queer ideas

Avoid stone age fundraising techniques

The Super Fundraiser seemed to go down well, so here's her nemesis - The Neanderthal Fundraiser.

Where the Super Fundraiser focuses on answering donor needs, our Stone Age chum is driven by a burning desire to get as many donors on board as possible - even with the knowledge that many won't stick around to give more than once or twice.

The neanderthal might look big and powerful, but that tiny brain puts them at a disadvantage. The shift from hunting and gathering to cultivation and farming changed society. It's the same for fundraising. Great stewardship of engaged donors will always win in the end.

The secret life of a donor – video evidence

I recently had the fantastic opportunity of appearing on stage in front of an audience of over 900 fundraisers as part of Tony Elischer's amazing experiment – Theatre of Fundraising - at AFP Congress in Toronto.

One of the areas that Tony asked me to look at was fatigue.

This was a theatre, so it had to be entertaining. With the help of Raindown (who are an excellent production company that I highly recommend) we put together a short video where we attempt to demonstrate what it's like to be on the sharp end of so many fundraisers' efforts.

I don't believe compassion fatigue actually exists. If anything, I think people today are kinder and more compassionate than ever before.

The problem is that they are worn out by the approach of charities that think fundraising is just about asking more often in more intrusive ways.

Great fundraising is not just about demonstrating organisational need. It's about answering the needs of our donors.

It's about engaging and empowering them. It's about inspiring them with creative ideas that emotionally connect them to the causes that we raise funds for (you can read Aline's post on how we did this for UCL by clicking here).

It's the easiest thing in the world to just ask people for money.

What takes time and effort is the creation of the feelings of joy that every donor should receive when they see the impact of their giving.

That what we should be concentrating on. We are fundraisers. That's our job.

Should you wish to use the video or share it, feel free. All we ask is that you let people know that it was produced by Bluefrog.

Face to face attrition - a few thoughts

We have another chance to quantify the effects of the recession with the publication of the PFRA Face to Face Attrition Survey.

The study shows us what happened to those donors recruited on the street and door to door during 2009.

The figures look good.

• Average 1st year attrition for street campaigns fell back to 44.2% (from 53.3% in 2008). This is the lowest level of street attrition that the PFRA has ever recorded.
• Average 1st year attrition for door to door fell back to 37.2% (from 41.8% in 2008).

But the report leaves me asking a number of questions.

2009 was the height of the recession so I have difficulty believing the reference in the PFRA press release that the reduction in attrition rates is a post-recession phenomenon.

Let's start by comparing the PFRA figures to those released by Rapidata in their 2011 Direct Debit (DD) tracking report. As you'll see, 2009 is the first year where face to face techniques return a better attrition rate than that seen for (a massive percentage) of the entire UK DD universe.

When you take into account the fact that most DDs are cancelled in the first few months, it shows the PFRA figures in a very positive light. Something good is happening. But what?

Lets take it point by point...

Where are the no pays?

It doesn't look as though no pays have been included in the calculations (a no pay is a DD that doesn't result in a single gift). No pay rates have been increasing over the years. For example, back in 2004, face to face agencies recruited an extra 14% of donors at no charge (to replace no pays).The guarantee today is significantly higher. 

The figures released by the PFRA show a first month attrition rate of about 11 or 12% - much lower than the current no pay rate. Add the two together and we may find about a third of all recruits are giving once – or not at all – before throwing in the towel.

If that's the case, the figures would still show an improving trend. They just wouldn't be so good.

It would be interesting to know what no pays actually are. Anecdotally I've heard that they are running at over 20%, but I'd like to have the actual figures to confirm.

What was the impact of the closure of Dialogue Direct?

Dialogue Direct was one of the UK's largest face to face recruitment agencies. It closed in 2009. As a result of this, the total number of people recruited via face to face techniques fell by 115,000 between 08/09 and 09/10. In one fell swoop there was much less pressure on the market and the remaining players could concentrate on recruiting at the best sites.

There would also be another positive impact on attrition. With many face to face recruiters out of work, there would be more competition for employment, with the cream of the recruiters rising to the top.

Did the 2008 jump in attrition rates frighten away the charities with less sophisticated fundraising programmes?

As the Fundraising Detective has pointed out, there is a huge disparity in attrition rates for different charities. If the charities with the worst attrition management campaigns were driven from the market, this would have a positive impact on overall cancellation rates.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I think the most important way of tackling face to face attrition is by improving stewardship programmes. I've blogged about how Buefrog tests have shown that personal treatment and a focus on impact reporting have dramatically improved face to face attrition rates.

It might be shocking but the fall in attrition could be down to the fact that we are getting better at communicating with younger donors?

Is there more focus on recruiting older donors?

On the other side of the coin, we've known for some time that the biggest infuence on attrition is age. Older donors are much more likley to keep their promises. Following the bad results in 2008 has there been more emphasis on avoiding students and the young unemployed?

Is there more focus on recruiting donors at lower gift levels?

The other major influence on attrition is gift amount. The higher the monthly gift, the more likley it is to be cancelled. If the 'ask' amount is dropped, attrition might also fall, but so does income. The result could be less attrition but also less money being raised.

Or is it down to something else?

I'm especially pleased that Adrian Sargeant is reviewing the figures. Hopefully he'll answer these questions and probably come up with a few insights that haven't occurred to the rest of us. That's one reason to look forward to the autumn when we'll see their publication.

Finally a big thanks to all those involved for taking the time and effort to share such great information. The rest of the fundraising profession could take a leaf from their book.

An award tells you more about the judges than the contestants

D&AD have just had their annual awards bash where they hand out their coveted yellow pencils in recognition of outstanding creative work.

It's not just the big agencies who get their chance to shine, students have their opportunity too. And this year, one of the categories included an open brief for Oxfam.

Teams were asked to "present an idea that engages support for Oxfam by triggering shared values and concerns in a wide range of people."

The winner was from the Miami Ad School (in Madrid) with their entry, It's a better life without Oxfam.

As you'll see, their approach was an online platform where users can find details of Oxfam staff and where they work.

Each staff member shares their dream of what they would like to do if they didn't work for Oxfam and...well, watch the video and you'll find out.

I don't want to criticise the students as they are probably a really nice bunch of people who know more about what is likely to win a yellow pencil than I do.

And that's my point.

As a charity concept it fails at pretty much every level. There is a sniff of an idea in there, but it is smothered by a complete disregard and rejection of why people actually choose to support good causes.

But it won the award.

And on that basis, the team behind it has been successful. They understood what their audience – D&AD judges – wanted and they delivered. Congratulations to them.

But it also explains something else. It shows us why ad agencies are so terrible at producing advertisements for charities. They simply don't get it.

Our story-telling techniques, the way we demonstrate need, the way we use music, endorsements and financial justifications seem to "bore the shit" out of them. So much so, that they reward an entry that directly criticises what we know actually works.

I can understand why. They must be very frustrated.

Agency after agency has tried to break the 'charity ad' mould only to see their ideas fail. All the while, low budget productions are continuing to attract new donors and actually raise the money that charities use to carry out their life-saving and life-changing work.

So, if you want to win an award, any of the agencies where the D&AD judges work might be a great place to start.

But if you were looking for a fresh face in advertising who might actually help you recruit and engage donors, can I suggest you go to the bottom of the D&AD list and take a look at what Amy Weston from Sheffield College has produced. She created a rather neat little idea called Give. Grow. Gain. that really does demonstrate an understanding of why people give.

If you read this Amy, get in touch and come and have a chat. You look like you know what you're doing.

Thanks to @skipinder and @pollysymondson for the heads up.

Why don't people care as much as you?

When you are committed to a cause it's easy to think that the only reason other people don't feel the same is that they don't understand.

Your reaction might be to bombard them with evidence – facts, figures, statistics  – anything that supports your position.

The only trouble is that this is exactly the sort of information that is likely to act as a barrier to your unengaged prospects.

Though your most committed supporters might be happy to wade through an avalanche of information, few others have the interest or the time.

Instead, they want you to do the hard work for them and provide an arresting and emotionally rewarding route in to your charity.

This facet of human nature was neatly summarised in diagramatic form by a chap called Poliakov in his Pyramid of Engagement published by the CoFSiM Research Centre.

So rather than than trying to create a 'rational' argument for your next mailing pack, focus on moving someone emotionally instead.

If you need some statistics to back this up, you can find them here.

So what have fundraisers been doing over the last 30 years?

A rather interesting paper has just been published by CGAP and CMPO looking at three decades of charitable giving in the UK.

It's based on a detailed analysis on the main trends in giving that uses the government's Living Costs and Food Survey (which used to be called the Family Expenditure Survey – FES).

The last thirty years have been a period of massive social, technological, political and economic change. And by taking a long-term look back in time we should be better placed to make plans for the current turbulent era and those yet to come.

The full paper (all 64 pages) can be downloaded here, but for those of you too busy to read it yourself, here are a few points that I think are worth highlighting:

The Millennium marked the end of a decline in the proportion of households giving to charity

Back in 1978, the number of households that gave (during a two-week survey period) to charity stood at 32%. It had fallen to 25% by 1999. Over the first eight years of the current decade it averaged at over 28%.

To my mind, that bounce back matches the explosion in face-to-face recruitment and is representative of all those young donors finding their way on to our databases.

Donations have increased

Donors are now giving almost three times as much as they did in 1978.  But the rise in giving over the last twenty years only reflects the growth in GDP.

As a share of total spending, households give just 0.4% – the same as they did in 1988.

All the new charities that have been set up, the new fundraising techniques that have been introduced, the growth in regular giving (up from 36% in 1983 to 63% in 2008) and the impact of the web haven't had that much impact on how much people actually give.

Giving is largely recession-proof

This is something that a number of us who have lived through economic downturns have been highlighting for some time. It's good to see that the statistics support our opinion. As you'll see from this chart, even during the difficult times (marked in red and green), giving has remained strong:

I've posted before that recruitment and subsequent development of new donors can get rather tough when money is tight. Some analysis that I've seen has shown that more donors are just giving a single gift to a charity and simply not responding to subsequent appeals. I'm also hearing of some frightening rates of attrition regarding street fundraising.

And when I look to the future, even with these statistics in mind, I have some real concerns about what will happen over the next twelve months. The number of people who look likely to lose their jobs (particularly older women employed in the public sector) worries me and I will be amazed if we don't see an even more pronounced effect on recruitment. I just hope, that as in the past, our loyal donors will make up the shortfall. Whether they do is probably down to the actions that we take now. But more on that later.

Older donors are becoming even more important

The over 65s now account for 35% of all donations, compared to just 25% in 1978.

One area of particular interest that the report uncovers is the giving behaviour of baby boomers (the youngest tranche of this demographic group is highlighted in grey in the table) whom we first observe when they were in their early twenties and then track right through to their forties. As you'll see, participation grows as they age. That to me is rather good news. A number of people have questioned whether baby boomers will be as generous as their parents and grandparents. The trend indicates that they are (for more on this, please take a few minutes to read the comments to this post).

Affluent donors are giving more

The richest 10% of households now account for 22% of total given (up from 16% in 1978). From 2003 to 2008, the top 50% of households (ranked by donation size) accounted for 92% of all giving. It should be noted that the largest donation observed in the 30 years of data is only £1,500 so it seems very likely that many high-value donors haven't found their way onto the survey. If they were included, the impact of the rich would be even more pronounced.

So what does this mean for those of us fundraising today?

First off, I think we can draw some comfort from the evidence that donors keep giving at times of economic hardship. Though the current recession is particularly tough, I'm confident most donors will remain true to form.

However, qualitative research undertaken by Bluefrog shows that when money becomes tight, donors are likely to focus their giving on favoured causes and organisations.

As a result, charities must concentrate on giving donors what they want – a real understanding of what their giving has achieved and a means of becoming part of the charity rather than just a a source of funds.

This is important for donors of all ages. An ongoing worry of mine is the possible impact a poor relationship might have on donors who are early in their giving lives. A large number of young people recruited on the street are currently cancelling their regular gifts shortly after sign-up. The response of many charities seems to be little more than hoping for the best and expecting the recruitment agency to replace the lost donors as part of a guarantee. Of course, this approach might be effective in the short-term, but what is the long-term impact on how that donor sees the charity when they enter the prime charitable stage of their lives?

Charities should also look at how they treat mid-value donors (those who give between £100 and £5,000). At Bluefrog we've seen that donors in this range respond best to charities who drop the mass marketing approach and concentrate on adding value through increasing relevence and personalisation. The result is a significant increase in income.

Finally, a robust win-back strategy should be developed for donors who lapse. If donors are lost, it doesn't have to be for ever. But winning back should not simply be handed over to a telephone agency. A real relationship is based on hearts and minds, not just repeatedly asking until someone says yes just so they can put down the phone.

How should we defend face-to-face fundraising?

During my recent break from blogging, I've been keeping an eye on the debate about face-to-face fundraising.

It's been quite a saga.

It was obviously all kicked off by the piece on BBC's Newsnight. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

The central story was that charities pay professional face-to-face companies to recruit regular givers, paying up to £136 for each new donor they sign-up. 

Newsnight questioned whether this was a good use of funds, citing industry figures that show more than 50% of people recruited in this way cancel their direct debit in the first year. 

With the average annual value of a donor standing at about £90, their view was it seemed as though most of a donor's gift was going to the professional companies – not to fund the core work of the charity.

It appears from reading the PFRA response that it wasn't the most even handed piece of journalism...

'A Newsnight researcher revealed his real agenda when he told the PFRA: “I think if people knew how much it costs charities to recruit them then they wouldn’t sign up [via an F2F fundraiser].” We believe that the journalists working on this story set out from the start explicitly to persuade people not to donate via F2F because of the allegedly ‘prohibitive’ costs. Of course that argument could only be maintained by systematically ignoring the costs of other forms of fundraising, some of which work out at far greater per donor than F2F, and by ignoring the return on investment that F2F generates (often over 1:3). Essentially their agenda was not to ‘inform’ the public but to convince them of the ‘truth’ of their own personal – and false – prejudices.'

But stitch up or not, the sector doesn't seem to have handled this story particularly well.

When the BBC asked charities how much they spend to recruit a new face to face donor, only two responded – Cancer Research UK who pay £112 a head and the British Heart Foundation who pay £136. Newsnight informed us that other charities cited 'commercial confidentiality' as the reason for their reluctance to respond.

And though they were asked, charity CEOs weren't up for defending face-to-face on the show. Mark Astarita, Director of Fundraising for the British Red Cross, explained why ...

'Newsnight wanted to set us up in a head-to-head situation with a small charity that hates face-to-face,” Astarita said. “It would have been a David and Goliath-type battle which nobody would have won.  It would have been damaging to the whole sector and so everybody made a wise judgement not to play that horrible game."

“You could tell by the way they structured all the questions that they had an agenda – it was not an ‘investigation’, they wanted to make their story stick.”

In the end, Newsnight was unable to find charities to take part and so at the last minute decided simply to interview a charity that uses face-to-face.  That was when the BHF agreed to take part, Astarita said.

He added that if Newsnight had proposed a straight interview from the outset, he expected charities would have been queuing up to defend the practice." '

The trouble is, whether we like it or not, it's the media channels that set the agenda and if we don't respond intelligently, we'll all be worse off.

A recent survey by the Charity Commission has shown that over the last two years, 11% of people have lost trust in charities, with media coverage about charities and how they spend their donations seemingly driving this change in attitude.

Which is why I was disapointed to read about the debate at the recent IOF conference on face-to-face fundraising, where PFRA CEO, Mick Aldridge summed up the sector's reluctance to defend face-to-face fundraising...

'Aldridge's attack wasn’t limited to the sector’s reluctance to defend face-to-face, but also centred on the “intolerable and hypocritical... ‘slagging off’ that face-to-face receives from some of our so-called colleagues from other fundraising disciplines”.

“That is rank hypocrisy and it has to stop,” he said. He noted that direct mail recruitment costs “are many orders of magnitude higher than for face-to-face” and challenged advocates of that medium, and others such as digital, to publish figures on RoI and costs for general viewing.'

It seems that the PFRA is concentrating on defending face-to-face on cost – because it recruits donors more cost-effectively than press or direct mail it should own the moral high ground. That's fine if the debate is within the charity sector. But as we know, it's a little wider than that.

Mick has also pointed out that we need a champion to defend the technique. And he's right, but I'd go one step further.  We are one sector and we all succeed or fail together. We need every single charity in the land to commit to champion fundraising in all its forms. Because, as it is now,  it's quite obvious that few donors fully appreciate the impact of their response to our fundraising messages.

A series of nfpSynergy studies has found that donors think that just 25 pence in every pound they donate actually goes to fund actual 'work'. The perception is that the majority of their gifts are used to cover administration and fundraising costs.

And it's people like Rarry Revan, who comments on another piece in Civil Society, who suggests a blindingly obvious way that we can tackle this misconception...

'Get a beneficiary out there, maybe a cancer survivor who said without face to face I wouldn't be alive. Or an African doctor who learnt their trade because of donors who were signed up on the doorstep.'

By taking this approach we shift the debate from how we raise money to the impact of how we spend it. And every single charity in the land can help achieve this goal. It's not about big advertising campaigns either. We'll win this argument on the micro-level.

Take Care International for example. They have shown that the attrition rate of face-to-face can be halved by providing donors with personalised, high quality feedback on how their donations have been used.

And ActionAid generates response rates to thank you feedback packs that many charities would love to get from their actual appeals.

The fact that a significant percentage of people find face-to-face recruiters irritating is just one symptom of a wider problem. We have to remember that people complain about DM, telephone fundraising and even online advertising too. Donors simply aren't linking their gifts to any measurable outcome.  And we are verging on stupid if we continue to ignore the desire amongst donors to know what difference their gifts have made.

People pay for value and if, after a great face-to-face recruitment process, you find yourself on the receiving end of a stream of self-congratulatory newsletters and appeals for more money it's not surprising that you might feel a bit short-changed.

The moral high ground on this matter is well within our grasp, but it won't be gained through an internal debate about relative costs nor through interviews on Money Box or Newsnight.

Instead we should confront criticism through aggressively demonstrating the benefits of our work.

By doing so, we'll ensure that the amazing goals we are striving for - cures for disease, the eradication of poverty and the end of cruelty and injustice - are worth the inconvenience of a smile and invitation for a quick chat from a nice fundraiser on a street corner.

You reap what you sow

Having spent a few days in Cornwall, I had an opportunity to get on the delivery end of some of the charities I support.

The National Trust were absolutely great at Bedruthan Steps, asking me about places I've visited and handing over a map featuring other properties they thought I might like.

But I was most impressed by the integrated approach to recruitment I experienced at the Eden Project.

After parking my car, I walked past a sign that offered me free entry for a year (actually I walked past about half a dozen of them). It's not a huge amount of good to me as it's unlikely I'll be making multiple trips to St Austell over the next twelve months.

But it was still a pretty good offer...

£16 for entry today or £16 for unlimited entry for a year.

And if I sign up to Gift Aid, the Eden Project can also claim tax back on my payment.

It sort of became a why not? decision in my mind as I walked to the ticket desk.

But I had an answer to that. I hate filling in forms and queuing. So that's why not. I'd rather give an extra gift than start answering all manner of questions about who I am and why I visited (because a volcano wouldn't let me get on a plane).

And that's where they were clever. When I got to the ticket desk, I found it was a PAF friendly sign up - postcode, house number and name. Nothing to fill in and nothing to sign.

So, like everyone else in the queue, I said yes.

In return I received a membership card, a sticker and advice on some of the best things to see on our visit

As a result they have my contact details, along with thousands of others. And if there is something I know about people who like plants and gardening, it is that they also have a high propensity to give to charity.

So, I might be on the first stage to being a long-term supporter. I don't know if I'll say yes, but the journey I've been with them so far has impressed me...

• Ensuring I know they are a charity
• Emphasising they need my support
• Thanking me with repeated free entry for the price of single entry
• Getting my contact details
• Making it easy
• Getting a Gift Aid declaration
• Finding out about my interests
• Thanking me again

I'm now looking forward to seeing if their development programme is as good as their recruitment one.