5 ‘a-ha!’ moments from the Supporter Experience Summit 2026
- Kay Harrison
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
The Supporter Experience Summit is all about sharing, learning and gently challenging ourselves to put excellent experiences under the spotlight for a whole day.
Building on the success of 2025, this year was bigger and better than ever: more than 50 fundraising professionals joined the About Loyalty team from across the UK to focus on delivering excellent experiences for supporters. Thanks again to everyone who joined us!
“It was a great day, wonderful to connect, and super informative. I have already begun thinking how we can drive trust, commitment and satisfaction in our supporter relationships.” Samantha-Rose Parvin, Refuge
At a time when attracting new supporters is becoming tougher than ever, it’s never been a better time for charities to examine how they treat those who have already shown their support.
From our research into how supporters feel about their chosen charity, and how this impacts their intention to continue giving, we can show the direct impact of supporter loyalty on long-term giving:
20% more income,
15% more donors continuing to give, and
9% more legacy pledges.
Missed out on a place at this year’s Summit? Here are some of the highlights - and some ideas that you can swipe for your own organisation:
1) “Come on URZ!!”
Whilst kicking off with a football chant feels particularly appropriate at the moment, given the men's World Cup has just wrapped up, it’s also a starting point to examine the deeply personal nature of what loyalty really means.
Our director, Roger Lawson, donned his Reading FC scarf to share his own story of support – through the ups and downs, the good years and the bad – and how this experience mirrors our framework for best practice in supporter experience.
The 'a-ha!' moment: Loyalty isn’t a behaviour – it’s a feeling.
By only measuring a person’s giving behaviour, you risk missing out the key indicator of whether their giving will continue – which is the deeply personal connection they have with your cause. We call this connection Loyalty.
2) The three-legged stool of loyalty: commitment, satisfaction and trust
Our research has identified three feelings which drive high supporter loyalty: the more strongly someone feels this way about your cause, the more likely they are to give more and give for longer:
Commitment: when supporters feel passionately connected to your cause – when they see you driving the change in that world that they truly care about.
Satisfaction: when giving feels good – when they feel seen, valued and appreciated.
Trust: when they believe in you – when they’re confident you’ll use their gift of money, time or voice with integrity and impact.
They’re a three-legged stool because they are tightly connected – each one has a part to play in how you deliver your supporter experience.
The 'a-ha!' moment: these three feelings form a crucial framework for reviewing your supporter experience.
How does you inspire trust in your supporters? How does you spark their commitment to your cause? And how do you create a feeling of satisfaction?
3) "Would this make me trust Greenpeace more?"
Since measuring the loyalty of supporters across the globe, Greenpeace International has focussed on building an action plan that targets where their best opportunities lie for improvement. Joe White, Fundraising and Supporter Engagement Manager at Greenpeace International, joined us at the Summit to share where their action planning had taken them on their journey to delivering better experiences.
One example of this was a review of their postal communications, supporter service calls, social media comments and supporter surveys – but in the words of their own supporters. Greenpeace teams are now looking at how to reinforce those sentiments across different touchpoints. For example, one office has used these insights to guide their future comms, helping to brief and review content by thinking about questions such as: ‘would this make me trust Greenpeace more?’.
The 'a-ha!' moment: put yourself in your supporters’ shoes.
What would someone who trusts you say about the information they receive from you? And what about someone who doesn’t? (You won’t know for sure until you ask them.)
4) Thanking, T-shirts and Dogs Trust: inspiration from SOFII
We were delighted to be joined by Lynda Harwood-Compton, Director of the Showcase
of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration (SOFII), for some examples of how charities (and individuals!) are delivering excellent experiences in the real world:
In Lynda's words: "supporters don't just invest their money in our charities — they invest their trust, their hope and often a part of their identity. That's why the experience we give them matters so much."
The 'a-ha!' moment: inspiration is out there!
SOFII is a free, online resource for fundraisers that’s bursting with ideas, examples and advice to help you change the world. Take a look at the articles above, or have a wander into the vaults yourself: SOFII · The Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration
5) Your mission, should you choose to accept it…
In the spirit of learning from each other, the Summit drew to a close with some friendly competition. Intrepid teams took on their mission: to create a brand new idea for improving the supporter experience at a fictional organisation, with fictional supporters, and very real challenges.
Featuring curveballs, campaigns, and a spontaneous ice-cream break half-way through, every team made it to the end with a bold and inspiring pitch for nurturing the feelings of commitment, satisfaction and trust that drive loyalty and long-term income.
The 'a-ha!' moment: think BIG to wow your supporters.
We challenged attendees to think BIG, and you can do the same. What is your biggest, most radical idea to truly WOW your supporters?
By unleashing your creativity and stepping back to look at the bigger picture, you can find inspiration for ideas that are much closer to home. You may not be able to deliver a free Harry Styles concert (one of the ideas from the Summit!) anytime soon, but you could tap into something which creates similar feelings of surprise and delight - community singalong, anyone…?
“I had a great experience at the Supporter Experience Summit and found the day both engaging and insightful. The sessions, activities and discussions provided plenty of valuable ideas and practical takeaways that I’m already reflecting on.” - Marie-Emilie Ekombolo, Humane World for Animals
In conclusion: if you do one thing differently…
At the Supporter Experience Summit, everyone had a chance to commit to one action they would take to improve their supporter experience. What will yours be?
There will always be a to-do list longer than your desk, and it can be easy to let stewardship slide to the bottom of the pile But if you do just one thing differently tomorrow, it should be this: measure how your supporters feel.
When you measure something, you change it – and it changes you. By creating a measure for supporter experience at your organisation, you’re saying that this matters.
And it does matter - because better experiences for supporters means more income, more impact, and more positive change in the world.
