1. Event Fundraising: Converting Event Participants into Long-term Donors Leveraging innovative techniques and messaging to build long-term, high-value constituents
Welcome from Tom
Second in a series of webinars we are hosting for our clients and friends in the non profit community
Please questions to and we’ll answer them as we go along
Will run about 40 minutes and we’ll have time for questions at the end
Tom Gaffny,
June 2004

2. 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

3. American Charities in Crisis
Few of us are unaware of the situation, but let’s spend a few moments doing some scene setting about our environment

4. 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 , 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
Many of you already working with Epsilon are familiar with the research we commissioned the Barna Group to do on behalf of our clients
These are some of the topline findings of that research

5. 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
Use example of National Children’s Cancer organization being challenged by 1. brain tumor group and 2. by a local cancer center that treats children

6. 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

7. The Boomers – It’s 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
Many of you may read Seth Godin’s weblog. A few weeks ago, he was discussing the boomers and said, “ We’re all boomers, aren’t we? Even if you’re not, we don’t care – it’s all about us!”
As an added bonus they frequently doubt the effectiveness or sincerity of institutions that they perceived to be “their father’s charities” – driven by psychographics and compounded by scandals like the United Way

8. A Focus on Special Events Fundraising

9. 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
Since we’ve shared so much optimistic good news with you so far . . .

10. 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

11. 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
Let’s talk about what benefits these special events can offer to organizations

12. The Value of Volunteers from Your Special Events

13. 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.

14. 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
According to research done by the Daniel Yankelovitch Group

15. 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%
Notice the very large lift in Boomer households
Now that I’ve shared all the doom and gloom Tom is going to launch our discussion about how marketing to these volunteering households can begin and grow constituent relationships for your organization
American Demographics, January 2003

16. Relationship Initiatives for Special Events Fundraising
Tom to Take Over Here

17. 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
Tom

18. #1 Solidify Event Relationships through Direct Marketing
Tom to Take Over Here

19. Solidify Event Relationships through Direct Marketing: The Three Rs
Reinforcement
Of organization’s 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 volunteer’s contribution
Retention
Sponsors who may not be asked to give to the event again can be cultivated through direct marketing
Tom

20. 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
Tom

21. #2 Utilize Event Names for Direct Marketing Prospecting
Tom

22. 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
Tom
Convio tool has allowed participants to keep better records of those sponsors they cultivate. Also sets up better data capture from the sponsors of those participants because it drives giving with a credit card right on the web.

23. 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
Tom
Event names are not only different in performance initially in their first direct marketing gift but in their behavior in the program after that.
Co branding leads into the results on the next page

24. Co-Branding Test
One organization’s Fall 2003 Co-Branding test yielded higher response rates with slight decreases in avg. gift
Tom

25. 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 organization’s database
Outside demographic data
Modeled event names can replace marginal outside list names
No additional investment
Kristin to take over here

26. 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 didn’t receive any touches after the event
Kristin

27. 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
Kristin
Response rates – as Tom mentioned earlier, they will perform differently

28. #3 Channel Integration to Increase the Overall Value of a Donor
Tom to Take Over Here

29. 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
Tom
Balkanization of data – territorialism over data and its usage within most organizations

30. 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
Tom

31. 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
tom

32. 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
Tom

33. 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
Kristin to take over here

34. Questions? E-mail us at tomgaffny@epsilon.com