I've ranted... errrr blogged quite a lot over the past few months about how things in Canada look and feel pretty much the same as most other places I’ve worked.
I blogged very recently about the fact that in any country that we work in we need to understand the difference between informed versus intuitive decision making.
I wanted to take this a step further and talk specifically about something many organization's are wondering at the moment....
To recruit, or not to recruit...?
I think now is as good a time as ever to be actively looking for new supporters, with a caveat that we need to be smarter about the channels we use to canvass support and who we reach out to.
Check out the blog I posted recently on the Recession watch site and the state of play with street recruitment in North America. In short - the number of people being recruited to a monthly gift on the street is up around 5%!
Anyway I digress.
When analyzing your acquisition efforts, cost per recruit is important. So too is volume (the sheer numbers you are bringing in). Of course there is retention. And let’s not forget average gift values.
But frankly, for me one of the most key measures is the value to date (VTD) of a donor over a period of time. In other words, how much a donor (or group of donors) is giving to you in total over a fixed period, taking into account their subsequent giving behavior. This becomes even more powerful if you can work out the net value, taking into account all costs.
This – VTD - is more important than ever. Research undertaken recently by the guys at bluefrog showed that a chunk (40%) of those surveyed said they were unlikely to start support a new charity in the current climate.
Does this mean stop all acquisition efforts now? No. But it does mean we have to be smarter about those groups we reach out to.
I suggest that as well as looking at VTD that you should consider some donor profile analysis looking at the behavioral insights of your best donors – whether that’s regular donors or onetime cash givers– overlaid with some basic geo-demographic profiling (where they live, age etc) that enables you to look at who really is giving to you and where did they come from. Again this will enable you to identify those channels that will allow you to target like for like donors based on who you already have on file that have historically performed well in terms of their overall VTD.
Sound like a bit of work? It is! But in terms of the long term impact this can have on your recruitment efforts now and post-recession, it will be worth it.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas doesn't end in December
Just a quick posting this morning before I shut the laptop down and start to unwind for a few days.
Whichever part of the world you are I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing holiday break.
But please, all you fundraisers out there, remember the message from my earlier posting on Christmas appeal tips. Your Christmas (end of year/seasonal) appeal doesn’t end in December.
It ends when you fully acknowledge and thank your donors, and just as importantly feedback to them about the impact of their gift on your beneficiaries:
Four tips when writing your thank you letter:
1. Don’t default to using the same thank you letter you used last year, which was the one you used the year before that and so on..
2. Thank, thank and thank again. An easy mantra to live and breathe by. Make sure the words thank you are in the letter. Remember, the letter is about your donor and your beneficiaries, not your organization.
3. Continue the story from the appeal/letter/solicitation the donor responded to in the first place. You shouldn’t be a disjointed organization, the journey for your donors should be seamless and continuing. If you (and I hope you did) talked about a real, human story/case study in your appeal letter than give your donors an update on what’s happened since you last wrote or spoke to them.
4. Give them hope that their support is making a real difference. But let them know their support will be needed this year as much, if not more than ever.
I hope that helps as you begin to think about feeding back on how your donors have helped you. Most importantly don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of making your thank you a dull, generic and bland communication. Stand out from crowd and thank genuinely.
Oh, and remember, a letter should be as long as it needs to be…
Enjoy your break.
Jonathon
Whichever part of the world you are I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing holiday break.
But please, all you fundraisers out there, remember the message from my earlier posting on Christmas appeal tips. Your Christmas (end of year/seasonal) appeal doesn’t end in December.
It ends when you fully acknowledge and thank your donors, and just as importantly feedback to them about the impact of their gift on your beneficiaries:
Four tips when writing your thank you letter:
1. Don’t default to using the same thank you letter you used last year, which was the one you used the year before that and so on..
2. Thank, thank and thank again. An easy mantra to live and breathe by. Make sure the words thank you are in the letter. Remember, the letter is about your donor and your beneficiaries, not your organization.
3. Continue the story from the appeal/letter/solicitation the donor responded to in the first place. You shouldn’t be a disjointed organization, the journey for your donors should be seamless and continuing. If you (and I hope you did) talked about a real, human story/case study in your appeal letter than give your donors an update on what’s happened since you last wrote or spoke to them.
4. Give them hope that their support is making a real difference. But let them know their support will be needed this year as much, if not more than ever.
I hope that helps as you begin to think about feeding back on how your donors have helped you. Most importantly don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of making your thank you a dull, generic and bland communication. Stand out from crowd and thank genuinely.
Oh, and remember, a letter should be as long as it needs to be…
Enjoy your break.
Jonathon
Saturday, December 20, 2008
No time for complacency when securing that 2nd gift
I’ve always been fascinated (sadly) by the effort, or lack of, by many charities around the world at securing a second gift from donors.
Consider this:
• Data I have looked at (through initiatives such as the Pareto Benchmarking study) in countries such as Canada, the UK and Australia shows that charities still recruit far more cash (one-time) cash donors than any other type of gift (including monthly/regular gifts).
• Cash second gift rates vary from around 30%-40%, on average.
• Most charities I know (there are exceptions, of course) don’t have a 2nd gift stream – so once a donor gives their first donation they are thrown into the ‘normal’ donor communications cycle. This herein lies the crux of the problem. Often a donor may not then be solicited for 3-4 months – far too long. Hence why I believe we simply don’t retain more donors. Often it’s done to logistics around getting the data sorted and then managing to include an ask sooner, but that’s a barrier – and I have seen charities overcome this.
Now, if you are recruiting small volumes of donors (say, less than a couple of thousand per year) it makes it somewhat more difficult to justify a separate stream to treat these donors, but if you are recruiting significant volumes, it’s simply madness not to reference these people in a special way in order to get that all important subsequent commitment.
So, enough ranting – some tips on how to improve 2nd gift/retention rates:
1. Test the impact of a feedback (non-ask) letter around 2 weeks after the donor gives their first donation. Purely and simply focused on telling them where their money has gone and thanking them again, telling them how wonderful they are and promising to continue to feedback.
2. Test the time between the initial gift and the subsequent solicitation. Typically somewhere between 3-8 weeks works best, but this will differ for organizations (and may be impacted by the first tip suggested above).
3. Test a cash (one-time) ask as the 2nd gift versus a monthly giving request. But do not mix the two of them. Many organization’s ask for cash throughout an appeal/pack and then include a monthly giving option at the bottom of the response form. This usually suppresses response to the cash ask – it is confusing for donors. If you are not sure about this however, test it.
4. Test the phone v mail. For new recruits I’d suggest phone those you can (over say $25USD) and ‘mop up’ those you can’t phone with a mail ask. But make sure the proposition around monthly giving is strong. Refer my previous posting on getting the monthly ask right.
Bit of a theme coming through here? Test, test and continue to test.
Good luck, and keep me posted with any successes or failures!
Jonathon
Consider this:
• Data I have looked at (through initiatives such as the Pareto Benchmarking study) in countries such as Canada, the UK and Australia shows that charities still recruit far more cash (one-time) cash donors than any other type of gift (including monthly/regular gifts).
• Cash second gift rates vary from around 30%-40%, on average.
• Most charities I know (there are exceptions, of course) don’t have a 2nd gift stream – so once a donor gives their first donation they are thrown into the ‘normal’ donor communications cycle. This herein lies the crux of the problem. Often a donor may not then be solicited for 3-4 months – far too long. Hence why I believe we simply don’t retain more donors. Often it’s done to logistics around getting the data sorted and then managing to include an ask sooner, but that’s a barrier – and I have seen charities overcome this.
Now, if you are recruiting small volumes of donors (say, less than a couple of thousand per year) it makes it somewhat more difficult to justify a separate stream to treat these donors, but if you are recruiting significant volumes, it’s simply madness not to reference these people in a special way in order to get that all important subsequent commitment.
So, enough ranting – some tips on how to improve 2nd gift/retention rates:
1. Test the impact of a feedback (non-ask) letter around 2 weeks after the donor gives their first donation. Purely and simply focused on telling them where their money has gone and thanking them again, telling them how wonderful they are and promising to continue to feedback.
2. Test the time between the initial gift and the subsequent solicitation. Typically somewhere between 3-8 weeks works best, but this will differ for organizations (and may be impacted by the first tip suggested above).
3. Test a cash (one-time) ask as the 2nd gift versus a monthly giving request. But do not mix the two of them. Many organization’s ask for cash throughout an appeal/pack and then include a monthly giving option at the bottom of the response form. This usually suppresses response to the cash ask – it is confusing for donors. If you are not sure about this however, test it.
4. Test the phone v mail. For new recruits I’d suggest phone those you can (over say $25USD) and ‘mop up’ those you can’t phone with a mail ask. But make sure the proposition around monthly giving is strong. Refer my previous posting on getting the monthly ask right.
Bit of a theme coming through here? Test, test and continue to test.
Good luck, and keep me posted with any successes or failures!
Jonathon
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Informed v intuitive decision making
I've just returned to Toronto from a mini road trip to Ottawa and Vancouver.
As always I met loads of interesting people, particularly during the two workshops I held in both cities.
What fascinates (interpret frustrates) me of late are comments like this...
"We are cutting back our donor development budget at the moment because of the recession..."
"We are not investing in XYZ because we anticipate a downturn next year..."
"We are not allowed to attend that conference as our training budget has been cut..."
Why do they frustrate me?
Because most of these comments are prefaced by one of either two things:
1 An admission that to date fundraising income (from individuals) has not been affected by the global downturn - in fact most org's I speak to are tracking on par with the same time last year or even seeing an increase
2 They just don't know (I.e. havent looked at data/evidence/facts) and are therefore basing these decisions on intuition/gut feeling/emotion
Now in some instances there are likely very sound reasons for some of the comments I have listed above, but having spoken to (literally) hundreds of fundraisers, board members and Executive Directors over the past few months, most of these decisions have been made without being armed with the right data.
And I am not just talking about data from industry bodies, economists, sites such as the Recession Watch blog - I'm talking about looking at your own data. In fact I blogged about this very topic a few months back on Professional Fundraising's blog series.
So the message for the day: arm yourself with real data before making what could be recession suicide.
Now is not the time for panic and rash decision making, but sensible, pragmatic and supporter focused fundraising.
Jonathon
As always I met loads of interesting people, particularly during the two workshops I held in both cities.
What fascinates (interpret frustrates) me of late are comments like this...
"We are cutting back our donor development budget at the moment because of the recession..."
"We are not investing in XYZ because we anticipate a downturn next year..."
"We are not allowed to attend that conference as our training budget has been cut..."
Why do they frustrate me?
Because most of these comments are prefaced by one of either two things:
1 An admission that to date fundraising income (from individuals) has not been affected by the global downturn - in fact most org's I speak to are tracking on par with the same time last year or even seeing an increase
2 They just don't know (I.e. havent looked at data/evidence/facts) and are therefore basing these decisions on intuition/gut feeling/emotion
Now in some instances there are likely very sound reasons for some of the comments I have listed above, but having spoken to (literally) hundreds of fundraisers, board members and Executive Directors over the past few months, most of these decisions have been made without being armed with the right data.
And I am not just talking about data from industry bodies, economists, sites such as the Recession Watch blog - I'm talking about looking at your own data. In fact I blogged about this very topic a few months back on Professional Fundraising's blog series.
So the message for the day: arm yourself with real data before making what could be recession suicide.
Now is not the time for panic and rash decision making, but sensible, pragmatic and supporter focused fundraising.
Jonathon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)