Excel at Fundraising Without Excel
Channel fundraising starts with budgeting whose revenue, expense and net is intractably broken out by channel. What follows is avalanche size momentum for fundraising teams to live in those channels.
It’s hard to think of donors in anyway other than digital donors, mail donors, telemarketing donors. The channel is our main definition of the donor.
The spreadsheet exercise doomed our thinking and pre-ordained our results.
Here’s an example from a health charity:
| Channel | Event giving | Direct marketing giving | Total giving | Commitment score (out of 10) |
| 10% | 90% | $404 | 7.6 | |
| Event | 80% | 20% | $326 | 7.8 |
| Digital | 5% | 95% | $275 | 7.9 |
Insights:
- Mail donors are a bit more valuable
- People stay with a channel
- Not much else
Looking at these data, how does your email appeal differ from your postal mail appeal? Well, one is on a computer, the other needs a stamp. But you’re likely using similar messages, a pretty sure sign that your segmentation is a not a segmentation at all but rather, a report showing where the donor elected to transact that was mostly predetermined with the Excel budget exercise.
Now let’s look at this same audience, using the lens of whether they were a direct beneficiary of health services, an indirect beneficiary, or have no connection:
| Identity | Event giving | Direct marketing giving | Total giving | Commitment score (out of 10) |
| Direct | 48% | 52% | $489 | 8.6 |
| Indirect | 34% | 66% | $386 | 7.9 |
| No connection | 30% | 70% | $256 | 7.1 |
Key insights:
- People who have direct experience are way more valuable than those who don’t.
- These donors exist on different channels – your event and DM donors are far more similar than you thought.
- Each of these donors has a mailbox, email box, and phone number. It’s just a matter of their preference by which channel they give.
When you study these groups, you find that 60% of the reason they give is to still receive or continue hearing about patient care services. Those who don’t have a connection don’t care about this. At all.
This isn’t “change four words” in the copy fundraising. These people need two different messages, possibly from two different people.
Yes, it’s harder to put into Excel. But Excel isn’t the boss of your brain. You can use your own thinking by employing “identity” — a characteristic that honors the donor and why they give. Not coincidentally, this is also the more lucrative path.
Kevin
3 responses to “Excel at Fundraising Without Excel”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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Gob-smacked … again. Applying your “key insights” tomorrow in a client call. Thank you, Kevin.
How would you approach the “identity” for an humanitarian organisation whose donors aren’t connected directly to services?
Thanks! Lionel
Hi Lionel,
One Identity immediately comes to mind for Concern based on our work with Save, Oxfam, MSF, UNICEF, IRC, CRS and many others in international relief. There are people who consider themselves Globalists (note this is our label, they wouldn’t likely refer to themselves this way). This belief structure means they agree strongly with these statements: I feel like I’m next door neighbors with people living in different parts of the world, I feel I am related to everyone in the world as if they were my family.
We have 3 items we use to measure this concept, those scores get averaged together and I’d wager every dollar that we’d find your best financial supporters strongly identify with this belief system and Identity.