Focus On: Channel Integration: Piecing It All Together

Multi-channel fundraising is simply the idea that an organization uses more than one medium simultaneously (mail and telephone, for example) to conduct fundraising campaigns. Integrated fundraising is merely the process of making sure these campaigns are designed to work synergistically with one another.

We’re all familiar with the use of a single medium such as direct mail to support multiple types of fundraising. Joe Suarez and Gail Union of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum offer a seminar that illustrates that the majority of their deferred giving prospects and, ultimately, the majority of their deferred gifts come from people who were initially direct mail donors. Thus, we know that a single medium can be called on to serve multiple methods of fundraising. But this is not, strictly speaking, integrated fundraising.

Multi-channel fundraising is also increasingly common. Many organizations have, for example, an Internet-based strategy and also do direct mail. Some have mail, e-mail, telephone, face-to-face, display ads, magazine inserts, radiothons and DRTV all operating simultaneously. Integrating all of these, however, is somewhat more rare and certainly more challenging.

Does it work?
We hear about the supposed benefits of integrated fundraising, but does it really work? The answer is a qualified yes. There are now enough tests that have been conducted to certainly make it worthwhile to consider efforts to overcome the barriers and to attempt to integrate your fundraising efforts.

Perhaps amongst the first to use multiple channels in an integrated fashion were those organizations that used a medium such as DRTV for child sponsorship. The first contact and “ask” was via TV. The second contact and reinforcement of the ask was via telephone using an inbound 800 number for receiving pledges. The third contact was usually a pledge fulfillment for those not using credit cards, and that was by mail.

Naturally, all three channels were designed to reinforce each other, and the message was integrated. This type of fundraising program has been successful for many years but has mostly been limited to those with a sponsorship type of appeal.

Another example comes from Europe where there has been great success using a telephone “thank you” to convert first-time direct mail donors to monthly givers. In one control test, 2,000 new direct mail donors were selected at random and received a mailed note thanking them for their gift and asking them to consider becoming a monthly donor, while another 2,000 were selected at random and received a telephone call thanking them for their gift and probing for interest in a monthly donor club.

The result was that the subsequent gift rate for donors who were called was 22 percent higher than those who received only the thank-you note. The average gift for donors who were called was 3.5 percent higher than those who received the thank-you note. Most importantly, 16 percent of donors were converted to monthly giving as a result of the telephone call versus less than 1.5 percent for the direct mail thank-you only. Clearly, mixing the media improved the results.

One need only look at some recent efforts by various groups to be encouraged to try some of the newer methods of integration. Some of the simpler tests, for example, have been done to integrate e-mail with “snail mail.” Some nonprofit advocacy groups are finding that they can achieve a “lift rate” (increase in response rate) of between 10 percent and 20 percent through either or both a pre-letter or post-letter e-mail. Typically these e-mails announce that an important letter will be arriving soon or indicate to the donor that no response has yet been received to the mailed solicitation.

Why advocacy groups? Because they tend to have a larger number of e-mail addresses that they can match back to their direct mail housefile. In general, advocacy organizations have had more success using the Internet than charities (other than those specializing in emergency-relief appeals).

This type of approach also has been used in alumni appeals where there is also a larger number of e-mail addresses matched with regular mail addresses. One large, national university tested the combination of an alumni e-newsletter and regular mail. Forty-nine percent of its e-newsletter recipients donated to the annual alumni appeal versus 34 percent of those who did not receive the e-newsletter. Thirty-two percent of donors who had not given in the prior year renewed if they’d received the e-newsletter versus 22 percent if they had not. Thirteen percent of those who had never donated before did so for the first time if they received the e-newsletter vs. 5 percent if they did not. Overall, the fundraisers report that they got a 100 percent lift on their fundraising efforts using the e-newsletter. While this wasn’t a true test because there was no control group — it could be argued that the donors who supplied their e-mail addresses were “different” from those who didn’t — it certainly had results that encourage this type of integration.

Keeping it simple
Other fairly simple efforts have used mail and telephone in conjunction with such efforts as high-dollar appeals and lapsed-donor reinstatement. These too have proven to be useful and often more powerful than using a single channel.

Greenpeace, for example, has integrated DRTV, billboard display ads, press ads, direct mail and its Web site in order to increase response. As a result, it increased the number of activists recruited and reduced its fundraising costs by using the Internet as a method of servicing some donors.

Philadelphia’s WXPN-FM integrated e-mail, direct mail and on-air solicitation of supporters and doubled the number of renewed previously lapsed donors. Similar results with WTVS, the Detroit PBS station.

Operation USO Care Package used direct mail, e-mail, public service announcements, PR, display ads, workplace giving, cause-related marketing, corporate sponsorships, gifts in kind and special events. Media included television, newspapers, magazines, Web site and inbound telemarketing, and the campaign raised more than $20 million in a year.

Clearly there have been significant efforts by a wide variety of nonprofit organizations to integrate their fundraising messages. Some of these clearly also have paid off handsomely for those organizations.

Impediments to integration
Probably the most significant impediment to this approach is attempting to integrate the databases supporting each medium. Maintaining a transaction history of e-marketing efforts is simple, but it is rare that that database is also integrated with the direct mail database, which requires “list hygiene” such as NCOA and periodic de-duplication. Frequently the tools used for database maintenance for e-mail are quite different from the tools used for telemarketing and direct mail. Even more noticeable is the problem of trying to integrate major-donor and special-event databases with direct mail.

Another difficulty is the problem of “territoriality” common in many nonprofits. How often are direct response communication tools such as e-mail or the existence of a Web site under the purview of “communications” or “information technology” or “programs” rather than the development office? How often does one find a charity that is unwilling to invest significant amounts of money in prospecting for new donors yet will spend significant amounts of money on an annual report to donors and refer to it as stewardship or corporate communications? Fundraising efforts are often measured on their “return on investment,” but other communications efforts are not similarly measured.

Also a problem is the inability of some organizations to plan for long-term tests and long-term results rather than short-term measures of success. Direct response efforts often are measured only on the basis of funds raised in response to an appeal over a 60- or 90-day period and not on the value of the branding messaging or the cultivation of persons who will ultimately leave bequests. It requires patience to test multi-channel messaging and to determine what combinations are most effective.

How to start
Some ideas to try in the area of fundraising integration include:

• Use common themes and coordinated timing.

• Try using inbound telemarketing.

• Coordinate direct mail with special events sign-ups and ticket sales.

• Ask yourself: Do we have common branding identity through everything we distribute to the pubic? Do our TV and mail messages have the same graphics and same stories?

• Add your URL as part of your identity — on everything!

• Examine your corporate brochures and annual reports. Do they resemble your campaign appeals?

Geoff Peters is president of Creative Direct Response located in Crofton, Md. Creative Direct Response is a fundraising agency that consults with nonprofits in the areas of direct mail, grassroots advocacy, e-mail, telemarketing, workplace giving, cause-related marketing, payroll-deduction giving and integrated marketing. He can be reached at gpeters@cdr-nfl.com.