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A personal fundraiser

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

By Sean Triner, Co Founder of Pareto Fundraising and Pareto Phone

For my 40th birthday I decided to forego presents, and reduce stress on my friends wondering what to get me. So I decided to fundraise for Women’s health charity – my birthday is on International Women’s Day.

Since I am a fundraiser for a living, I wanted to do this right and also work with a charity who would ring-fence the money raised for fundraising purposes, and follow up the donations with good donor care.

My Plan:

1) Choose a charity
2) Create an EveryDay Hero page
3) Use my blog, Facebook and Twitter to market it
4) Market direct to my personal contacts
5) Thank donations
6) Charity to follow up

Choosing a charity

A while back I had done some work with the Marie Stopes Foundation. A great charity, working in women’s health – especially sexual and reproductive health. I love the work they do and visited a project in Fiji. I also knew my $4,000 target would have a big impact and that it can be a difficult area for fundraising.

Creating an EveryDay Hero page

An easy process. It took about 20 minutes including uploading a couple of photos and it is all self explanatory. There are other fundraising websites like this such as Just Giving in the UK and Artez in North American and Australia.

Not that keen on the fact that there is no space to summarise the appeal, nor the fact that they don’t take AMEX (AMEX holders tend to be more generous – they are good customers and they like to use their AMEX cards. Many people don’t accept them because of higher charges – this is bad donor care. I didn’t realise until too late or I would have used another provider).

Check out the page here. Fundraisers need to remember that EveryDay Hero is the mechanism for donating. It will raise $0 if it is not marketed properly.

Posting on social media

I put up a simple blog, then a better one when I got a case-study. Also Twittered about it and put on Facebook.

The simple blog got in $220 within a couple of days, then nothing.

The more advanced blog has just gone up.

Direct Marketing

Over 95% of the income was generated through email and phone calls. I remembered my old events fundraising days, and that with sponsor forms it is really important to get the top contributors first.

So I went approached the people that I thought would donate a higher level ie over $100. These were people close to me, and earners. Nine have given so far averaging $152 each.

After that I sent emails to about twenty other friends and fundraising gurus.

When a decent average, and high ‘spread’ of donations were on the form to act as prompts, I then emailed all Pareto staff (60 emails – mail merged and emailed separately with slightly different version for senior managers).It is worth learning how to mail-merge to email rather than putting everyone in the To: box, or emailing yourself and putting them in the BCC: box.

Thanking

An automated thank you goes from EveryDay Hero, but in addition I recommend that you drop people a personal note as well, when the notification comes in.

Charity to follow up

Donors can choose whether the charity is notified of their details. If they supplied them, they would have wondered about what happens next. What should happen next is the charity also thank.

Donors should be thanked by the charity as their donations come in.

Also, just before the end of the campaign they should thank again – updating the donor on where we are up to with the campaign, telling them another story and asking if they would encourage friends to donate. In my case, around 1 March would be ideal.

Immediately after the campaign – in my case around the 9 March – another email should go to donors thanking them, telling them the result of the campaign, asking donors to sign up to a regular gift. You should ask for between 20% and 30% per month of whatever they donated. So a $250 donor should be asked for between $50 and $75 per month.

Next

Don’t forget the donors and the fundraiser. Ask the fundraiser themselves to become a regular monthly donor and make sure you stay in touch with the donors.

Finally

Visit this site, have a look around and please make a donation.

© Pareto Fundraising

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

Introducing our newest recruits: Account Directors Sarah Bedenoch and Stefanie Kessler

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Media Release 13 January 2010

Pareto Fundraising is pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Badenoch and Stefanie Kessler, two new Account Directors to be based in our Sydney Office.

COO Jim Hungerford says “Sarah and Stefanie will be a great asset for Pareto Fundraising. They bring with them a wealth of experience and are passionate about increasing the fundraising capacity of our clients, something that is central to the beliefs and values within our organisation.”

Sarah is a senior marketing executive with broad commercial and agency experience. Most recently she has been Head of Marketing for Aon Consulting; with previous roles in customer retention, customer relationship management and marketing communications; along with seven years’ of agency experience including time at Rapp Collins/DDB Australia.

She has had significant experience during this time working for not-for-profit organisations, however it was her recent experience on an advisory board for the National Breast Cancer Foundation that convinced her to make the leap to Pareto Fundraising.

Stefanie joins Pareto Fundraising as of 1st February. Stefanie has fantastic fundraising and management experience having worked with Greenpeace Australia, Wateraid UK and the Sydney 2002 Gay Games.

A particular claim to fame of hers is the dramatic results she has achieved in Greenpeace’s donor retention, where she reduced the attrition among their first-year donors from an already-respectable 25 percent to a stunning 16 percent.

Ends

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

Posted in Pareto Talk, Press Release | No Comments »

2009 festive photo competition winners announced

Friday, December 25th, 2009

Media Release 4 January 2010

The winner of Pareto Fundraising’s 2009 Festive Photo Competition, in which entrants uploaded a festive photo that inspired their friends and colleagues to vote for the entrant’s favourite charity have been announced. The first prize donation of AU$2000 was awarded to Hamlin Fistula International, an organisation dedicated to restoring the dignity of thousands of young women.

In a very close second place, CreArte received a donation of AU$500. The wonderful work that CreArte does with the beautiful children of Chile is inspiring. Third place the Kolisko Waldorf School, of the Philippines, received tremendous support as well, and a donation of $AU200 to support the school in its wonderful work.

COO Jim Hungerford comments “It was wonderful to see such passionate support of such wonderful causes expressed through everyone’s photos, votes & comments! Thank you to everyone who has made this such a success and congratulations to all the charities that were supported.”

“With 125 photos and thousands of votes cast, the competition was a great success. In the coming month, a case study will be published focusing on promotional tactics and how entrants encouraged people to engage and vote for their image.”

The competition was set up using social networking tool facebook and was built and administrated by an independent supplier company, Cheddar.

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

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

Posted in Pareto Talk, Press Release | No Comments »

Finding the emotional triggers to increase net income

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

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

Let’s face it, the best relationships you have usually are those with the people you know most about, right? Knowing that your friend really likes a certain football team or particular style of music opens up conversations and dialogue much easier than not knowing this.

There are two main types of personal data, the first is transactional.

Transactional data is the information pertaining to how individuals have actually behaved in the past. How much they have given, how often, what they have responded to. And as mentioned previously, the biggest driver of how someone will behave in the future is what they have done in the past.

So, how do I use this information?

Let’s take a direct mail appeal as an example. How recently and how frequently someone has donated dictates how likely they are to respond. The value of a donor’s previous gift indicates how much they will give in the future.

Really simple but important stuff. Knowing this allows you to then determine not only who you should target for a specific ask, but how much you should ask them for.

If executed correctly, the targeting and ask is the biggest driver for a direct response activity. Yes, telling brilliant and compelling stories is crucial, but ask the wrong people for the right thing or the right people for the wrong thing and your campaign falls over. This is a science, not an art.

The second type of personal data is finding out the real nuggets of information about why people support you. The reason they first supported you, what they think about your work, even if they have had a personal affliction with your cause.

To illustrate the power of getting really personal, contrast these two pieces of copy. Then think about which one you’d prefer to send to your donors and which one you’d prefer to receive for that matter.

“… As someone who has been touched personally by cancer, Jonathon, I’m sure you will agree that we desperately need to find a cure in our lifetime. In fact I know you are particularly interested in the work we are doing looking into the causes of lung cancer which is why I am reaching out to you today with an appeal for $50. I know this is more than you given in the past, but a gift of this size will help provide an hour of world class research which could help find a cure into one of Canada’s biggest killers…”

Versus

“… We really need to look further into the causes of lung cancer to help us find a cure, so please would you consider a gift at this time…”

I know which one I’d prefer.

The first talks to me as an individual, as someone who has been touched by cancer. I’ve been listened to and the information, whilst personal and sensitive, has been played back to me to show they (the organization I support) care. I’ve also been asked to support at a specific level, which has then been tangibly shown to have the potential to make a real difference.

The second makes me feel, well, it doesn’t make me feel anything, other than part of a big group of people who have received this piece.

I want to feel like an individual.

And I can tell you, talking to donors as individuals, be it through using transactional history to ask for an appropriate gift or by replaying back information you have captured on donor’s works.

The transactional history helps boost response, gift levels and income in the short term.

The ‘softer’ data, the ‘emotional triggers’ like why people support you, help in the long run. They help improve retention. Better retention means more active donors to talk to, cultivate and ask. And that means more net income.

Ultimately that means being able to help more of your beneficiaries.

About the writer

Jonathon Grapsas is the Regional Director for Pareto Fundraising in North America. This is the fourth 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

If you would like more information on this please contact Jonathon at jonathon.grapsas@paretofundraising.com or on +1 416 915 4114.

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

Digital Integration: Are charities getting it right

Friday, November 13th, 2009

By Sean Triner
This article was first published in Fundraising and Philanthropy Agenda E-bulletin October edition

This winter, Starlight the Children’s Charity mailed an urgent appeal to its donors telling them about how the financial crisis had hurt their bottom line. The appeal did really well, raising more than double last year’s income.

The appeal was put together as an emergency appeal, taking a couple of weeks from start to finish. Yet despite this time frame, staff still managed to make sure that the mail message was integrated with their website – in particular, their home page.

It still amazes me that a charity can run an appeal or campaign through the mail and / or phone which would usually have a message along the lines of:

  • Here is a problem, a really, important problem (let’s call it problem x)
  • Here is how problem x affected subject y (the case study)
  • Here is what we are wanting to do to fix the problem
  • We really, really need your help to do this
  • This is really, really important
  • Please give now to help solve/alleviate problem x

The recipient of the mailing is motivated, excited, maybe even shocked, but really cares. But what if they misplace the mailing? Chances are they go to the website homepage to find out more . And more often than not there is nothing there about the appeal! No mention of subject y, and problem x is loads of clicks away and doesn’t feature in the search engine…

Not a good look. Now, to be fair, in the real world few donors actually give online – so it hasn’t really mattered that much. But things are changing. Our benchmarking report (comparing data from 23 charities) has shown online solicited donations doubled between 2007 and 2008, and this will probably happen again (at last!) in the next 12 months.

But we also noted a marked increase in offline-solicited online donations. In the Starlight example, over $650,000 was donated in response to the appeal – and about 10% of that came in over the web. In other words, those donors received the appeal and instead of sending a cheque through the post, logged in and donated.

There is still an argument to say that including a web-donation option on a response coupon can decrease the total amount raised (because you send people away from an immediate response option), but this theory needs further testing.

Regardless of this argument, most fundraisers I know haven’t tested this, they just automatically include a web donation link.

Now, if you are writing a letter telling people this is the most important thing in the world they can donate to, and then send them to a web link to donate, there is even more of an imperative that the link and your home page reinforce the urgency of the message.

It should be easy to amend the homepage a bit, have a separate online donation form, and those with a Facebook and Twitter presence need to reflect the campaign too. For now, it won’t cost much, and keeps the website relevant, helps search engine optimisation and should raise a bit. But in the future, with more and more people giving online it is going to be absolutely essential.

Posted in 'The Agitator' Articles, Pareto Talk | No Comments »

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 »

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