Case Study: Inside an Integrated Holiday Fundraising Campaign
Ali Cherry, Beaconfire
[Ed. note: This article is part of NTEN's Member Appreciation Month spectacular. The most popular pieces will be featured in our newsletter. You can read all the details here.]
It seems like "integration" has joined "strategy," "social media" and "ROI" as part of a family of words that we all agree are important to online fundraising campaigns but everyone seems to use slightly differently.
In addition to combining the traditional tried and true with experimental techniques, we have seen four different approaches to online fundraising integration. If you can achieve all of these at the same time, bravo because for most nonprofits, integration is a goal with many challenges.
- Online/Offline: Messaging supporters and potential supporters with messages to do something offline from an online message or to do something online from an offline message. The goal is to get supporters and donors interfacing with the organization both online and offline. (Some say on/off integration is synching the communication to have the same message, graphics, etc. through both channels, though that is really layered marketing or fundraising, also an effective technique.)
- On site/Off site: Using your own website and email list are necessary. But reaching beyond low hanging fruit to the social media space, bloggers, Twitter, advertising, etc. to drive supporters to campaign landing pages, or better yet to allow them to do something within that off site space, is critical to reaching new audiences.
- Individual/Corporate: Some of the best online fundraising campaigns have the support of a corporate partner who is willing to donate X for every Y thing done by an individual supporter. We all know matching campaigns work. Soliciting corporate donations alongside individual donations using incentives like a match encourages both to give more to your organization.
- Dollars/Action: Photo, video, advocacy petitions, interactive games -- all of these things are part of a large toolbox of things to get people to take action in support of your cause that do not involve contributing a monetary donation. We work with clients to use creative approaches to bring new supporters in the door and then to measure which actions increase their propensity to donate and how soon after the action to ask for a gift. In general, getting a supporter to take an action increases ownership in the cause and likelihood to donate.
Certainly, not every organization has a corporate partner lined up or the capacity to take on off-site social media promotion, but pursuing even one of these approaches to integration will go a long way to improve your online fundraising campaign.
Last year, we worked with the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) to develop and execute their integrated year-end fundraising campaign. NPCA spends most of the year cultivating their email list with regular advocacy actions like sending letters to Congress or signing petitions to provide funding to protect -- and complete -- our national parks. The year-end campaign is an opportunity to convert their loyal supporters to donors and get existing donors to renew or make an additional donation.
The campaign had three key components:
- Matching gift offer of up to $100,000 by a single, anonymous major donor. Though a match from a partner who can help promote the effort to their supporters is where many organizations get the most mileage, any added incentive to donate is enormously helpful to a fundraising campaign.
- Four message email series asking their supporters to make a year-end, tax-deductible donation before the end of the tax year. They strongly emphasized the matching gift offer. They advertized this in their newsletter and on their homepage in addition to specific emails.
- In addition to the email series, there was an overlay on their homepage to drive visitors to "Act fast to double your support." By mid-campaign, 40% of their donations were driven from the overlay, and they credited it with focusing site visitors on donating. This approach funneled users into the year-end campaign, versus their standard donation form, and helped their matching gift efforts.
With these techniques executed well -- the "tried and true" combined with a matching gift and layered messaging -- NPCA managed to improve their online donation results even in a down economy! Keep on integrating.
Ali Cherry is the Online Campaigns and Marketing Director at Beaconfire Consulting, where she helps nonprofits grow their supporter networks, enhance engagement and convert donors.
