Epsilon Presentation

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Event Fundraising Converting Event Participants
into Long-term DonorsLeveraging innovative
techniques and messaging to build long-term,
high-value constituents
Tom Gaffny, tomgaffny_at_epsilon.com June 2004
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Agenda

• American Charities in Crisis
• A Focus on Special Events Fundraising
• The Value of Volunteers from Your Special Events
• Relationship Initiatives
• Solidify Event Relationships through Direct
  Marketing
• Utilize Event Names for Direct Marketing
  Prospecting
• Channel Integration to Increase the Overall Value
  of a Donor

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American Charities in Crisis
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Challenging Times for Fundraisers

• The size of the American donor population has
  fallen to an historic low
• Contributing Households
• 87 in 1997
• 69 in 2002
• Estimated loss 23 million donors
• Donor confidence in not-for-profits is at an
  all-time low
• From 2000-2002, 14 of donors dropped an NPO they
  had regularly supported
• 53 were dropped because they were no longer
  considered trustworthy
• Consumer confidence, which closely mirrors
  philanthropic giving, was at an all-time low in
  February 2003
• Mean per capita annual donations dropped 37
  between 1998 and 2002

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Increased Competition for Donor Dollars

• Decreased funding from public, corporate and
  foundation support
• Organizations with broad missions have been
  challenged by smaller, more narrowly focused
  organizations
• National organizations are challenged by local
  charities with more perceived relevance

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The Effect on Your Acquisition Programs

• Most impacted by these challenges
• Increased expenses for these channels from fixed
  costs and decreased results
• Organizations are less willing to spend on a
  program that is an investment
• Many organizations must replace 50 or more of
  their donors each year due to donor churn
• Falls primarily on individual giving, such as
  direct marketing and special events

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The Boomers Its all about them!

• Demands on system
• Customer service
• Single view of constituent through database
• Communication streams
• Personalized treatment
• Variety of channels
• Require stewardship and fuller relationships
• Includes volunteering
• Inherently skeptical of institutions

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A Focus on Special Events Fundraising
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Special Events

• Challenges
• Also affected by trends in philanthropy
• Expensive
• Staffing and distributed networks can lead to
  issues with best practices and to significant
  churn of donors

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Special Events

• The Event Pyramid
• Attrition at every level
• Site
• Event
• Team captain or corporate contact
• Participant
• Sponsor
• Recent Epsilon study found that up to 70 of
  sponsors supporting nationwide special events
  were not asked to support the event in the
  following year

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Special Events

• Benefits
• Can become linked to organization itself, i.e.,
  March of Dimes, Race for the Cure
• Excellent volunteering opportunity to begin or
  deepen relationship
• Excellent tool for
• Brand building
• Local presence for national organizations
• Connecting with those who have affinity to your
  cause
• Using the volunteer pool to identify potential
  relationships

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The Value of Volunteers from Your Special Events
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Volunteers

• While charitable giving in the United States may
  be down, volunteerism is on the rise.
• AARP reports that 63.8 million people volunteered
  in the U.S. last year an increase of 14.5 over
  the previous year.
• In addition, AARP reports that volunteering rates
  are decreasing among older Americans (65 years)
  but are on the increase among younger Americans.

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Volunteering through Special Events

• What are volunteers looking for?
• Organization reflects their own values and ethics
• Time is meaningful
• Want to be regarded as who they are not just
  for what they have
• Challenge for organizations
• Reflect their values
• Value their time and contribution
• Engage the volunteers after the event to expand
  the relationship

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Volunteers and Donors

• As essential to American charities as tithing
• Donating and volunteering are inherently linked

Annual Contributions per Household Annual Contributions per Volunteering Household Improvement
Male 1,778 2,460 38
Female 1,525 2,029 33
Age 50-64 1,912 2,614 37
Age 65 1,718 2,297 34

American Demographics, January 2003
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Relationship Initiatives for Special Events
Fundraising
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Relationship Initiatives

1. Solidify Event Relationships through Direct
   Marketing
2. Utilize Event Names for Direct Marketing
   Prospecting
3. Channel Integration to Increase the Overall Value
   of a Donor

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1Solidify Event Relationships through Direct
Marketing
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Solidify Event Relationships through Direct
Marketing The Three Rs

• Reinforcement
• Of organizations brand
• Many participants in large-scale national events
  cannot name, unaided, the benefiting charity
• Of the event
• Re-recruitment
• Buildup and virtual kickoff to event
• Report back to reinforce value of volunteers
  contribution
• Retention
• Sponsors who may not be asked to give to the
  event again can be cultivated through direct
  marketing

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Solidify Event Relationships through Direct
Marketing

• Can allow an organization to
• Free up local staff Allow people on the front
  lines to focus on top fundraisers, team
  cultivation, and corporate sponsorships
• Be consistently branded and powerful Utilize
  proven messaging across all chapters, leveraging
  organization-wide best practices
• Be multi-channel and multi-touch Message through
  a multitude of mechanisms including channels of
  preference
• Maximize revenue from each segment Create
  meaningful communications that focus on the key
  constituencies of Team Captains and high-dollar
  participants, challenging each with suitable
  arrays and goals

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2Utilize Event Names for Direct Marketing
Prospecting
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Utilize Event Names for Direct Marketing
Prospecting

• Acquisition has been the biggest area of
  challenge for most charities in the last five
  years
• Data capture for events has improved
• Team Raiser online tool
• Online and onsite data capture
• Increased credit card usage

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Utilize Event Names for Direct Marketing
Prospecting

• Comparing to traditional DM names
• Lower response should be expected
• Different arrays or ask strategies
• Long-term value
• Co-branding and creative
• Adding the event logo to the conversion piece
  can establish a visual connection between the
  event and the organization
• Organizations with multiple events can use a
  similar template and insert the specific event
  logo

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Co-Branding Test

• One organizations Fall 2003 Co-Branding test
  yielded higher response rates with slight
  decreases in avg. gift

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Utilize Event Names for Direct Marketing
Prospecting

• Mining for Gold the modeling approach
• Large universes lend themselves to modeling
• Predictive power of data
• Relationship data from your organizations
  database
• Outside demographic data
• Modeled event names can replace marginal outside
  list names
• No additional investment

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Utilizing Event Names for Direct Marketing
Prospecting Findings

• Cultivation of the relationship through direct
  marketing benefits the special event, too!
• One organization sent traditional direct mail to
  some event participants after the event occurred
• Those who received direct mail during the year
  actually were 12 more likely to return to their
  event in the subsequent year
• Their fundraising amounts or kit value to the
  event in the next year were 16 higher
• Overall, 56 of the donors were retained to the
  organization vs. 34 for those who didnt receive
  any touches after the event

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Utilizing Event Names for Direct Marketing
Prospecting Findings

• One charity analyzed the value of these event
  donors who became multi-touchpoint donors by
  giving an additional gift to direct mail
• Retained at a rate that is 50 to 70 higher than
  overall
• Response rates are lower than DM acquired, but
• Higher average gifts
• Improved frequency of giving
• Resulted in up to an 18 lift in overall value to
  the organization

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3Channel Integration to Increase the Overall
Value of a Donor
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Channel Integration to Increase the Overall Value
of a Donor

• Single View of the Donor
• Requires some coordination or enterprise-wide
  database
• Prohibits or restricts the balkanization of
  constituent data
• Allows you to recognize the relationship
• Specialized and personalized treatments
• Acknowledgments
• Identify donors with deeper commitment
• Additional sustainer opportunities
• Advocacy
• Major and planned giving

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Channel Integration to Increase the Overall Value
of a Donor

• Value of donors
• Annual revenue can be increased incrementally
• Average Gift/Donor
• More likely to be retained
• Higher long-term value

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Channel Integration to Increase the Overall Value
of a Donor Findings

• Direct Marketing in the Mix
• Ensure regular communication
• Strengthens branding
• Exposes constituents to different aspects of the
  organization
• Allows for quick dissemination of timely,
  relevant information

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Channel Integration to Increase the Overall Value
of a Donor Findings

• Multi-touchpoint donors
• One organization found that as the number of
  channels or touchpoints increased, so did the
  value to the organization
• Cumulative Revenue/Donor

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In Conclusion

• Acquisition through individual giving programs
  has become and will likely remain a challenge.
• Millions of Americans, including the elusive
  Boomers, are raising their hands for their
  organization of choice by volunteering at special
  events.
• Charities are well positioned to capitalize on
  this opportunity and deepen relationships if they
  can
• Capture and utilize data
• Bridge organizational structures
• Utilize communication machines already in place
• Reinforce brand through effective, timely
  communication
• Select and focus on volunteers and donors with
  the most potential value
• Develop successful channel integration strategies
  to maximize effort

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Questions?E-mail us at tomgaffny_at_epsilon.com