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A new creative face for Pareto Fundraising

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Media Release 2 November 2009

Pareto Fundraising is pleased to announce the recent appointment of Rob James as Creative Director. As the creative face of the agency, Rob brings expertise in all areas of the creative process including TV, print, direct mail and design.

Starting his career working in the commercial sector, Rob has spent the past decade working with, and being committed to creating relevant, innovative and successful fundraising campaigns for both NGO’s and not-for-profits. As well as generating impressive results for his clients, his work has received wide industry recognition, including a MADC award and being named a New York Festival finalist, as well as receiving a number of Prime awards.

COO Jim Hungerford says “At Pareto Fundraising, we are incredibly successful and passionate about increasing the not-for-profit sector’s fundraising capacity. I’m very pleased to be able to say that Rob James shares this passion and commitment.

His flair for bringing digital and broadcast media into campaigns, and his ability to rapidly generate compelling fundraising programs that are integrated across channels, is complemented by his very clear focus on what really matters – raising more money for charities so that they can help more beneficiaries around the world.”

Rob most recently held the position Creative Director and Partner at fibreOgilvy whose clients include Red Cross, Diabetes Australia, Disability Services Australia and Yothu Yindi Foundation.

Rob adds “I feel very privileged to be asked to join Pareto Fundraising, a company driven by passion, integrity and expertise. I look forward to bringing my creative skills to develop effective, integrated fundraising campaigns that will generate greater income for charities we work with”

Rob honed his skills in advertising before focusing on fundraising, having worked with a variety of agencies ranging from boutique to large multi-national agencies. His experience gives him complete understanding of the energy and commitment needed to drive the creative process and achieve the overall objectives of each campaign.

For more information about the creative solutions Pareto Fundraising can offer to help your organisation achieve visit www.paretofundraising.com

Ends

For further information please contact Justine Mathieson at Justine.mathieson@paretofundraising.com or 02 8823 5800.

Posted in News, Pareto Talk, Press Release | No Comments »

Bad information hurts charities

Thursday, October 29th, 2009
By Sean Triner.

An article in an Australian newspaper has caused a bit of a media storm with the Fundraising Institute Australia CEO being interviewed on lots of radio and TV stations.

The article, by journalist Dan Flitton in The Sydney Morning Herald Newspaper has a terrible headline “Charities hand over up to 95% to street marketers” and not much better in sister paper, The Age – “Paying to collect the charity dollar”.

The body of the article is not incorrect, but it really doesn’t give enough information for potential donors to make a decision and the language is terrible: “… Cornucopia takes a cut – a big cut, up to 95 per cent of the total donation collected in the first year…”

Cornucopia are a fundraising firm that recruit and train staff who represent charities on the street. ‘takes a cut’ is pretty negative language for what is a paid for service. The 95% fees is not all profit – it goes to pay for transport, training, wages, admin, materials and more.

And of course, the donors stay with the charity for years, will upgrade, do other things and some may eventually leave money in their will. The charity gets a great return with total costs probably closer to 25 per cent over the years.

I very much doubt Dan Flitton is a bad person. He would appear to be genuinely curious but hasn’t got all the information. I imagine he would be gutted to know that his article has probably cost charities hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why?

Well, he mentions Amnesty International, Red Cross, Oxfam, MSF and Fred Hollows. Five fantastic charities doing amazing work, and raising millions of (net) dollars from F2F that otherwise wouldn’t be there.

It is possible that a few donors will cancel – not many I hope, but some may. But more significantly, some staff within charities will call for their organisation to suspend (I can almost hear the ‘until the media storm dies down’) – or even stop – doing it.

The consequence, however you look at it, will be a huge loss of money. Ironically, some could still have to pay costs for fundraising activity already committed, but cancelled. So they will be paying money out for nothing – much worse than 25 per cent over four years. Less money for crucial services including life-saving work and a direct consequence of this article and headline.

It won’t stop there. Boards and CEOs of charities have not usually the time or inclination to really get to understand more about the intricacies of fundraising techniques and will react badly to this media. Professional fundraisers may have spent hourson research, modelling and contract negotiations only to have it vetoed by concerned boards. The consequence – much, much less money for their cause.

I am not an advocate of fundraise at all costs, but F2F is no worse in effectiveness than any other significant strategic technique – it just looks worse because the cost of staff is out-sourced. There are no other strategic methods that deliver such a huge return for charities over the long term at the same volume.

Transparency for charities is important, but the famous Otto von Bismark quote ‘Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made’ comes to mind. Not because we should hide fundraising costs, but more because it is so complex to explain. As Peter Singer in ‘The Life You Can Save’ explains, cost effectiveness of fundraising and admin is NOT a good indicator of the effectiveness of a charity’s work.

The volunteer that comes on and says ‘I have been doing this for free for 20 years’ sounds so much nicer than the backpacker getting paid a little over minimum wage. But there are not enough volunteers to go around; volunteer fundraising simply can’t add enough money to come anywhere near to meeting the need.

Comments welcome!

Posted in Pareto Talk, Sean Triner Blog | No Comments »

Ten tips for successful grant seeking

Friday, October 16th, 2009
By James Huitson

Time for a voyage into the nerdy world of Foundation grant seeking and into a very unglamorous area of fundraising. Not for us the glitzy world of ball gowns and auctions or the cut and thrust of copy, design and creative.

However, Trusts and Foundations are an important part of the overall fundraising mix and your organisation should be working hard to get your maximum potential from them. And there is potential – where else in the fundraising universe do you find bodies whose main purpose is to give money away?

To a certain extent there is money for everyone – though as ever some causes will be more widely supported than others, but as someone who has raised money from Foundations for drug and alcohol abuse, young offenders and mental health I know it is possible to get cash for a cause however seemingly unpopular.

So, what are my top ten tips?

Well they are slightly undermined by a maxim I heard from a Canadian grant maker whose words were I fear very true. It is “when you know one foundation, you know one foundation”, they are filled with the same oddities and idiosyncrasies as anything else, but I do think there are some pointers that cover most eventualities. So here goes:

1. Research

This is number one for a very good reason. A scattergun approach to making applications won’t work – and worse it will annoy all the people you send unfundable applications to.

Don’t listen to anyone who says you have to get x number of applications out a week. It is about understanding who is most likely to fund you and using your resources accordingly.

Many foundations have clear guidelines and giving histories on their websites, other charities publish their supporters, many countries have specialised directories and even the tax office can help you work out what they are interested in. If your aim is to conserve the three legged Siberian whistling mole, then do not apply to a Foundation that only funds women’s health in Darwin.

2. Understand their finances

Depending on how nerdy you are, this is either fascinating or insomnia curing.

Find out how much money the Foundation have to give away and ask appropriately. If you can see that they have given 99 percent of their income for the last ten years to the same three charities, maybe you shouldn’t ask them straight out for $1 million bucks. Similarly, if they can give away $100,000 and you need that much, don’t ask them for $500.

3. Exit

Although a Foundation may support you for years, by and large they are wary of entering into an open ended commitment to you and will want to know what is going to happen to your work when their grant ends. You need to have some idea, either of how you shut it all down responsibly or where you will get replacement money from.

4. Answer all the questions

If you are lucky enough to be applying to a Foundation with an application form, then you know what it is they need to know.

They will have asked for a reason, answer all the questions and make sure you do them all with appropriate effort – no ducking the ones about finances, progress and exit for a super long section on why your work is important. Incidentally use applications forms for guidance on what Foundations are interested in to help you frame applications to those with no set guidelines.

5. Don’t lose money doing it

Foundations are often lovers of the special project and funding a specific piece of work of a set period of time is one of their favourites.

When you are preparing your budget, don’t forget to add in management costs, recruitment costs, the photocopier and such. The Foundation may well moan, however if you don’t cover the actual costs of operating a particular piece of work you will ultimately ruin your organisation.

6. Leave enough time

Unless you know them very well, or if you are riding on the tide of a tsunami style global catastrophe, you need to ask well in advance.

Foundation’s typically only make grant decisions four times a year – and often it is less. You should plan at least 6 months and ideally much longer in advance.

7. Understand your environment

What happens if you are the Australian Friend of the Three Legged Siberian Mole Foundation? You end up knowing a lot about them, all the organisations helping them, what they doing and what works.

Don’t forget that grant givers get loads of applications and the narrower their focus, the more likely these applications are for broadly the same things. You need to know what makes your charity stand out and what similar organisations are doing – and ideally how it all fits together.

8. Know what you are trying to achieve

If you are asking someone to invest a large amount – or to be honest even a small amount – of money with you, then you need to expect that they will want to know what you are trying to achieve, why you think your approach to achieving it will work and how you will measure your progress and outcomes.

9. Build Relationships

However much there is a fixed application process with forms, assessments and scoring systems, somewhere in the process there is a person – who may or may not like you.

Do your best to find out what interests them and their trustees.

Keep them updated on your work even when you are not after their money.

Be the person that helps them out and sends them interesting and relevant information not the person sending in the irrelevant application.

10. Report back

I have been told that a disturbingly high number of people who get grants never say thank you and that an even higher number ever provide the requested update and progress reports.

They have been exceedingly kind to you, so show some appreciation and keep them up to date with your progress – even if things have gone horribly wrong.

More pragmatically, you will probably want them to carry on supporting you which they are far more likely to do if they believe in your organisation’s credibility.

About the writer

James Huitson is Pareto Fundraising’s director for South East Asia. Pareto Fundraising have been working in Hong Kong for just over two years and have achieved remarkable results for its Hong Kong clients. Before joining Pareto Fundraising, James was UK charity Turning Point’s director of fundraising and developed and lead a fundraising team that raised considerable amounts of money from the UK central government, trusts, foundations, companies and the national lottery.

Posted in News, Pareto Talk, Trusts and Foundations | No Comments »

Digging deep to get a true sense of whose really providing the most value

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

By Jonathan Grapsas
This article was first published in Canadian Fundraiser Magazine

It simply isn’t acceptable as a fundraiser to not truly understand where your money really comes from.

I often hear conversations like this.

Freddy Fundraiser – “Hey, we’ve just did a prospect mailing which did really well. We got a two per cent response overall and one of the lists got a five per cent response! One of the lists we trialed however bombed and only got a one per cent response so we’re canning that one”

Fiona Fundraiser – “That’s great. Sounds like a success. Can you tell me which list got the five per cent response as I might just use the same one for my next prospect mailing?”

What’s wrong with this conversation? On face value a five per cent response from a prospect list is darn good, right? Surely that list is better than the 1 per cent one?

Not necessarily.

The problem is response rate is just one in a number of measures we should be looking at. Time after time when I talk to people about this sort of stuff they typically look at three metrics: response rate, average gift level and the cost to acquire.

Which are useful, but they don’t provide the full picture.

You see the problem with what Freddie Fundraiser is doing is looking purely at how someone has behaved in the first instance. What Freddy hasn’t factored in is the subsequent behavior of that group of five per cent of donors who responded.

How many of them go on to make subsequent gifts and what level?

How many of them upgrade their giving and/or donate in other ways (I.e. if they initially gave a onetime cash gift, how many went on to become monthly donors)?

Not to mention was there any rollout potential in this list? If the list has 1,000 records in total then frankly there are bigger fish to fry than going back to the same, tiny pool again.

But the key here is the net value that a group delivers for you. I’d argue that Freddy should look over a period of time, factoring in all costs (recruitment and ongoing), what net value this group delivers.

If only 20 per cent of donors recruited from the so called ‘better’ performing (five per cent) list ever give again and their average gift is just $10 will they actually deliver any net return at all?

And if the ‘poor performing’ one per cent response list delivers a 50 per cent second gift rate (of which half become monthly donors), an average gift of $50 and an average life span of 10 years, surely when you do the math their net value will be higher? Of course it will.

The point is, look at value, not just cost to acquire and the number of people you get through the door. These measures alone will give you a false picture of how you’re doing.

I’ve focused here on an example specific to direct mail, but looking at real value over time works across all channels. And I am working with clients now to dig really deep to get a clear picture of what’s working for them in terms of acquisition.

Right now it’s about smarter, not less, acquisition.

Contact Pareto Fundraising if you would like to commision a data analysis, it will help you prioritise, so that you can make the most of your budget.

About the writer

Jonathon Grapsas heads up Pareto Fundraising’s North American division and is a data geek of sorts. As a leading fundraising practitioner, Jonathon’s particular area of strength is helping charities develop ways to get their donors to take some form of action. His track record in delivering real growth in his clients fundraising programs is outstanding, as is his ability to motivate and inspire fundraisers to make real change.

You can contact Jonathon at jonathon.grapsas@paretofundraising.com or on +1 416 915 4114.

Posted in Canadian Fundraising and Philanthropy, Data Insights, Pareto Talk | No Comments »

How looking around at others can raise you shed loads more money for your cause

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

By Jonathan Grapsas
This article was first published in Canadian Fundraiser Magazine and is part two of a four part series

I introduced last time the notion of arming yourself with three types of data (environmental, analytical and personal data) to make informed decisions to grow your fundraising programme.

The first I’m going to touch on in detail is the use of environmental data, in other words scanning what’s happening in the marketplace and how you can learn from others to raise more money.

There is a lot of environmental data out there to access.

You can look at annual reports from other charities to see how individual organizations are performing or look at information produced from bodies like Imagine Canada to see where money is coming from across the sector.

All free and publically available data, which is incredibly useful to get a sense of what is and isn’t working for different charities across the country.

Then there is benchmarking.

I’m sure that for many, the notion of benchmarking conjures up thoughts of meaningless, dull data and reams of paper full of graphs and charts.

And whilst there is some element of truth to this, I see benchmarking as one of the most powerful fundraising tools in our armory and anything but dull.

The way I look at it benchmarking is about looking at what others are doing and using this information to raise more money for the causes you work for.

Benchmarking studies come in various shapes and sizes. I’m going to focus on what I believe to be the most useful of those, data benchmarking (as opposed to benchmarking surveys that ask you a series of questions rather than look at your real data). In other words, charities looking at the actual data of theirs and other organizations with the intention of learning more about others in order to further their cause.

There are six key reasons why benchmarking is a must for any successful or ambitious fundraising organization.

1. It helps you identify industry trends

When charities share information and look at performance, both on a big picture scale and in minute detail, it arms fundraisers with information about what’s happening in the marketplace.

What’s working, what’s not. What’s driving growth.

This allows you to then make informed decisions about your own efforts, including reaffirming decisions you have made about areas to invest in. Or conversely giving you evidence that an area you have chosen not to bother with was indeed the right call to make.

2. Gives you a sense of your performance vs. the industry

How do you really know whether your fundraising is up to scratch or not? What on earth does 30% retention of cash donors actually mean? Are you sure that having only 0.2% of your file telling you they have left a bequest is low?

Questions we ask ourselves daily.

Benchmarking helps answers these and many other fundraising questions. It gives you a real sense of how you are doing.

The best way to do this is by looking at your data versus the data of other organizations. Of course there is always context. But where the names of the charities are shared and programs, size and budget are put in perspective, this gives fundraisers a true sense of how they are tracking.

3. You share knowledge

As Sara Campbell Mates from WWF Canada says‘… It opens up a dialogue between us as one organization and our colleagues at other organizations about how we can work together to do better and make the sector stronger. The experience in benchmarking has been priceless from that perspective.’

Sara is spot on.

Benchmarking forces fundraisers to talk to each other. Because let’s face it, when we go to conferences and attend workshops, we’re a polite bunch and we also tend to keep to ourselves.

But when you’re looking at Charity A whose retention rate on new monthly giving recruits in miles ahead of yours, you simply HAVE to talk to them. Find out how they’re doing it, what they’re doing differently, what they’ve tested.

This is debatably the most potent feature of any benchmarking project. Really clever people coming together to share not only data, but brilliant ideas. Can only result in great things happening.

4. Provides a better understanding of fundraising

If you’re not using street recruitment to recruit new donors, then how are you going to learn more about the channel? Of course you could talk to an agency; you may even talk to a colleague who did it once, back in 1998.

But what better way of digging deeper and getting the real lowdown on areas you’re not familiar with than to see firsthand organizations who are doing it? And doing it now.

Benchmarking programs, particularly those that are all encompassing and study each area of fundraising allow you to learn, and do so looking at real, live data and not textbooks.

5. Saves you money and helps you get MORE of it

The biggest barrier to measuring yourself is the cost of doing it. The second biggest barrier is a fear or reluctance to share.

Benchmarking is about value, not cost. If you commit to comparing yourselves with others, then you will not only recoup the upfront outlay, but the information it arms you with will allow you to make more informed and strategic decisions. And that can only mean one thing: more dollars raised.

6. Reduces complacency

Often overlooked as a reason to measure one’s self, yet incredibly important. Benchmarking makes us more accountable. And by accountable, I don’t mean justifying “how much of the donors dollar goes to the cause”.

I mean it makes you accountable. It reduces any possible complacency. It pushes you to become a better fundraiser. You sure won’t allow yourself to have the worst monthly giving attrition next year, nor will you allow Charity X (who frankly you find quite smug) to knock you off your bequest perch. Not a chance in hell.

About the writer

Jonathon Grapsas is the Regional Director for Pareto Fundraising in North America. This is the second in a series of articles where Jonathon will look in detail at how you can use different sources of data to help grow your fundraising program and raise shed loads more money for your cause.

Posted in Benchmarking, Canadian Fundraising and Philanthropy, Pareto Fundraising North America, Pareto Talk | No Comments »

Have donors reduced their giving?

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Fiona Paterson, Fundraising Strategy & Data Consultant from Pareto Fundraising takes a look at results from tax time appeals run in Australia looking for trends that can inform our understanding of the current marketplace.

Tax time is the biggest time for cash gift giving in Australia. It’s usually a time to celebrate our biggest appeal of the year. It is also the time of year I am most often asked ‘How are other charity’s appeals doing?’

This year, as a result of low consumer confidence and concern over the impact of the GFC on our donor’s decision making, many fundraisers felt increased anxiety as the end of June and the end of financial year approached.

With Tax appeals often contributing a large proportion of an organisations annual cash income and recent insights from the Pareto Fundraising Benchmarking cooperative showing us high value gifts (those in excess of $1,000) are given predominantly during May and June, we were keen to see what trends could be observed this Tax time.

This year at Pareto Fundraising we worked on, or supported, over 20 tax appeals. Strategies employed, channels utilised and lodge dates varied across charities. This week I have taken a look at preliminary results across our partners hoping to answer the question ‘How are we faring as a sector’?

So what did I see?

  • Around half of charities chose to set targets at or below 2008 actuals. The other half set their targets above 2008 actuals, aiming for growth.
  • Across the charities we collaborated with, income per thousand donors mailed has increased over 2008 levels for one third of the appeals and two thirds have decreased. Increases were between 6 per cent and 69 per cent and decreases were not as extreme, between -4 per cent and -24 percent^. This is reflected in the results of the Pareto Fundraising Benchmarking members, where 14 charities have participated in a comparison of appeal results and one third saw an increase (13 per cent to 233 per cent) in income per thousand over 2008 and two thirds were down (-1per cent to -38 per cent).
  • Response rates have varied widely. The impact of a change in targeting strategy (usually decreasing mailing volumes), a change in ask strategy (usually from soft to specific) and the maturity of the data file (in particular files where the cash giving base is not being refreshed with new donors) has seen many go up and some go down but no discernable trends, or difference from 2008.

Average gifts presented no clear trends either, from a -28 per cent decrease to an impressive top increase of 77 per cent. The majority of increases can be arbitrarily attributed to a change in ask strategy and many of the larger decreases are the result of a decline in the number of high value gifts (with a handful of lower value gifts or non-responses from this group of donors having a big impact on overall average gift compared to 2008. Overall, there were two distinct groups of donor bases with two distinctly different outcomes.

The two groups

Group One – predominantly cash donor bases, first tax appeal working in collaboration with Pareto Fundraising.

The experience with these appeals shows us that despite the GFC there is room in many donor bases to grow. Across the board these appeals have exceeded results from 2008, increasing income substantially, by an average of 104 per cent, over 2008 income (i.e. they doubled their tax income in 2009!).

This outcome was reflected across the benchmarking group as well where all predominantly cash based charities saw increases in their income over 2008.

Why?

The implementation of a combination of the following strategies has allowed these charities to maximise response rates, increase average gifts and minimise contact volumes.

  • Applying a segmentation model based on previous giving behaviours
  • Using this segmentation model to identify those most likely to respond to a cash ask at Tax time
  • Using individual, previous gift levels to make personalised ask s (as opposed to a one size fits all strategy)
  • Repeatedly asking donors directly for a cash gift (and nothing else)
  • Using a strong case study to represent the need and telling a clear story presenting the solution and how the donor can be part of this
  • Presenting an income target required to implement the presented solution and using a deadline to encourage prompt response
  • Employing a follow up approach to non-responders, asking again against the target
  • Focusing effort on the top 20 per cent of donors (with a variety of high touch, personalised approaches)

The next challenge for these organisations will be to ensure continued commitment from their cash donors – with regular giving conversion being explored by most as a reliable strategy for identifying more committed donors. Our experience has seen that strong cash response provides the best prospecting ground for regular giving conversion (i.e. active cash donors are your best regular giving prospects).

Group Two – programs focused on regular giving, donor base a mix of regular givers and (declining) cash donor volumes.

Many of our charity partners, and the benchmarking group, have focused their fundraising strategy on the recruitment and conversion of regular givers (as this is the number one growth funding stream in the marketplace today and is delivering substantially higher income than the majority of cash only giving programs).

The result of this strategy is a diverging base of committed regular givers and left over cash donors (people who have chosen not to convert to regular giving). The majority of regular giving recruitment strategies see limited new cash donor recruitment and the outcome of regular giving conversion strategies sees the most committed cash donors convert to a regular gift.

The outcome is that the most engaged cash donors convert to regular giving, more regular givers are recruited in addition and the cash only donor pool starts to dwindle through natural attrition and donor resistance to commit.

A good proportion of cash donors who convert to regular giving will continue making cash gifts when asked and regular givers recruited through direct mail, phone and online can be approached for cash gifts successfully^^.

The outcome this tax time has been stability, and in many cases, growth in the cash giving from these donors (regular givers with previous cash giving behaviours).

It is the cash only donors that present a concern. Response rates and/or average gifts are not hitting targets for many charities. Lower response or average gifts from middle and low value donors coupled with lower response or decreased gift value from high value donors has seen income from some charities dip below 2008 levels and for others simply maintain, due to improved performance from cash gifts given by their committed regular givers.

In all cases the strategies described above for Group One have been employed by these causes for several years, indicating the opportunities described for the first group have already been taken advantage of.

For charities in this group, those that saw growth over 2008 were able to maintain their cash pool giving (usually through the behaviour of new cash recruits) whilst maximising income from regular givers who also give cash.

If you aren’t acquiring new cash donors and are therefore reliant on a shrinking pool of cash donors you may well be feeling the effects of less committed giving from these donors this tax time. If you have increased the giving opportunities for donors this year it would be worth looking to see if your donor’s normal giving has simply been transferred to another method of giving. For example, have some given online at tax time when they normally give via direct mail because you sent email reminders or promoted online as a response channel?

Understanding the impact that regular giving conversion has on the makeup of your donor base is key to predicting future behaviour of your left over cash donors. If you have a regular giving program and aren’t asking your regular givers for cash, then^^^ considering this approach is an opportunity for growth.

Armed with these insights, my focus now is on ensuring future appeal targeting takes these observations into account, that strategies and income expectations for cash donor pools within regular giving focused strategies are refined, that strategies are reflective of the need for high value donors being given the most effort, and lastly helping those charities yet to venture in to regular giving, to get their programs going.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

^ I have used income per thousand donors mailed as a way to address the variation between volumes mailed between charities and I have compared against 2008 levels because each charity employs a different approach for setting targets.

^^I have seen limited success in asking face-to-face recruited regular givers for cash through the mail (though using a considered test approach can help you uncover those face-to-face recruits who may be responsive through the mail) but don’t discount the opportunity to test using other channels to approach for additional cash gifts. Proposition is key as is appropriateness of how, when and what you ask for.

^^^Asking regular givers for additional cash gifts will not impact on your attrition if handled appropriately. Using a long-term approach to developing a relationship with your regular givers, and respecting their regular gift as the most important way they support you is essential.

About Fiona Paterson

Fiona is a Fundraising and Direct Marketing professional with over ten years experience helping to find, keep and grow donors through the expert management of strategic fundraising and database marketing programs. Enthusiastic and passionate about data, Fiona has a solid background delivering successful fundraising programs globally for clients including ChildFund Australia, Children’s Cancer Institute of Australia, MSF Hong Kong, Leprosy Mission New Zealand and WWF-Australia.

Posted in Benchmarking, Data Insights, News, Pareto Talk | No Comments »

Is your privacy statement standing in the way of new donors?

Friday, July 31st, 2009

In the February 09 edition of Pareto Talk, Sean Triner wrote about the important financial benefits of trading your donor lists with other charities. It’s a very simple and extremely cost-effective way of gaining access to potential new supporters.

Yet many charities are simply not in a position to take advantage of the lucrative reciprocal mailing services we offer. Why? Because the wording of their privacy statements stands in the way of them legally passing on their supporters’ details to other charities.

Sean’s article included an example of what a privacy statement that allowed for reciprocal mailing might look like. Here it is again, with a few tweaks that take into account feedback we have since received:

Finding more people such as yourself to help (xxx according to charity) is incredibly important. Occasionally we’d like to work with other charities who are involved in the environment, animal welfare, the arts, human rights, health and welfare, medical research or international aid. We’d like to allow them to write to you in return for them allowing us to write to their supporters. These charities would only keep your contact details if you respond to them. If you are happy for us to do this now but change your mind in the future, you may let us know and we’ll note this on your record. Alternatively, you may choose to tick this box now and we will not pass your information on to any friends of (charity name).

In the previous example Sean gave, it cited that details would be shared with ‘like-minded parties’. We’ve since been made aware this isn’t detailed enough, and the actual types of organisations need to be listed (as per the above example).

As you’ll be aware, it’s important that your mailings comply with the National Privacy Principles, so we recommend that you have your privacy statements checked by a lawyer.

In sum, make sure your privacy statement is compliant, is working for you and is not standing in your way of acquiring more donors.

For more about the dos and don’ts of list swapping, and how Pareto Fundraising can help you arrange your reciprocal mailings email us at canyouhelp@paretofundraising.com

Posted in Pareto Talk, Supporter Relationship Management | No Comments »

The most powerful fundraising tool in the world

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

By Sean Triner, Co-founder and Director, Pareto Fundraising and Pareto Phone

Understanding donors

The most important asset a fundraising organisation has is its database of supporters. But only if it is actually recording useful information.

Luckily, most organisations record main contact details plus transactions. In other words, you know where someone lives, hopefully you have their phone number and email address and you know how much they donated and when.

Basic analysis of this data can help you predict how likely people are to donate to you and how much. If communications that have been sent are also analysed you can even work out what donors are most likely to respond to, too.

This basic data is crucial for making a basic direct marketing program work. But to make charity direct marketing fly we need to build relationships, and we do that through respecting our donors and their wishes. And we do that by using the most powerful fundraising tool ever – the survey.

Achieving many goals

This multi-function device, used well, will also help corporate, major donors, events, donor retention and bequests. It can even be used for PR purposes, and it usually makes a profit on its own.

These are real surveys, getting really useful information, they are not scientific research and shouldn’t pretend to be. Even so, be honest with the donor – you want their opinion and to be able to communicate better with them, but you can also share their views with the public.

I have been using this tool for over a decade, at UK mental health charity, Mind, we used them for fundraising and PR. I use them better now, but even in them olden days we were driving better communications, PR and bequest leads. You can see an old press release with donors attitudes to mental health at the turn of the century here.

Short term benefits

Our tests have shown that, despite running a survey to get data including a direct ask does not suppress response. In other words, using the survey as an actual fundraising appeal subject works. You should aim to break even but what we have found is that when a survey is sent to donors who have responded to a previous appeal through the post, the survey actually makes a profit.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has been using surveys as an integral part of its donor communications strategy for some time now. Their first survey was mailed to over 25,000 donors and nearly one in four responded – half with a gift. They not only received a ton of useful information but made a $50K ‘profit’ as well.Information taken from the surveys is then reflected back to the donors in future communications. For example, if a donor is motivated and interested in climate change, but an appeal is about forests then the letter should be personalised to connect the donors concerns with the subject of the appeal

Medium term

Appeal results and retention can be improved by clever use of survey information, and their completed survey is The Perfect Aide Memoir to take with you with when meeting a major donor. It pretty much tells you what to ask for!

But most charities who use the survey wisely get medium term returns on their regular giving. For example, The Lost Dogs’ Home uses surveys to gather pet names. It has found that this is crucial for building relationships. They include personalisation in appeal letters mentioning the donors pet name:

adandoned-dogs-text

But they also use it in phone conversations with donors. When asking donors to increase their monthly gifts, known as ‘upgrade calls’ our caller asks after the health of the donor’s pet. The Pareto Phone team compared the upgrade success rate of donors we spoke with where we knew pet name against those where we had no pet name. The results are extraordinary:

bilbo

And the long term

Already surveys have proven their worth. You can see how using them for donor care, appeals and upgrades can work really well, and make them a useful part of the mix. But the biggest return comes from bequests. Specifically using surveys to generate bequest leads.

Because fundraisers don’t kill people, the best measure a bequest fundraiser has to monitor their performance is a count of people who have mentioned the charity in their Will. We call these ‘confirmed bequestors’.

By asking the right questions, we can identify these and also bequest ‘prospects’ – i.e. those most likely to become confirmed bequestors.

A well thought through approach ‘burying’ the bequest question in a survey obliterates any other method of bequest marketing I have ever seen. For example, Australian National Heart Foundation had seven full time equivalent bequest officers working traditional bequest marketing techniques for seven years to get around 1,500 confirmed bequests. A brilliant achievement and potentially worth $75m, so producing a huge return on investment.

But a year of surveys with follow up mail and phone acquired another 1,500. The charity now uses a combination of both techniques to drive more bequests.

And the surveys keep working. The Lost Dogs’ Home now has over seven percent of active financial supporters having put the charity in their Will (three percent of ALL donors). You would expect the number of bequest leads to decline each year (since you ‘caught’ them the previous year) and it does, but the survey still generates more leads and more money every year as illustrated in the below table.

warm-survey-results

A word of warning

Don’t rush out and do surveys without ensuring you can follow them up, record the results and actually use the data in communications with your donors.

It is not as easy as just writing a survey – a good survey needs a great cover letter, it asks questions that help you understand what motivates your donors (avoid questions like ‘how many times they like to be mailed?’), a bequest conversion pack and trained people to follow up leads. And remember, a bequest lead from a survey is only ‘hot’ for a few weeks with conversion success dropping off dramatically the longer you leave it.

About Sean Triner

Sean Triner is co-founder and director of the internation Pareto Groups of companies, one of Australia’s most dynamic fundraising and marketing agencies with offices in Australia, New Zealand, North America and Hong Kong. Never afraid to cause controversy, Sean is a popular presenter at some of the world’s best known conferences including IFC in Amsterdam, FIA, IWRM and DMAW.

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Is China fundraising’s last great frontier?

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

By James Huitson, Regional Director South East Asia

Lots of people seem to think so. There is a population of 1.3 billion and rising, it has a rapidly emerging middle class, it has even created vast cities out of villages in only a few years. However, there are some significant barriers – the largest being that unless you are registered in China, a process which is virtually impossible it is simply not allowed.

This means that the INGOs – and charity suppliers like Pareto Fundraising – are gathering in the Pearl River delta and looking over the border from Hong Kong and waiting. Regulation is supposed to be relaxing in Greater China and while they wait, they are also learning – work out how to fundraise successfully in Hong Kong goes the theory, and you will be well placed for China.

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Australian Bushfire Disaster

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

By Sean Triner, Co-founder and Director, Pareto Fundraising and Pareto Phone

Australia has experienced what is likely to be our worst peacetime disaster, with a death toll expected to be over 200 as a result of the fires that ravaged parts of Victoria. With many homes being destroyed and some towns razed to the ground, it has been a devastating week for all Australians, especially those in the towns and communities directly affected by the fires.

We are used to bush fires here, they are part of the natural cycle of our forests and many species need fire to propagate. But we are not used to people dying. Although small in scale, compared to many foreign disasters, it is very difficult to put a relative comparison to any human tragedy. Already Australians have generously donated $28 million dollars due largely to the heart wrenching stories reported by the media.

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