Conducted by: Jeff Schreifels
David, this report will outline my initial analysis and recommendations for your current fundraising programs. After you and your colleagues review this document I would like to sit down with you face to face to discuss next steps in working with you to help achieve your goals and implement the program.
Overall Thoughts
I believe your mission of working in Haiti for justice and peace is worthy of public support. In short, you do great work. From what I can gather in reading your materials and being a donor for many years your programs are innovative, unique and inspiring. For your potential and current North American donors there are great opportunities to give and volunteer.
It is difficult, however, to evaluate your fundraising program void of an organizational strategic plan. From what I can gather, you currently do not have this type of plan and perhaps philosophically as an organization you do not produce one. The reason it is difficult to evaluate because I’m not sure if Beyond Borders (BB) has revenue goals over the next few years tied into the growth of your programs. For example, if I knew that you wanted to grow by 20% each year in revenue because you will be able to deliver XX more or help XX more people I could make recommendations on what you need to do as an organization to achieve it.
However, what I can do is make some initial observations from the information and materials I’ve received from Jonathan and give you suggestions on how you might move forward with your current fundraising program.
Observations on Fundraising Strategy
In reviewing your overall revenue since 2000-2001 your revenue (minus Alternative Gifts and EAPE) has been steadily declining each year. Your total income has been up and down with 2004 projected to be down around 8%. I’m assuming that you would like to reverse this trend and see it increase at a healthy pace each year in order to fund more programs. In my analysis of your strategy here is what I see:
1) You don’t ask enough—In 2003 you sent out two newsletters and three appeals. The old adage of, “you don’t ask—you don’t get,” applies here. Most organizations I work with have this problem. They view fundraising as a necessary evil and that somehow it’s wrong to ask people to support your mission. Remember, you are actually providing people a way to receive grace in their life by supporting your work. You have a wonderful story to tell and people will support it, but you have to ASK.
Recommendation: I would suggest you send 12 impacts from BB a year. These impacts would include: 4 direct fund appeals, 4 donor-centered newsletters and 4 ministry papers. (I’ll go into detail by what I mean later in this report by ministry papers.) While this may seem a huge increase to where you are now, I believe it necessary in order to stay in front of your donors. Remember, whether you like it or not you are competing with thousands of other non-profits trying to get the attention of donors. I would guess that your current donors also give to 8-15 other organizations each. If you don’t stay in front of them with your message and hold your donor’s attention, someone else will.
2) Current donor base has remained constant over last three years—Now; you could view this as a positive thing. At least you are not losing donors, however you should be increasing this number each year. My guess is that there is not a strategic plan for new donor acquisition. The other problem is that while your 0-12 month current donor base has remained pretty constant in the number of donors, each year they are giving less.
Recommendation: Special attention should be paid to re-activate lapsed donors and to acquire new donors. There are cost-effective ways to do this which I can personally help you with.
3) Mailing to deep into your file—I’ve noticed that you may be mailing people who should not be getting all of your communications. Except for your matching grant appeal your response rates are fairly low for what I would typically see from a small donor file like you have. My guess, without reviewing your responses by segment is that many of your lapsed donors are not responding and you are losing money on these segments.
Recommendation: Further analysis should be done by breaking out your donor segments by cume and time since last gift to determine which segments are performing.
4) Many multiple-gift donors: While over one half of your current donor file gives just one gift per year, 21% of your donor base gives 6 times or more per year with almost 10% giving 12 times per year. This is phenomenal.
Recommendation: Analysis should be conducted with these donors to determine what they are giving to, how they were recruited and what compels them to give so often. This could easily be accomplished by delving into your donor software and by conducting a simple telephone survey. Our goal should be to increase this percentage each year as we also continue to bring on new donors to the organization.
5) A Major Donor Strategy Needs to be implemented—From what I can gather from your information while you do some special touches to your $500+, single gift donors, there is not an individual strategic plan created for each person who meets these criteria on your database. You are not alone. Many, many organizations much more sophisticated than BB in their fundraising do not have a good Major Donor plan. These folks are your bread and butter. They are the ones that really fund your programs.
Recommendation: An individual strategic plan needs to be created for each donor that together we agree meets a certain dollar criteria we deem as a major donor. Then assignments need to be given out to staff and board members to execute the plan. I would be happy to give you further assistance in this area.
6) Need overall organizational strategic plan—As I stated above I believe every organization needs a strategic plan in order to know where it’s going. This doesn’t mean you can’t stray from the plan nor if a new opportunity comes up you can’t take advantage of it, but there need to be a plan to guide the organization. This plan is intimately tied into your mission and vision. This closely relates to point #5 because major donors what to know where you are going and how you are going to get there. This strategic plan will also help drive your strategic plan for fundraising.
Action: A planning retreat should be scheduled with the objective of coming up with a 3-year organizational strategic plan.
Creative Review
I have reviewed all your current donor communication materials and below are my overall comments:
1) Newsletters—Quite frankly your newsletters are hard to read. The type is very small and there is a lot of it. The format is not reader friendly. I would like to see more use of photographs to tell some of your stories. I also think it’s time for a redesign of the newsletter. To my knowledge it’s been the same creatively for at least as long as I can remember. I would recommend that every 2-3 years you change the look of your newsletter. Specifically, I would recommend changing the format to a 4 page newsletter, shorter articles, with more photos and graphics and include a reply device and return envelope.
I believe the content is excellent. However I think the content is presented using the wrong vehicle. A donor newsletter really should try to accomplish the following: A) Reporting Back—Donors want to know how their gifts are making a difference. You should always be reporting back on the programs that donors are funding and what is happening with them and tying it back to the donor’s gift. B) Thanking and Affirming donors—You can’t do enough of this. C) Informing—Here is an opportunity to let your donors know what is happening with staff, programs, etc. d) Needs—the newsletter should reiterate the ongoing needs of the organization and boldly ask for a gift of support.
Most of your newsletters reflect a theme. In reading through these pieces I often find that you are preaching and teaching rather than reporting back on the success of your programs, affirming your donors and conveying ongoing need.
As I stated above, the content is extremely beneficial and the more I’ve thought about it, I would say this too is a part of your ministry. Therefore, instead of putting this content into a newsletter, I would suggest you create “transformational transcripts” or “ministry papers” with the sole purpose on providing continuing insights from your folks in the field that ministers to your North American donors.
Fund Appeals
I believe the appeals that are written in a personal way to the donors are excellent. For example, the E.A.P.E matching grant appeal was right on! And, your results bear this out. It would be great if you could have two matching grant appeals per year. I would be glad to talk to you how we could do this.
Your Christmas 2003 appeal however did not perform very well. In comparing this appeal with your more personalized appeals it’s clear why the latter worked. Your appeal letters should be written to the donor as if you were writing a good friend. Each letter should state the problem and clearly articulate how the donor can make a difference with their gift. The Christmas appeal had too much going on that was not directly related to asking for a gift. I would advise not pursuing this type of an appeal in the future.
One thing I noticed that could help boost response is to “play up” your seal of approval by Charity Navigator. In fact, I would put that information on all your communication pieces. Donors want accountability and the knowledge that their gifts are being used wisely.
I would be glad to review future fund appeals and offer my advice on content and creative.
Acknowledgements
Donors like to know that you (BB) know them. One way to accomplish this is on every receipt year-to-date giving is printed along with the current gift. And, I would go even further to put lifetime giving on the receipt. It tells the donor that you know who they are and appreciate their gifts.
If it’s possible, I would recommend that you also tie the gift to the people or program that is being supported. For instance, I give monthly to help literacy programs. It would be nice to know how many people have been helped by my gifts.
I would recommend changing your overall look to create a more personal appeal and change your receipt to 2-pages. The first page would be the letter and the second would be the actual receipt. This will give you more room to thank the donor and add more personal touches.
Final Thoughts
Clearly you have a great mission. I recommend that you brainstorm ways to include your donors and prospective donors more into that mission. For example, your Transformational travel activities should be stepped up and active recruitment from your donor base should be considered. I know personally that I have never been invited to participate on one of these trips. Why? I’ve been a donor for over seven years. I believe there is tremendous opportunity here. I believe you know that when someone makes one of these trips they are more willing to help you financially.
I believe that there are great opportunities for your current donors to get their friends to support BB. BB should make this easy for donors by providing the necessary materials and support to make this happen both in the mail and using your website.
Finally, it will take a collective act of your organizational will to build the fundraising program and make it successful. It will not be easy, it will be much more time consuming and you, as an organization, will have to decide if this is how you want to proceed. It will take time, people and more resources to build this program.
I would be very motivated to continue dialoguing with you on how you can accomplish this and help flesh out more of the recommendations I have outlined above.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to help. It’s been fun.
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