Upgrading donors is essential in any healthy regular giving program. Three fundraisers share with Anthea Iva what their organisations are doing to invite higher giving from monthly supporters, and how they are adjusting their upgrade activities informed by lessons of the past.
Upgrading donors is essential in any healthy regular giving program. Three fundraisers share with Anthea Iva what their organisations are doing to invite higher giving from monthly supporters, and how they are adjusting their upgrade activities informed by lessons of the past.
Georgie Menzies
Fundraising Coordinator
Mind Australia
Why are donor upgrades important to your organisation?
Each year Mind Australia provides iMind donors (members of our regular giving program) with the opportunity to upgrade their contribution through an auto-upgrade campaign. We give the donor approximately four weeks to review the content of the letter and advise – via phone, mail or e-mail – if they would like to opt-out. An opt-out makes it easier for them and less hassle. If they want to give a little bit more monthly, they don’t have to actually do anything at all to indicate their wishes.
A standard amount of $4 is then added to the donors existing monthly contribution. By increasing the monthly donation amount by just these few dollars, our overall fundraising income for the year can be significantly increased – by around $50,000 per year. That’s important because there’s growing need for services within the mental health sector and some Mind initiatives are not government funded. So iMind donor funds are vital to sustain services providing effective support and positive outcomes for people experiencing mental ill-health.
How have you been improving your donor upgrade tactics?
Many of our donors also give to other organisations and tend to receive multiple asks throughout the year. We’ve learnt that in order to run an effective campaign in a busy market, we need to define Mind’s point of difference and display it through informative and honest campaigns that assure people of the good their money is doing.
We’ve created a series of videos to support our campaigns. These feature real Mind staff, clients and supporters speaking about their experiences. They highlight some of the ways Mind has helped people live self-defined and purposeful lives. With one in five people experiencing mental ill-health in any given year, most people would be able to relate to these stories in some way.
How are lessons from the past helping you set your strategy?
The information captured during a campaign provides insight and data we reflect on when we plan the next year’s campaigns. One change we have made recently was extending the time to a month for donors to make a final decision about upgrading, acting on their feedback. Being responsive to donors shows them they’re valued and allows us to develop more effective campaigns. In 2014, we upgraded 98% of donors that we contacted.
Louise Baxter
Chief Executive Officer
Starlight Children’s Foundation
Why are donor upgrades important to your organisation?
Increasing the income from our regular donors is vital to ensure Starlight Children’s Foundation (Starlight) continues to achieve growth from our regular giving program. Starlight is focused on growing sustainable revenue streams as our programs are delivered – and require funding – every day. The anticipated increased income from donor upgrades will therefore have a significant impact in helping Starlight fulfil the demands of its hospital, wish granting and community outreach programs.
How have you been improving your donor upgrade tactics?
As our individual giving program only rolled out at the end of 2012, Starlight is still undergoing a lot of testing to ascertain the effectiveness of our donor upgrade programs, both in the short and long term.
In 2013 we tested an upgrade phone campaign which was not successful at the time due to some limitations with our previous Customer Relationship Management system, which meant targeting was not as accurate as we would have liked.
More recently we tested mailing out tax receipts to our regular donors which resulted in a high upgrade success. In planning, we set metrics which would indicate campaign success including the upgrade opt-out rate and the feedback rate to ensure a positive Starlight experience – which is at the heart of everything we do – for our supporters. We attribute this campaign’s success to factors including the fact the majority of donors open and read their tax receipt letter, and providing clarity around why this ask is important.
How are lessons from the past helping you set your strategy?
I’m from a marketing and advertising background where industry best practice is to include a test of some description in every campaign, and I believe this is the only way to learn and grow professionally.
In 2015 Starlight is reviewing the effectiveness and frequency of both SMS and email in our regular giving campaigns to ensure we’re optimising the supporter’s experience. We are also currently trialling a new upgrade phone campaign which really focuses on targeting the right supporters for the upgrade ask. Early feedback indicates the campaign is performing above target.
These learnings – combined with Starlight’s data focus – are shaping our donor supporter journey, ensuring maximum return on investment, and helping improve donor retention. According to the 2015 Pareto Benchmarking Data Report, our one-year retention rate is 56%.
Paula Ficca
National Direct Mail Manager
The Fred Hollows Foundation
Why are donor upgrades important to your organisation?
The Fred Hollows Foundation’s donor upgrade program is one of the most important and profitable campaigns we run to our monthly giving donors.
The Foundation has been upgrading monthly donors for a number of years now. And our most significant and successful program is by far our telemarketing program.
Asking donors to increase their monthly gift is more than just an opportunity to raise extra funds, but also a chance to contact and thank your monthly donors and to update them on the difference they are making each and every month. Upgrade campaigns help grow regular giving income and have a positive impact on donor retention.
How have you been improving your donor upgrade tactics?
When talking to our monthly donors we like to update them on a specific program area they are funding – always relating the work back to an emotional story of a patient whose sight they have helped restore.
We constantly strive to understand what motivates our monthly donors and adapt our messaging accordingly.
Even though we have been running an extensive phone upgrade campaign for a number of years now we are still achieving strong results. Our upgrade rate is sitting around 37% to 38% with an average monthly value of $9.
How are lessons from the past helping you set your strategy?
Traditionally our strategy has been to approach donors for an upgrade every nine months. This year, at the recommendation of our telemarking supplier, 2evolve, we are trialling a first upgrade call at six months with donors then falling back into our standard nine month upgrade cycle. We are currently in the process of analysing results but early indicators are strong.
The Foundation doesn’t run a dedicated direct mail upgrade campaign but we do include an upgrade ask in our end-of-year receipt mailing. This is largely to donors who we have been unable to contact through telemarketing. This is a low-cost campaign to donors we would not otherwise ask for an upgrade and while the results don’t compare to a telemarketing campaign, it is still well worth doing.
Anthea Iva is the Director of Redstone Marketing
Main image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
