Tale of an Integrated Fundraising Effort

Tale of an Integrated Fundraising Effort

FS Advisor: March 21, 2006

By Abny Santicola, editor, FundRaising Success Advisor

The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, founded in 1980, is the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender political organization, with 600,000 members. When GLBT issues took the national stage in a big way in 2003 and 2004, HRC embarked on an effort to mobilize its direct fundraising efforts to make the most of the media attention. The all-out effort involved coordinating campaigns across direct mail, telemarketing and e-mail.

Direct mail and telemarketing already were integrated, but the necessary next step was beefing up the organization’s ability to raise funds online and join the integration. Ann Crowley, membership director for HRC, says prior to 2003 the organization tended to do online fundraising internally. The process was slow and elementary, Crowley adds, and, as attention turned toward GLBT issues, the organization was unable to handle the level of response on its own. So it turned to online consultancy, Donordigital.

Initiating a new online effort, HRC first rolled out The Million for Marriage Web page, to try to grow its e-mail list. After garnering a list of e-mail names, the next question was how to convert them to donors. It went out with several online campaigns on gay marriage, testing, as it still does, to see which techniques are best to convert donors by e-mail. Some areas the organization has tested are subject lines; length of e-mail; length of donation page; using a straight spokesperson vs. GLBT spokesperson; and using a marriage-focused message vs. a general HRC message.

After establishing an online fundraising presence, HRC’s next goal was to integrate online efforts with direct mail and telefundraising. The organization sent out a renewal mailing, followed up with an e-mail campaign. A second direct-mail appeal spoke of marriage amendments that would be on the November 2004 ballot, and this theme was incorporated into telemarketing scripts.

Crowley says the organization is always analyzing the most cost-effective way of reaching members, educating them and getting them to contribute, which channel is best for follow up, how much time should there be in between the appeal and the follow up, etc.

An approach that the organization has found works for renewals, says Dane Grams, director of annual giving for HRC, is to mail a renewal notice, then do a follow-up e-mail to those people who don’t respond and who have given the organization their e-mail address, and then do a follow-up phone call for those who don’t respond to the e-mail.

Using multiple points of contact is important, not just to expand an organization’s means for raising funds, but also to communicate the organization’s commitment to its donors/members. “I think reminding people of the message in all different forms, giving them an option of which form they’re most comfortable with and most want to participate in really sort of speaks to making an effort for your members -- for it to be member friendly. And I think that constantly following up and reminding people is critical to what we do.”

Crowley says e-mail works best for current issues because of its speed. By the time the organization got a direct-mail appeal into donors’ hands, the issue may be old news. But she maintains that e-mail, while fast and inexpensive, cannot carry the organization. “We still make the majority of our money through the mail,” Crowley adds. “If you get an e-mail and you need to respond to it but you don’t initially and then you’re just flooded with all the other e-mails [you get], it’s not in front of you anymore. Whereas with a mail piece, you put it aside with your other bills and it’s always there looking at you saying, ‘Hey, don’t forget to respond to me.’

“What you lose with a telephone call or an e-mail, I think, is that ability to have something tangible in front of them,” she adds.

Integrating all of the channels is key to maximizing the organization’s fundraising, Grams adds. “There are certainly some audiences that respond to their own channels. For example, online donors respond to e-mail, telemarketing donors respond to telemarketing. But they all work well together. It’s a coordinated campaign. The more you put the brand in front of their face, the more you remind people that they all work well with one another and you’re leaving less on the table than you used to because you have many more tools with which to raise money.”

Grams says its important for organizations to:

1) Be diligent in collecting donor information. “Collect them on every reply device, collect them every time you communicate with them. Give [donors] a vehicle to collect that information,” Grams says. “When you build that information and are able to obtain it on your own from your donors it’s much better than trying to find it through telematching or e-append or things like that.”

2) Build your online file. Grams says HRC developed an online petition around the same-sex marriage issue and went from having roughly 100,000 e-mail addresses to having over half a million on its e-mail list. Since responding to online petitions and other e-appeals, these people have become a part of the organization’s Online Action Center. “So we used that as a vehicle to collect e-mail addresses and get people engaged,” Grams adds. E-mail has been useful both in gathering donors and donor information, and for fundraising efforts. “It sort of has given us increased muscle, if you will,” he says.

And while it’s important to cultivate donors across multiple channels and not bombard them with all-out asks during every interaction, Crowley says you should always include a way for members, donors or prospects to give to your organization. “If you don’t ask, you’re guaranteed not to get the money. If you ask, however softly, however subtly that you ask, then at least it’s an option,” she adds.

Ann Crowley and Dane Grams can be reached via http://www.hrc.org