletters, impact reports) over swag.

Last year, I talked to IRC’s Hank Walters about a unique incentive: a downloadable recipe book featuring recipes from IRC refugee clients.

Think about your crisis donors. If you acquired a wave of new supporters this year, what are you inviting them into beyond your regular email stream?

Think about ways to tie your mission and current priorities to the crisis moment that drew that donor in through versioned copy.

The bottom line
When every donor gets the same email, no one feels like they belong to anything. 

Even modest differentiations in copy, a tier-specific welcome, or a distinct header can move the needle on retention.

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

‘Til next time!
Sara