Why do donors give?

Answers from science

Nonprofits sent an average of 139 emails per year in 2016. Total emails sent are up 12% year over year.

And open rates are down across the board.

Source: 2016 Luminate Online Benchmark Report

Nonprofit standard mail volume has dropped from 13.3 billion in 2010 to 12.6 billion in 2015 (7%).

However, over that same period, the number of donors has decreased over 14 percent.

Source: http://www.nonprofitmailers.org/nonprofits-and-mail/Aggregation of Fundraising Effectiveness Survey at http://afpfep.org/reports/.

The mindset is often volume-based

Which one causes the other?

-.33

Revenue

The business model is broken

An Alternative Business Model

Commitmen

t(what causes loyalty to your

specific organization)

Identity(their innate reason for giving)

+ +Experience(their judgement on whether

an interaction with you is good, bad or in-between)

We had another female in your community who gave X dollars. How much would you like to give today?”

ControlIdentity 1 Identity 2

Identity effects in charitable giving

Which touchpoints matter?And does this differ by identity?

Commitment to

Organization

Functional

Connection

Personal

Connection

Behavior

Constituent Experiences• Brand (i.e. Key Messages)• Marketing• Donor Service• Fundraising• Operations

Personal• I feel like I have a relationship with ORG• I have an emotional correction to ORG• ORG is very responsive to donor needs

Commitment• I am a committed ORG donor• I feel a sense of loyalty to ORG• ORG is my favorite charitable organization

Functional• I feel like I know what to expect from ORG• I get good value for the donations I make to ORG• My donations are put to good use at ORG

Why donor experience matters

12% conversion

32% conversion

12% conversion

32% conversion

Catholic Relief Services

Our retention rates were average

2013 Donors 2014 Retention Rate 2014 Donors

CRS: New 103,073 22% 22,730

Median 41,143 23% 12,336

CRS: Reactivated 95,496 35% 33,349Median 23,005 39% 7,924

CRS: 2+ Year 164,835 71% 116,335Median 86,282 71% 58,306

Our commitment study

Now, just the important bits

We are Catholics doing good… …despite some donor services…

…and how frequently you mail us.

$28.03 Helping the poor overseas$27.13 Working through Catholic

churches/partners overseas$25.78 Serve as official Catholic int’l

humanitarian agency$25.05 Live Catholic faith in solidarity with

poor overseas$21.39 Helping you live your Catholic faith

Catholic Faith – $127.38 Donor Services – $69.24

$15.09 Providing helpful service and support$13.68 Make easy find contact info for donor service$12.89 Asking your feedback on how CRS is doing$14.03 Appropriately thanking you for your support$13.55 Acknowledging donations in a timely manner

Fundraising – $31.49

$6.63 Compelling reasons to give in fundraising requests$6.58 Making case for recurring, monthly donation $6.40 Case for continued giving after emergency donate$6.18 Asking for an appropriate donation amount$5.70 Asking appropriate number of times for donations

So we focused on the four Fs

• Feedback

• Faith

• Frequency

• There is no fourth F

Feedback

• Commitment study

• Feedback

• Faith

• Frequency

Announce changes with survey

• Commitment study

• Feedback

• Faith

• Frequency

Results: No-ask feedback mailing

• Over 6% response rate

• Net positive revenue despite no ask

Results: Thousands of specifics

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Catholic Church commentsLike Dr Woo

Personal connection to CRSPersonal information wrong

Do not shareMonthly donor

Want donation to go to HaitiTimely response

CRS is one of my favoritesReduce mail frequency

Want more informationFirst time donating

MonologueStop mail

Like PaypalLow overhead good

Like directed donationOther

Good informationI trust CRS

Also donate to othersNo comment

Difficulty donating onlineEasy donating online

Keep up the good work

Results: Actionable recommendations

• Make it easier to direct donations to specific areas

• Acknowledge directed donations as directed

• Stop requiring title on donation form

• Remove requirement for address on memorial donations

• Make it easier for repeat donors to log in and store information

Faith and frequency

The test

• Pilot test and control group

• Test group

– Seven fewer mailings and two replaced by feedback

mailings

– Over 10 fewer email asks

– Focus on why people give – living out their faith

Some pieces did well in focus

But the C in CRS stands for something

Results

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

April 5 March22

March10

Feb 6 Nov 28 Nov 14 Nov 1 Oct 21 Sept 30 Sept 15 Aug 15 July 29 June 24 June 9

Improvement in revenues

Results

• We are rolling out with the test in FY18

• We are working on other donor-focused experiments– Telemarketing

– List sharing

– Further reducing asks

– Moving to recurring giving as a solution

• Estimate we will cut about $500K in costs with minimal net revenue impact