queer ideas

It's a shame about Ray

Data Mining for Fund Raisers by Peter B. Wylie is one of the best introductory guides to the effective use of data that you'll get your hands on.

It's pretty hard to track down in the UK, but you can get it from CASE in the USA.

But luckily for us, Peter has also published a number of papers that you can find quite easily on SupportingAdvancement.com (scroll to the bottom of the list).

Once there, you'll find one particular study that helps demonstrate something rather interesting about data use.

It compares giving behaviour with the length of a donor's name. The file in question was predominantly male. Analysis showed that a number of donors were recorded with either an informal of formal first name…

1. William or Bill
2. Robert or Bob
3. Richard or Dick
4. Edward or Ed
5. Kenneth or Ken
6. Michael or Mike
7. Ronald or Ron
8. Thomas or Tom
9. Donald or Don
10. John or Jack
11. James or Jim
12. Raymond or Ray

Lifetime giving analysis showed that in 11 out of the 12 pairs, donors with formal names had given considerably more than those with informal names (Raymond/Ray was the only exception).

The probability of this having occurred by chance is less than one in four thousand. So what does it mean?

After some more digging, the analyst found evidence of a link between the amount of information held about a donor and their propensity to give. In short, more information equals more money.

It's almost a no-brainer. Virtually all Bluefrog's data propensity models take this into account when predicting the likelihood of someone leaving a legacy or upgrading a committed gift.

So what's the point of highlighting this finding?

Its very nature tells us something that is going to be of growing significance for fundraisers.

Non-financial data can be used to enhance financial data when modelling future giving behaviour.

And with the growth in the number of ways donors can interact with charities, we need to start paying more attention to the huge amount of non-financial information we have and how we collect it (obviously with permission).

And to start you off, perhaps you should take a look at your supporters who make comments on your website. You might be pleasantly surprised by just how lovely these people are when added to an appropriate communication programme.

So what do people really dislike about direct mail appeals?

The FRSB has just released their Annual Report for 2010. Based on the detailed analysis of complaints received by 1,138 UK charities, I'd say it paints a pretty decent picture of our noble profession.

Even when you look at the more 'engaging' fundraising techniques – such as face to face recruitment (in the street and at the door), telephone and direct mail – we find it takes a huge number of solicitations to generate a single complaint.

In the case of direct mail, for example, we can expect one complaint for every 2,439 packs that drop through the country's letterboxes. Expressed as a percentage that's just 0.006%.

To my mind, that's not too shabby.

But where it gets particularly interesting is when we start looking at what aspects of DM people are actually complaining about.

The answer might surprise you...

If you have followed the debate in the sector press over the last few years, you could be forgiven for thinking that the biggest threat to fundraising was the pen. By that, I mean the pen that many charities enclose with an appeal, primarily to make it easy for the donor to respond. 

If it's not the pen, it might be the greeting cards, the address labels, the badges, the wrist bands, cuddly toys or the various other enclosures that are used to engage donors and lift response rates.

This report shows that where the reason for complaint was recorded (as it was in 6,556 cases – about two-thirds of all notifications), enclosures were mentioned approximately four hundred and twenty times. 

That's four hundred and twenty complaints for over 147 million mailing packs. A complaint rate of 0.0003%.

Of course, not all charities use enclosures and not all charities are members of the FRSB. And there may be hundreds of complaints about enclosures to organisations that aren't reporting them, but this study would tend to demonstrate that it's not really an issue.

But what the report does highlight, is that the data policies of many organisations could do with a bit of a clean-up. 

Around 60% of all DM complaints were related in some way to data issues. It could be poorly addressed communications or mailings sent to deceased individuals. It could be a failure to ensure non-responsive recipients are removed from mailing files (frequency concerns) or simply not taking enough care of the data entrusted to us. 

And that's the biggest surprise for me. A robust data process is a fundraising no-brainer. Not only will it help tackle complaints, but it also reduces costs – achieved by regularly cleaning data and excluding those donors who (through their inaction) have told us that they no longer want to support you.

Add the increased income a sensible data strategy can add to your bottom-line and you find little reason not to invest in ensuring you get your data right. 

You can download your copy of the report here.

Free motivational posters for charity techies

You don't see too many motivational posters around charity offices these days. That's a shame. Particularly for the techies who find themselves working in the gloom of basements and cupboards.

Luckily for them, LOLnptech.org is on hand to offer a little relief from the daily stresses of running a database on 17.3% of a shoestring.

Take a look. If you're facing a problem, they have a poster to help you and your team find a solution (whether it's the right one is another matter).

It's just the reason you bought that colour printer (the one you are called to unjam every time you find some time to start working on the new IT strategy).

Start redecorating your office today.

 
Thanks to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

When should you use suggested donation levels?

A short while ago, Google shared details of a test they undertook on "one of the disaster relief donation drives on Google.com".

The goal was to discover the ideal suggested donation level at times of an emergency – $20, $50, $100 or no prompt at all.

Full details are available here. But in short, they discovered that not using a prompt generated the highest number of donations and the highest level of income.

Does that mean you should start removing suggested donation levels from your appeals?

No.

Suggestion levels can have a powerful positive impact on both response rates and average gift. They simply need to be used intelligently.

People often have preconceived comfort levels for deciding what to give and prompting is the main way you can get people to re-consider them.

They are particularly important – absolutely essential in fact – for recruiting and upgrading mid-value donors (those that give from £100 up to £5,000).

How much do you want? is one of the key questions that donors ask (have a read of The 11 Questions Every Donor Asks if you are interested in finding out what goes on in a donor's mind when they are considering a gift). If you don't answer it, they will often give you far less than you are looking for.

By prompting (and justifying) very high suggested gifts to people who can afford them, you can generate very high levels of income and very high ROIs - even at recruitment. This pack that I developed when I worked at the YMCA, back in the early 1990's generated ROIs of up to 13:1 on cold - but very carefully targeted – lists!

At Bluefrog, we find that the majority of mid-level packs generate gifts that are at or very close to prompt levels.

Low value files (where people are giving cash gifts of between £5 and £25) are different. Even if a pack has a specific price justification, donors very often ignore it, giving their usual amount instead.

This is further complicated with emergency appeals. People will often give much higher gifts at times of obvious and extreme need, when past giving behaviour can be ignored.

Prompting can uplift low value donors. It might only be by £1 or £2, but it does work. What is most important is to test and to keep an eye on how donors respond because it doesn't necessarily work for every donor nor every charity.

At the end of the day, it is how your donors respond that is important and if, when you look at your data, you find that some of them see suggested donation levels as a turn off, the answer is simple. Don't use them.

For the rest of the file however, they are a very important tool that should be regularly used to increase donor engagement and levels of income.

Do your supporters look like nails, carrots or beetroots?

Recency, Frequency and Value are the mainstays of a successful segmentation strategy. 

You can use values, geo-demographics, regression and even snake oil to try and improve your targeting of appeals,  but at the end of the day, the long-term use of RFV can make the biggest difference to both expenditure and income.

It's effective because it helps identify patterns of behaviour, rather than simply describing the person who is giving. 

And it's behaviour that's the best predictor of how a donor will respond to an appeal.  Knowing that someone has given the second prompt amount on your last three Christmas mailings is  worth much more than knowing that they are a member of the National Trust, living in a £450,000 house in Sevenoaks who nips off to church each Sunday after reading The Observer in bed.

And of all aspects of donor behaviour, recency is probably the most powerful indicator of potential. It's also a great way to measure the health of your donor file.

A while ago, working with Bluefrog's old head of data planning, Adam Waller, we created three recency based profile snapshots to help demonstrate typical patterns of support to help charities develop strategies to increase their income.

  

I've reproduced them here in a simplified form. Just to make them look visually attractive, each profile is based on a history of twenty appeals. The top of the chart is when the supporters were first recruited. The present month is at the bottom. I've kept equal numbers of male and female supporters. In reality, however, most files will contain more female supporters.

Nails

Having a nail shaped supporter file isn't great. The majority of donors in this profile give just the once and that's it. You are left with a small core that donate whilst the majority simply clutter up your database.

The problem you face with nail donors, is a lack of engagement. You have their name, contact details and even a gift, but considering them a supporter is simply delusional.

Nail shaped donor profiles are often acquired via a dependence on highly emotional recruitment channels such as face to face or TV.  When these supporters are moved to a standard donor programme without any regard to their specific needs, many of them might as well be deleted as it would save wasting money on supporter magazines and warm appeals that will simply be thrown away. 

 

If you are not going to put hard marketing effort into tackling the Bergstrom Effect, the best hope for someone on a nail shaped file is that they give via a direct debit which they are too busy to cancel. 

You engage a nail shaped file by:

• Recognising current donor development communications aren't working.
• Moving the focus in communications from talking about the charity to talking about the donor.
• Not guessing what your donors need. Ask them.
• Remembering what your donors want and showing them you have listened to them.
• Acting very quickly in cementing the relationship by showing them what their gifts have done. Each day without reinforcing that they have done the right thing increases your failure rate.

Carrots

The Carrot typifies the shape of the average cash file. Adrian Sargeant did a study a few years ago that showed that 50% of cash supporters never gave a second gift. The charity files he looked at slowly shrunk to the point that just 8% of donors were still giving after 5 years. It's a pattern that we are finding demonstrated in cash files to the present day.

Carrot shaped donor profiles decline slower that nails, but they still decline. They are more likely to be acquired via direct mail and press, but they still need to be engaged before they develop a level of commitment to your charity. 

 

The task for a fundraiser working with a carrot shaped file is also to move donors through a communication programme designed to build a sense of involvement with the charity. 

The tactics for managing a carrot shaped file are similar to those for nail shaped files. In this case however, you have more time to act. Though these donors are not your greatest advocates, good, well targeted, relevant appeals will work. These donors are just the sort of people who might enjoy supporting you. They simply don't know it yet. By implementing a donor needs strategy, you should be able to turn your carrots into beetroots.

Beetroots (upside down)

The beetroot shaped supporter file is the one to aim for. Its fat belly shows that the majority of donors have given very recently with just a small number making up the tiny root who have lapsed.

 

As far as health goes, this is a fantastic position to be in. 

These donors don't need to be marketed to. They represent a file of great supporters who care about what you do and want you to succeed. People on the beetroot shaped file simply require good service so another charity can't win them away.

Rather than think of ways to market to them, look at how you can reward them or let them know how important they are to you. Great service is about treating them specially – taking them out of the general mailing programme and creating communications that work for them.

Again, as with every donor, try and take the guesswork out of this by finding out what the donor wants. When someone is as valuable to you as a beetroot, you should pick the telephone up and speak to them.

RFV is a powerful system and can become addictive when you see the savings and additional income it generates but as Bluefrog's head of data planning, Richard Hughes, points out:

"It's an essential tool, but adhering too strictly to RFV can mean you overlook potential in other parts of your file. 

At the end of the day, you need an integrated approach that develops prospects as well as generating income from your most valuable supporters. RFV is a huge part of the answer to better fundraising, but we must not depend on it to solve every problem we face."