MULTI-CHANNEL FUNDRAISING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Mike Johnston – HJCSeptember 16, 20107:00 – 9:00AFP/CAGP Vancouver

04/07/2023 proprietary and confidential 2

We are omnivorous…since 1993 cross channel

• What is it?

• Why do it?

• What’s stopping you?

• Online and Direct Mail

• Paper and the Phone

• Text and the Phone

• Online and the Phone

• New York Public Library – using cross channel fundraising to break down silos

• Online and video

• Online and major gifts and legacies: Canada, Mexico, United States

• Culture, structure – the change management challenge!

MULTI-CHANNEL FUNDRAISING

The use of multiple channels (online, direct mail, telephone, mobile) to support one another to raise more money and build better donor relationships

MULTI-CHANNEL FUNDRAISING

Why do it?

GEN Y GEN X BOOMERS MATURES

48% 57% 52% 48%

26% 43% 54% 77%28% 35% 32% 30%

29% 35% 31% 25%

22% 28% 28% 31%

22% 22% 27% 35%25% 27% 17% 12%

8% 10% 16% 25%11% 17% 14% 11%

14% 13% 4% 2%

9% 6% 4% 2%

Checkout Donation

Check by Mail

Gift Shop

Website

Fundraising Event

Honor/Tribute Gift

Third Party Vendor

Phone

Monthly Debit

Mobile/Text

Social Networking Site

52%

49%

32%

31%

27%

26%

20%

14%

14%

8%

5%

Giving Channels% donated this way in last 2 years (total)

Emerging Channels

Peer to Peer

Mail

Email

Social Media

Phone

Text

52%

41%

28%

22%

15%

8%

Solicitation Channel (From charities/nonprofits with established relationship)

% say appropriate solicitation channel (rank ordered by very important –blue) TOTAL GEN Y GEN X BOOMER MATURE

84% 87% 89% 82% 76%

77% 77% 79% 74% 77%

65% 76% 69% 60% 51%

47% 69% 60% 38% 17%

42% 51% 42% 39% 34%

23% 38% 25% 16% 13%

What about Canada?

04/07/2023 proprietary and confidential 10

Always Check Website Before Donation

Gen Y Gen X Boomers Matures0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

19%

11%

6%8%

16%14%

12%

7%

25%24%

19%

14%

21%

25% 25%

22%

14%

21%

33%

42%

Perfectly Very well Pretty well Not too well Not well at all

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Email Address Collection

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Promote Causes Through Email & Social Networks?

• School is an important way in which Gen Y learned about Charity's they support. Mail is important for Civics. All generations learn about charity through media and personal connections.

• All generations think that donating money is the best way they can make a difference but younger generations also think that spreading the word is extremely valuable too. So create more tell-a-friend links.

• School is an important way in which Gen Y learned about Charity's they support. Mail is important for Civics. All generations learn about charity through media and personal connections.

• All generations think that donating money is the best way they can make a difference but younger generations also think that spreading the word is extremely valuable too. So create more tell-a-friend links.

• Quite staggering differences in the feeling between different generations about being contacted for a donation on social media channels. Younger people find it dramatically more acceptable than older people.

• This is the most controversial channel.

• X and Boomers are the biggest supporters P2P. Everyone loves P2P but the charity has to be right too to get a donation - not just about the personal ask.

• It is hard to get phone numbers from people across all age groups. However, people are AS likely to give you there phone number after they have donated as they are after they have taken an advocacy action. So ask!

The web as the glue...

People come 24 hours a day from other channels to your web site… is it ready to take donations most effectively!

Google Browser Lab…www.browsersize/googlelabs.com

The web as the glue...

People come 24 hours a day from other channels to your web site… is it ready to take donations most effectively!

Google Browser Lab…www.browsersize/googlelabs.com

Channel Integration

Offline w/ No Email

Offline w/ Email Online Only Online/Offline

Value/Donor $43 $54 $57 $156

$0 $20 $40 $60 $80

$100 $120 $140 $160 $180

Value/Donor

Multi-channel donors are nearly 3x more valuable than single channel donors.

Source: Defenders of Wildlife Jul08-Jun09

Integration opportunities or threats?

Area One: Direct mail and email

Web Triggers Direct Mail Response

When you received a mail solicitation from a charity, which of the following places on the Internet do you look at before deciding whether to give money

All respondents 2005 2008Look up 25% 44%Do not look up 61% 47%Don’t know/none 13% 10%

2005 2008Org’s web site 19% 37%Independent rating organization

11% 24%

Online discussion group

3% 10%

Blogs 2% 8%

NPT Research: 1,000 calls

If 37% of direct mail donors who get a direct mail solicitation go to the charity’s web site before giving then shouldn’t cross-channel integration look like this?

Press Advertisement

23

Multi-channel integration

Magazine Advertisement

Visitors were asked to fill out petition including mailing address and email…

Direct Mail integration (coordinating messaging)

There were three test cells:

1. Received only mailing2. Received email before the mailing3. Received email after the mailing

Direct Mail integration (coordinating messaging)

Pre-DM

Direct Mail integration (coordinating messaging)

Post-DM

Direct Mail integration (coordinating messaging)

Receive

d only mail

ing

Receive

d email

before

the mail

ing

Receive

d email

after

the mail

ing0

20406080

100120140160180200

107

172

196

DM Integration (with email)

# of petition signers (in hundreds)

# of donations

Response rate (%)

Average Donation (euros)

ROI

29

PAPER CATALOGUE IN SUPPORT OF AN ONLINE SYMBOLIC GIVING CAMPAIGN…

In 2005, an online only symbolic gift catalogue was introduced, it raised approximately $48,000 in its first year.

The second year, a simple catalogue was sent to direct mail donors in November of 2006 introducing them to the symbolic giving catalogue.

It was sent to approximately 10,000 donors and raised an additional $74,180.00

And a comparison of Nov 05 dm donors receiving a holiday appeal without a catalogue the month before vs. the 06 donors who received the catalogue showed a $15,000 reduction in income vs. $74,180 increase – for $59,180 net return on more integrated offline/online approach

Giving Year Giving Channel Number of Donors Percentage

2007/2008Mail GTM Specific

3176

Tracking specifically these 3176 Mail 07/08 GTM donors by channel in 08/09

2008/2009 Online GTM specific39

1.23%

Mail GTM Specific 1073 33.78%

combined both channels GTM specific 1112 35.01%

Giving Year Giving Channel Number of Donors Percentage

2007/2008 Online GTM Specific 400

Tracking specifically these 400 online 07/08 GTM donors by channel in 08/09

2008/2009 Online GTM specific 146 36.50%

Mail GTM Specific 16 4.00%

GTM Specific - both mail online and mail 162 40.50%

Gaza conflict early 2009: Save the Children UK run National press campaign - text support for a ceasefire.

Call to action – text CEASEFIRE’ - pass details onto friends and family .

Campaign goes viral - 182,000 people text - petition taken to Downing Street.

All supporters were called on their mobile phones and prior to the call we had no information (name, address, etc) about these prospects.

USE THE TELEPHONE WITH ONLINE!

Responsibly and strategically

The Phone can be irritating…

“The bathtub was invented in 1850 and the telephone in 1875. In other words, if you had been living in 1850, you could have sat

in the bathtub for 25 years without having to answer the phone”

Bill DeWitt

But it can have power and resonance

“The telephone, which interrupts the most serious conversations and cuts short the most weighty

observations, has a romance of its own”

Virginia Woolf

What do we mean by the telephone?

The phone and online?

0102030405060708090

100

1 2

Perc

enta

ge o

f Goa

l Rai

sed

(%)

1: without call; 2: with call

Percentage of Goal Raised - without and with a call

Percentage of Goal Raised

Further tests…

• A phone test was conducted a second year with online event registrants…

• The test group that received a phone call (2.5 minutes in length) raised $131.42 more than a registrant who did NOT receive a call

Online pledge pages and calling….

Not Called Called $-

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

$700

$800

$900

$1,000

$722.18

$920.09

Yoga In MotionImpact of Calling Participants

Avg. Revenue Per Participant

Action Taken

Aver

age

Reve

nue

($)

Up 27.4%

High touch…high gift amounts…

• 20 board member pages• $237,534 raised ($143,000

by one board member)• Phone used to stimulate,

manage, and help board members with their personal pages

Advocacy & List Growth

• What brought in the largest growth?– Third party emails (over 70%)– Tell-a-friend on action alerts (over 14%)– Banner ads (over 5%)– Facebook ads (over 3%)– Google Adwords (less than 1%)

Advocacy & List Growth

• What had the lowest cost per acquisition?– Tell-a-friend on action alerts– Third party emails– Facebook ads – Banner ads

Advocacy & List Growth

The next step is to call convert these donors. We did not breakout the different online warm lead sources to compare telephone conversion rates.

UK

7.25% conversion to monthly givingNo single donations – not askedAverage gift: $6.5 per month

North America

7% - 12% conversion to monthly givingAverage gift: $15 per month

Fundraising and Mobile...

One million text “votes” in 51 days.

800,000 new contacts

9.65% conversion to monthly giving:

15,388

170,658 called on their mobile

phones

50% converted to monthly giving7.6 million

dollars LTV (over 5 years)

Average gift 3.28 dollars/month

Medécin San Frontiers Austria

5% of total donations to

tsunamiMSF Austria

50% converted to monthly giving60% said YES

50% converted to monthly givingVoice and text

to build relationships

282,000 Euros in single gifts

Médecins Sans Frontières - Austria

TV and mobile phone – Prospect donors

• Spanish prospect donors generated by personalities asking people to send in SMS to demonstrate support

• Prospects called within 7 days (only information is name and number)

• Conversion to monthly giving.

JESÚS VÁZQUEZ, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador

Ringtones from UNHCR

• Over 50,000 downloads • Over 110.000 Euros raised• 8.7 % conversion rate via

telephone conversion call

Source: Francesco Sciacca / UNHCR Spain

51

AIM & CONCEPTTo convert more charity website visitors to new supporters

Optimising your website to generate supporters

Prospective charity

supporters visit and

browse charity website

Software identifies likelyprospect and

when to engage to collect contact

details and permission

Supporter

Prospects are telephoned/contacted at a

later date to convert into a regular giver

Pop up’s – Integrating Web and Telephone

UNICEF Pop Up - Spain

Spanish Results - Childrens Charity

• 25% Positive response• Annual average per donor: 115 euros• 94% monthly donors • ROI 1:2.5

Why we have to get this right...Catholic Relief Services – when someone made a text donation during the Haiti earthquake aftermath they were given a chance to connect to a call centre. The organization believed that “calls could build a stronger bond with donors”. They are right – and we’ve shown you.

Sprint Nextel shut the service down.

Charities need to fight for the FCC to make sure that texts, like telephone calls, cannot be interrupted by phone companies. You can see why it’s important!

Sending a recorded message works too!

Sending a recorded message works too!

•$250 set up

•.05 to .10 cents per message – depending on volume…

• It’s worth testing!

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully”

—Samuel Johnson

Integrated campaign over 44 days, summer 2009

Advocacy Page

• 10,974 emails sent to City Council Members• Over 20,000 written letters sent• Gross revenue $50,058.68 • 1,000 donors• 584 new donors

“The main reason we stopped the cuts was this online campaign. I would be the first to say otherwise, but it's true.”

Results

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKB7zfopiUA

The Library Online

Creating an integrated schedule

What did we learn about making cross-channel work with New York Public Library?

1. Get buy-in at the senior level2. Have departments work together (maybe for the first time)3. Create an integrated team4. Create an integrated goal (with different metrics of success for each department)5. Create an integrated plan6. Matrix reporting structure MAY make sense with individuals temporarily reporting cross-department

I’m going to come back to this at the very end!

Online and Video

Banners and email rentals drove traffic to a landing page that asked people to watch a video and donate…

Banner Email

An acquisition test online:

QuickTime™ et undécompresseur TIFF (non compressé)

sont requis pour visionner cette image.

Bannière Email

page appel à donpage vidéo

Online acquisition that works… our approach

DM test: In the end, the dm appeal found 528 single gift donors, 29 monthly donors and invested 79,000 euros to find those donors.

vs.

Online test: In the end, the online appeal found 256 single gift donors and 62 monthly donors and invested only 4,100 Euros.

04/07/2023 proprietary and confidential 70

All channels together lead to…

1-Oct-0

9

4-Oct-

09

7-Oct-0

9

10-Oct-

09

13-Oct-

09

16-Oct-

09

19-Oct-

09

22-Oct-

09

25-Oct-

09

28-Oct-

09

31-Oct-

09

3-Nov-0

9

6-Nov-0

9

9-Nov-0

9

12-Nov-0

9

15-Nov-0

9

18-Nov-0

9

21-Nov-0

9

24-Nov-0

9

27-Nov-0

9

30-Nov-0

9

3-Dec

-09

6-Dec-0

9

9-Dec

-09

12-Dec

-09

15-Dec

-09

18-Dec

-09

21-Dec

-09

24-Dec

-09

27-Dec

-09

30-Dec

-09

2-Jan-10

5-Jan-10

8-Jan-10

$0

$500

$1,000

$1,500

$2,000

$2,500

$3,000

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Daily Revenue ($) Traffic # of Gifts

Date

Daily

Rev

enue

($)

Traffi

c and

# o

f Gift

s

24/7 E-mail De-ployment

Care2 Action Page

Life 100.3 fm Radio Spots

Life 100.3 fm Banner Placements

Bible Gateway Banner Placements

Facebook AdsGoogle Adwords

All selling at the same time!

04/07/2023 proprietary and confidential 71

Automated tactics to enhance experience

04/07/2023 proprietary and confidential 72

Highlight waysto give

Huge call to action

Highlighted thank you areas

Dynamic changing elements

Integrated Campaigns

Online will be increasingly important for major gifts and legacy giving

Country Legacies revealed

Legacy leads

Canada 15 103

Canada 22 232

United States 52 164

Mexico 9 1,043

Four Legacy Online Surveys

General - Major Donors

General - Prospect

Emergencies

Special Event

WebsiteGrand Total

6 $ 51,303.68

5 $ 130.00

2,425 $ 394,985.27

38 $ 5,602.01

7,729 $ 412,635.22

10,204 $ 864,656.18

Do people make major gifts online?

Proprietary and Confidential

• tracking the impact that sites like Facebook make to fundraising and campaigning

What’s your credit card limit?

And of course…what about social media!

Greenpeace Chile

• Outbound calling for warm leads– 1,510 calls (May-December 2009)

• Inbound calling for warm leads– 503 people filled the form

• Result – ~10% conversion – 193 people converted to paid monthly

donors

Success Factors for Transforming an online and integrated fundraising operation

• Strategic and Tactical development– Integrated multi-channel approach

• Alignment of structure, culture and skills with strategy

•Cross channel fundraising: increases response, increasing average gift and the number of gifts?

• What’s stopping you? Senior leadership, departmental rivalry and silos, or just having a plan?

• Time to start now! Your donors are already cross-channel supporters…

Embrace Change

• Take Personal Responsibility – #1 Mistake is to “decide not to change.”

Thanks for joining me today!