Focus On: Data Mining: Hope is Not A Strategy
The key to renewing these donors is to re-create the environment in which they gave their first and subsequent gifts. Deviate from “control” strategies and develop specific frequency-upgrade strategies. Depending on the breadth and depth of your existing data files, your organization already might have the information needed to address the reasons why donors have reduced their frequency. Extensive, accurate information is essential because by targeting donors as they begin to downgrade their frequency, you can better offset the chances that they will lapse completely. Through data, you not only can identify who is lapsing, but also why. This information will help you create new approaches that are customizable to fit all types of donors.
- Companies:
- Merkle|Domain
Greg Fox is vice president of nonprofit vertical strategy at Merkle. He joined the company in 2000 to establish a data-driven, strategic fundraising agency group. Fox is a 30-year veteran of direct response fundraising, with expertise in developing innovative fundraising marketing strategies and solutions. He has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for many of the largest and most respected fundraising brands in America, and while he has broad-based fundraising experience, he is highly regarded as a leader in the national health-charity sector. Prior to joining Merkle, Fox was a founding partner in TheraCom, a leading provider of full-service specialty pharmacy solutions and marketing strategies that served the healthcare and charitable industries. He also served as vice president of direct response fundraising at the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, where he started his career and created the organization’s first national direct response program. Fox is an industry thought-leader, frequent speaker at industry conferences and an active participant in the DMA nonprofit federation. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.
