Donordigital Goes Secret Shopping
Donordigital has just released a study on integrated fundraising — Integrated Fundraising: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly — based upon ‘secret shopping’ at 16 major US nonprofits.
They made an initial online contribution to the 16 groups, and then for six months tracked all interactions with these organizations through direct mail, online and telephone. There’s much to learn and benchmark your nonprofit against in this sobering report.
Most organizations did integrate new online donors into their other channels, notably direct mail, but the communications “rarely appeared to be integrated” and these follow-up communications (2nd gift requests) were often long delayed.
Only half the groups sent a direct mail acknowledgement of the initial gift, with the ‘thank you’s’ taking 12-28 days to arrive.
Ultimately, Donordigital received some type of direct mail appeal from each of the 16 groups, but these took from 35 days to 162 days to arrive.
Only 6 organizations had discernible campaigns that integrated messaging, deadlines or financial goals across email and direct mail; 10 did not.
Follow-up via further email (additional asks, cultivation contacts) was generally good, but that’s not the point.
What’s the point?
Here’s the bottom line from Donordigital:
“We know multichannel donors—donors who make gifts through more than one channel—are very valuable. we have seen consistently that multichannel donors are more loyal than single-channel donors. we also know they are more likely to make larger gifts or become monthly donors, even when controlling for the frequency of giving of the singlechannel
donors.
From a cultivation and donor retention perspective, multichannel integration is key to achieving greater fundraising success.”
Donordigital says they typically see a 4 to 10 percentage point increase in retention for those donors who convert to multichannel giving.
C’mon folks, let’s get real about integrated marketing. Download the Donordigital report and take heed.
Tom
P.S. The folks at Donordigital get an Agitator raise … well done!
One response to “Donordigital Goes Secret Shopping”
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