Michigan Humane Society used an integrated donor-acquisition campaign to grow its donor file

By Joe Boland

Advice From the Experts

While executing the Michigan Humane Society’s first truly integrated fundraising acquisition campaign, both Grizzard and MHS gleaned plenty about running a campaign of this magnitude. Here, Tonie Howard, VP of the Animal Care team at Grizzard, and Marta Diffen, VP of development at MHS, share some advice on embarking on a multichannel acquisition campaign.

● The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. “We have been doing more back-end analysis for our clients seeing that even though we may send out 100 pieces of mail and five years ago 50 people would give a check through that reply envelope, now we’re seeing only 30 gifts to the envelope. So we have organizations saying direct mail isn’t performing as well,” Howard says. “Doing some back-end analysis looking at all giving when that mail piece was in-home, we’re finding that people are using online banking, they’re going online and using the general donate button. We’re not able to track people as well, but when they do get the mail piece, they’re giving larger gifts. We know it works.”

● Get everyone on board. “My best advice is that you talk with your president, CEO or executive director, or anybody else on your executive team, and get a really good sense of how your organization overall feels about its ability to do this campaign,” Diffen says. “Is there support for it from a financial perspective? Is there support to get your message out and reach more people? … That’s where I would start because it is something that an entire organization has to be behind in order to be able to support it and meet the timelines, meet the deadlines, be able to provide the type of creative and the type of messaging and the type of story that’s going to be that case for support.”

● Understand acquisition is a long-term initiative. “We for so long in the industry only look at the initial results. We have a hard time looking long term,” Howard says. “That’s the whole change we have to start looking at. What’s our goal? What do we want to obtain? How are we going to get there? Then we’ve got to be patient.”

“Is there support for acquisition from the perspective of the return on investment is going to come, but it’s going to come 15, 18, 24, 36 months out, and then putting the support and plans in place to carry out whatever it’s going to take to get you to that 36-month mark?” Diffen adds.

● Planning is key. “You have to have a plan, and you have to have a plan B,” Howard says. “There has to be open communication among all departments, and people have to take responsibility to follow through. If you set a plan in motion, follow through. It can’t just be short term; it has to be short term and long term.”

● Integrate or get left behind. “For anyone in today’s market, in today’s world, integration is a must on whatever scale you can do it,” Diffen says. “… There’s already groups out there that have done integration. There’s groups out there that already know what to bring to the table for someone who’s considering integration. … We all know that not everybody supports anorganization the same way.

“… However many portals you have as an organization so that people can support you, the better you will be and the more engaged those people will be that are supporting you if they’ve got all of those choices. And the way you deliver that information and deliver your message and deliver your impact has to change too. Not everyone reads the newsletter. Not everybody sees a PSA. You’ve got to figure out how you’re communicating and then customize that communication to the that audience,” she adds.

● Decide what your goals are. “What do you want the long-term goal to be? Set up realistic short-term goals and benchmarks,” Howard says. “It’s not just a one-time shot in the arm. If you are going to do it, it’s definitely an investment that has to be looked at like an investment. We have to not only have everything in place to make sure the initial campaign goes out, but also have processes in place at your own organization to make sure you can do the follow-through.

“We can obtain a lot of new donors or one-time supporters, but we don’t want one-time givers — we want lifetime supporters,” she adds. “It’s really making sure everybody’s on the same page, that you have a written document of what your short-term and long-term goals are going to be, what the processesare going to be, and making sure you have the resources to do the follow-up.”

● Take the plunge. “When you need that adrenaline shot and you need something that’s really going to help you build your program, you have to take that step and potentially step off into unfamiliar territory,” Diffen says. “I’m fortunate that the team of people here took that step with me. That can be a real challenge if you feel like you’re on your own. You need to realize that you’re going to have to step off into that uncharted territory for a little while and really start sailing in some uncharted waters.”

When a nonprofit organization is looking to trim its fundraising costs, acquisition often gets nominated for the chopping block. It's cheaper and more efficient to reactivate lapsed donors or upgrade current donors than to acquire new ones, after all.

However, if an organization hopes to survive and thrive for years to come, acquisition is essential. That's why the best fundraisers fight for every acquisition dollar in the budget they can, no matter how tough of a sell it might be to the executive team or board of directors.

That's why the Michigan Humane Society (MHS) went in with a focused, strategic plan to present to its board of directors and executive team, laying out why acquisition is essential for MHS to meet its goals moving forward. After several meetings, everyone was on board.

"We're very fortunate that we have a leadership team in place that understands the value of acquisition and understands that the lifetime value and return on investment is something that, if you do it right, you will absolutely see the kind of growth and support that you need to consistently enhance your organization and enhance your service delivery," says Marta Diffen, vice president of development at MHS.

It helps that the animal-welfare organization — whose mission is to end companion-animal homelessness, provide the highest quality service and compassion to the animals entrusted into its care, and promote humane values — has a comprehensive strategic plan in place that takes MHS out to 2015 and then 2020. That plan has some pretty aggressive goals, Diffen says, and "in order to do these things and meet these needs and meet the goals and objectives, we need to add a better foundation, get more robust, get more comprehensive with the way we manage our fundraising."

Part of that strategic plan is looking at how MHS acquires new donors and what is needed to add more members to the donor file. So MHS began talking with its partner, nonprofit fundraising and direct-marketing communications agency Grizzard Communications Group, about some of the challenges it faces in Southeastern Michigan and what sort of things it can do to acquire new donors.

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