Fundraising's New Synergy

Channel integration
The Brady Campaign decided to test other channels to drive incremental conversion of these online-sourced constituents to donors. Having
collected postal mailing addresses for about 23 percent of its e-mail list, the Brady Campaign sent a direct-mail solicitation to online non-donors asking them to join. The result was a 1.26 percent response rate. This response rate was 11 percent higher than the overall mailing response rate of 1.11 percent to the group’s standard direct-mail rental lists. The average gift from e-mail constituents in response to the direct-mail appeal was $24.22 — 19 percent higher than the overall mailing average gift of $20.52. The key acquisition metric, the net cost per acquired donor for the e-mail list, was $6.22, compared with $15.71 for the overall mailing.

The Brady Campaign also contacted non-donors on the e-mail list via phone. It matched about 20,000 records of e-constituents who had taken at least one advocacy action. Telemarketing drove a 21 percent pledge rate with an average gift of $27.38.

Give credit where credit’s due
If you were determining channel performance for this organization, how would you credit the money raised? Most fundraisers would credit the revenue to the channel in which it was raised, but this approach fails to recognize the value of the original sourcing and cultivation channel — in this case, the Internet.

How would you treat future revenue raised from these donors? Most fundraisers again would credit the revenue to the channel in which it was raised, ignoring not only the contribution of the origination channel, but also the value of ongoing engagement and communications through a multi-channel approach. For example, if a donor opted to renew via mail but continued to receive and read e-mail updates and take advocacy actions online, how would you allocate the renewal dollars?