Stupid or Smart? Asking for a donors occupation.

Occupation is field that’s appeared on 90% of RG recruitment forms since the dawn of time. It seems like a logical thing to have on there, after all surely a person’s occupation is surely an indicator of how they will perform as a donor. And on top of that all data is good data right? Spoiler Alert! It’s not. But that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to have it on there. Let’s look at the bad and good, the stupid and the smart reasons for including an occupation field.

Stupid

Donors don’t provide good data

What do you do for a living”, . How do you answer that question?  Well I assume you’re a fundraiser otherwise you’re just here for my witty prose, which seems unlikely. But how do you describe what you do to people. Do you say you work for a charity? Or that you working in marketing? All of those are true answers. Even if you’re as specific as “fundraiser” it doesn’t tell me very much. You could be straight out of university and trying your hand at F2F or you could be running a multimillion pound capital fundraising program for a university hospital. Self-declared job titles are largely meaningless and impossible to analyse.

Worse still if you try to coral the donor’s information into sectors or guide them towards certain answers you will still end up with information that is just as inaccurate (again, how would you categorise fundraiser), but this time with the added issue of putting people into a category. People don’t want to be stereotyped, they don’t want to be classified. Telling them they work in marketing when they have given up that job and moved to the charity sector in order to use their powers for good is not going to win you any favours

The Fundraiser’s can make the problem worse

There was a stage when I was monitoring quality F2F programs where we had a spate of people who put their occupation down as “superhero”. As we didn’t have road trips going our to Metropolis or Gotham city, its pretty safe to assume that the fundraisers were prompting the donors what to say.  Although superhero may be an extreme example, it’s a demonstration that as part of  what can happen when two people try collect free text data.  A fundraiser may prompt the donor to give  for purely innocent reasons. For example if they’re studying law, the fundraiser may put down “lawyer”. The issue here is in analysis down the line. If they sign a thousand law students who you think are lawyers, you may find yourself wondering why the legal profession were so bad at sticking to RGs. It could come from a more sinister place. If, for example, employment is mandatory criteria for a valid pledge. a fundraiser may alter to add to the recruitment form in order for it to count. This is why, when occupation is mandatory, a water tight welcome call is needed to ensure that fundraisers know that they cannot do this.

It makes the donor think that it’s being used, when it’s not.

When you ask for data of any kind, you’re entering into a pact with the donor (or er… data giver… there’s probably a term for that). They are telling you something about themselves and they are asking you to keep it safe and use if for a good purpose. Although not using data you’ve collected may not be bad as loosing or abusing it, I would still be pretty miffed if someone asked me something personal under the guise of requiring data and then didn’t do anything with it. If someone tells you they’re an emu farmer, then calls you just after the bottom drops out of the emu egg market, they may be upset you don’t have the details in front of them.

But it’s not all bad, there are a couple of reasons why it can be useful to collect occupation.

Smart

It helps the fundraiser establish a donor’s ability to give.

Prompting the fundraisers to ask what the donor does gives the fundraiser an opportunity to  ensure they donor is in a position to give long-term  and at an appropriate level. If the donor says they’re a student and wants to give $50 per month, the good fundraiser may find themselves talking the donor down to a gift size that more affordable in the long term. It’s far from watertight, as mentioned above the answer is not reliable, but as a guide it can be handy.

It helps build rapport.

Filling out a donation form can be a little stressful. You are asked for a number of very personal details and that can put you on edge. Asking for occupation can be used by a great fundraiser to get the donor to talk about themselves a bit. This can help avoid both the donor getting too stressed by the situation during sign up and also after the sign up.  Although many people can have difficulty defining what they do, most people feel comfortable talking about their job.  This is why it’s often the default first question at dinner parties.

What are your thoughts? Have you found a way to make good use out of the occupation field from a data perspective? Have you sworn off using in data collection after you signed up your 900th caped crusader? How do you explain what you do for a living? Everyone reading this blog is interested to know what you think, join the conversation by commenting below.

 

10 Quick Tips for a Gold Standard Welcome Call Program

Not long after I started Face to Face fundraising I visited “the office”. I give it s quotation marks to make it clear that although it may conjure up visions of a highly professional inner city space, it was in fact a friendly but slightly dingy space above an old  theatre. I was told that the people here conducted the “welcome calling”- calling the people who I had signed up and making sure that I hadn’t forced them into it. I’m not sure if this was intended as a shock tactic, but it worked as one. Welcome calling probably started as a reactive measure; a relatively cheap but effective way to weed out the worst of the pledges before they go to the client. But the best welcome calling programs use it to do drive improvements in their face to face programs. I’ve seen slight improvements on the welcome call produce significant culture changes and retention improvements very quickly. In the post below I’ve collected the 10 most important elements from the different programs I’ve seen over the years.

1. Get the right people calling

Here’s a universal truth for you. Hire the right people for the job. (I promise the insights will become more er…insightful after this one).  Rather than high turn over of F2F staff,  the best welcome call rooms not only have had leaders/managers who have lasted for years but the callers as well. Hiring is obviously a great skill to have, but look at your call centre team as an afterthought. HINT! Ex face to facers can be a good starting point.

2. Prepare them in the right way

Make them love the fundraisers and the charity. The callers need to understand how F2F works in full. They have to know the difference between a fundraiser convincing and a fundraiser pushing someone to sign up. They need to know that the fundraisers are good people doing great work while also recognising that the charities have longevity requirements to make this form of fundraising work.  Give them the same level of charity training you would give to the fundraisers (and make sure that the charity training them know what they do) and get them trained by the fundraisers to know what’s happening.

3. Time it right

Don’t be too soon or too late after sign up. The worst welcome call program I ever seen was based around the fundraisers calling into a phone room at point of sign up. Imagine standing there with a fundraiser while on the phone to his “head office”. Would you be able to give them an honest answer about your commitment? Receiving the call 2-10 days later gives the donor a chance to think about it. If they’re given the time for their initial enthusiasm to die down and they still want to donate, you have a much better chance of having a long term giver. Conversely if you leave it too long, their connection to the emotions you felt at sign up are less like to be as fresh. They might not even remember signing up.

4. Maximise Penetration

It’s important to try and speak to as many people as possible. The effectiveness of your welcome call is directly proportionate to the number of sign ups you speak to. If you consistently speak to 20% of your signed up donors, your fundraisers will know that they can get away with doing the wrong thing 50% of the time and never be found out. You need to create a panopticon to make this work.

5. Frame it as a real welcome

Some people may think that the only thing the donor gets out of the welcome call is a chance to change their mind,. but it can be so much more. This is a real opportunity to make them feel amazing about a donation. Tell them they are awesome. Tell them how big a difference they are making. Celebrate the donation and the donor.

6. Verify as much as possible

There is an admin side to the call. For people with oddly spelled names this is their opportunity to make sure they are not referred to as Mr Dgunan for their donation lifetime. Also make sure you have the email address spelled correctly, they’re correct postal address and date of birth. Even though these things aren’t the most emotional topic, they will help you connected with your donors in the future.

7. Ask… don’t tell

Please, in this situations let’s agree that “… and the fundraiser told you that you should be giving for the next two years” will tell you much less than “did the fundraiser talk to you about how long you should give for”?

8. Be prepared to loose sign ups

Post-sales dissonance is a thing. Accept that many people will change their mind for no real reason other than that they changed their mind. The cancellations you receive will ultimately improve the quality of the gifts you export.

9. Follow up the scientific and the anecdotal

If done properly, the welcome call will get rid of the worst 10% of donors from any given file. This is obviously a step in the right direction as it will improve the donor retention statistics. But there is so much data you are collecting from a program like this it shocks me how few organisations just leave it there. There are two ways in which you’ll learn from welcome calling. Firstly the scientific. If a fundraiser has a lot of cancels at welcome call, you should probably have a talk to them. This is a data driven (ie GREAT!) way of learning. But there’s more, the anecdotal, you will be amazed how much information the question “how was the fundraiser” gets you. On it’s own it may not prove a fundraiser is a wrong ‘un, but it will give you more training tips than you can imagine and leader the fundraiser to improve.

10. The Greater the Transparency, The better the result

If you were to describe any successful F2F fundraiser I would be shocked if “competitive” didn’t come up in the first couple of words you used. Embrace this. If they can see what people are saying about them and their colleagues, they will want to be the best. Highlight the good, highlight the bad and show it to everyone. Almost immediately s they’ll be competing to outdo each other for the best representative (if they don’t, fire them). It will also remind them that their interactions with the public are checked out, thus improving their compliance.

RG Lead Generation and Conversion 101

Probably the biggest development in Australian Regular Giving in the 2010s and certainly has been lead generation and conversion.  In fact I’m happy to blame a lot of the absence of blog posts on the effort I’ve expended on getting this to work for my organisation. (I may be happy to do that, but it’s probably not correct).  Generating warm lists of potential donors, calling them and converting them into regular donors hardly reinventing of the wheel, but the growth of lead generation sources over the last couple of years has turned it into a viable recruitment model, not just in terms of ROI, but  also in terms of volume.  Given that here are some of the basics I’ve learned about LGAC (does anyone have a snappy name for this yet?).

Lead Generation

What sources are there?

Lots.. from pre-transactional grids, to bespoke survey questions, through petition sites, onto giveaways and post transactional surveys.  There’s a lot out there.

Which source is best?

This is the most obvious question, but also the wrong one.  All sources will work to a greater or lesser extent.  The important thing is to work out the cost of acquisition including conversion.  The only real way to find out is this is to trial it.

How much should a lead cost?

About the length of a piece of string. Some are incredibly cheap, less than an Australian dollar.  Some can be over $10.

Are all leads created equal?

No, of course not  As different leads are produced in  different ways, the have different levels of engagement. If someone has opted into calling you because they started filling out a survey because they wanted to win a car, half way through that survey they are given 5 different charities to opt into and you’re one of the three they tick, they won’t have made the same amount of investment in opting in as someone who’s seen a petition related to the cause your organisation works, signed it then seen an opportunity to opt in to hear from you. That level of emotional investment during the lead recruitment will be a big part of how the lead performs later on.

How much incorrect data should I expect?

Again it depends on the lead source. If it’s expensive data then you should expect them to have systems of checks and balances that clean the data before you see it.  If it’s cheap as chips then don’t be surprised if you call centre is going to report a high number of wrong numbers or people named Seymour Butts.

Lead Conversion

How soon should the lead be called?

I’m yet to find too short a time.  It’s pretty much accepted that the leads decay incredibly quickly.

What is decay?

Decay is the idea that the longer the amount of time from when the donor opting in to be being called until you actually getting on the phone, the less likely they are to become a donor.

Why do leads decay?

Many reasons, firstly when they opted in to be contacted they were at a peak on interest in being contacted, although it’s not a guarantee that they’ll be less interested when you ring, you will be further removed from that moment and it will be harder for them to recall that they really wanted to hear from you. Also unless the lead is exclusive to you then they will have had calls from other telemarketers even from other charities.  They’ll be less likely to pick up the phone if you’re their 50th call from a number you don’t know and they’ll be less likely to convert if they’ve signed up to another charity or decided to have solar panels fitted in the last week.

Do leads decay at different rates?

Absolutely.  They are effected by many things.  The level of engagement people had when opting in.  The number of other things that they opted in to hear about at the same time as you and a host of other things.  The best way to establish how the lead will perform is really to try them out.

How do these donors stay on board?

A very good question, there isn’t nearly as much data as F2F donors.  They appear to have slightly fewer donor driven cancellations early on than face to face but slightly more than conventional (whatever that means) telephone recruitment.

What’s the deal with capacity?

It’s important to balance the number of leads you have coming in with the amount of leads your suppliers can call quickly. This is one of the hardest things to manage day to day.  If your phone provider is flooded with more leads than they can call the leads will decay.  However at the same time you don’t want them to bring in more callers than they have work for. The only most effective way of manage it is to spread the load across a few sources and providers.  This also has the benefit of meaning you can see if different providers perform better with certain lead sources.

What are the figures I should be looking at in a providers performance?

Well I haven’t seen any proper bench marking so it’s a bit hard to judge.  I always believe in judging the provider against their own targets.  As long as the supplier’s targets provide a good cost per donor then go with them.  Look at the penetration and conversion rate the supplier expects, calculate that against the costs of buying the data and doing the calling and you’ll find your expected cost per donor.  Roughly speaking should probably be a bit cheaper than face to face.

Give More Tomorrow

The last post talked about the vital financial impact that an Opt Out Auto-Upgrade can have on an organisations finances, and the potential bad feeling that can arise from them. I also mentioned that I’d talk about alternatives, better ways of maintaining the value of your data base, so I better keep my promise.

One of the biggest innovations in this space over the last few years has been the variations on the donor opting in to an Auto-Upgrade. At some point, often the point of recruitment, the donor makes a pledge that their donation will increase by x amount at y point. The y could be either 12 months from now or a specific month; the x comes from a number of potential systems of which I’ll outline some below. Before that lets look at why it works so well.

–          It means that they know their gift will retain its power in relative terms over the length of the donation.  Without prompting, most people won’t think about their gift loosing impact over the years, but if you suggest it to them, most will easily understand this.

–          Delaying the increase appeals to people’s knowledge of their own procrastination. In the main people know their lazy, this is a way of giving people the nudge to their future selves to do something their future selves will like, but which they wouldn’t get around to off their own back.

–          As long as they are not a born pessimist, people tend  think that they’ll be in a better position this time next year than they are today (note, I’m basing this on the sunny outlook of Australians). They are likely to get a pay rise of some sort,  they may think they’re in line for a promotion, they may have paid off a bit more of their mortgage etc… A delayed increase works with enthusiasm for the future.

–          It gives the donor control.  They may be a pessimist, they may be thinking of retiring the beauty of the opt in auto upgrade means that the opt in allows for people to be individuals. There is very little chance that the donor will feel negatively toward the organisation as a result.

–          For the charity receiving the increase, not only is there the increase in monthly revenue, but also this is predictable.  You can predict with greater certainty what the monthly income will be.

For the donor and the charity, there are very few negatives.  However, public facing fundraisers and agencies will need to do some extra work.  It takes time to explain the donation increase and to collect the data and to train on doing these things. .  Most cases I’ve seen have not involved an extra payment for asking for an opt in Auto Upgrade. Mainly this is because it would mean paying for something speculative rather than easily quantifiable (the donor could cancel the donation or the upgrade). Even if the increase does eventuate there will be no return on investment for over a year.  In addition any reward passed down to the public facing fundraiser would mean that the PFF is more likely to talk people into doing it who don’t really want to, thus skewing and success rate/ROI estimate. That said, keeping an agency too accountable for something that you don’t directly reward them for  is both difficult and questionable.  Uptake rates in particular are hard to manage if you can’t provide a financial incentive.  For any agencies reading this though, especially those I work with, I would make the point that the increased revenue and ROI is only going to be positive for them in the future.

In terms of what this increase is, a number of approaches are being used. The initial idea was to link the yearly opt in upgrade to the rate of inflation. This is certainly the clearest way of demonstrating that a donation needs to increase to retain its impact, it’s also the most future proof allowing for any unexpected inflation levels.  The unusual the amount by which it increases lends itself to a rounding when the donor is asked for a one off upgrade (eg. If they are increasing their donation from $25 to $25.78, why not just increase it to $26?)  There are some issues with this approach.  Firstly, not everyone finds it easy to understand.  Although the idea of inflation is generally understood, explaining it comprehensively and accurately can prove harder especially in the brief amount of time we get with donors at point of recruitment.

A second idea of an opt in auto upgrade was to have a set amount that the gift increases by each year.  Say a dollar or two.  This is certainly easier to communicate at point of recruitment, but it suffers in that it doesn’t take into account the initial pledge level – a dollar on $30 is half the percentage increase that a dollar on $15.

My personal preference is to allow the PFF negotiate an increase with the donor, this gives them control of the upgrade as well as ownership of it. If pitched correctly, this should not only minimize the number of people who get annoyed by the increase, but potentially also maximise the amount by which they upgrade. One of the added bonuses of this final method is that many donors are actually suggesting they increase their donation by more than inflation.  If they are optimistic about their personal circumstances and believe they will be better off in 12 months, especially those who have recently finished studying. Many will pledge 15-20% increases in the future and it perversely becomes important to limit the uplift amounts to ensure they don’t let themselves in for a nasty shock in three or four years time.

The opt in approach to an Auto Upgrade will always give you a lower uptake level than the opt out approach.  Although there isn’t any clear data to benchmark, figures I’ve seen have varied there has been anything from two thirds opting in to just 20%. Although product and proposition play a role here, by far the biggest influence on uptake seems to be making sure everyone gets asked. But it contains far less risk both in terms of both retention and reputation.  It also should not replace the specific upgrade ask (by phone or DM) as this gives a greater increase per donor and hypothetically better retention.  However due to it’s balance of cost efficiency, low risk and high potency, it’s seems likely to be a part of many RG programs moving forward.

PS.  As fundraisers I’m pretty sure you’ll all be reading this PS. I really appreciate all the feedback from the last article, on my Facebook page, through email and especially from those of you I don’t know well in the comments section.  It’s obvious that opt out upgrades are still controversial and stir up a lot of passions. I welcome any thoughts or comments you have, wether you agree with me or not so please don’t be shy: Comment below, share on your networks drop me a line.

PPS. Apologies for the more irregular updates of late.  A heady combination of End of the Financial Year workload, moving house etc… has held me back.  I look forward to being more regular in the future (I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to make that joke).

Why I stopped hating the opt out Upgrade (and why I probably won’t be doing it again)

A few years ago a fellow fundraiser told me a horror story.  He had heard that another charity had just increased all their donors’ regular gifts without asking them. I was appalled as I liked this charity, but I made a mental note never to support them.  Flash forward a few years and it turns out , that like all good horror stories, although there was some basis in fact most of what my friend told me was not really true.  What the charity had done was an opt out upgrade, sometimes called an auto-upgrade.  They had informed a number of their donors that their monthly donation would increase, unless they asked them not to, then increased the donation of all the non-responders.

Although this may have been the first opt out upgrade conducted by a charity in Australia, its certainly not the last. But even with a number of organisations conducting these programs over the years, it remains one of the most controversial tactics  of Regular Giving programs. When discussed among fundraisers a good proportion of them believe opt out upgrades to be the work of the devil whilst a similar number believe it to be literally a life saving retaining value against inflation.  Personally I started out being extremely against the idea, but over the last year or so I have changed my mind.   Although I didn’t initiate the first one, the program I look after has run several opt out upgrades.  I’ve run a couple of these programs now  I’ve seen the outcomes first hand.

Before I give you the reasons why I’ve come around to the idea of opt out upgrades  I’d like you to ask yourself a couple of questions.

1. If you were to die unexpectedly and your heart to be used to save someone else’s life, would you agree to the transplant?
2. Are you registered as an organ donor?

The difference in the number of people who respond positively to these questions tells you why opt out upgrades have a place in fundraising.  I consider myself to be an engaged, organised and responsible person, but I am also one hell of a procrastinator.  Anyone who’s seen the half finished planter boxes in my back yard can attest to this.  Most people won’t make these decisions unless they either really, REALLY  care about the outcome or they are put on the spot. To continue with the organ donor analogy above, Germany has an opt in system of organ donation, and around 12% of their population have agreed to save someone’s life after they die. Austria on the other hand has and opt out consent to organ donation, meaning that  that 99.98% have agreed to give their organs after death.  I’ve known enough Austrians and Germans to realise that they are not exactly the same, but there aren’t 87 degrees of altruism between them either.  By contacting donors and telling them that their donations will increase if they do not contact you, then you are asking them to say if they really care enough NOT to upgrade.  If they do then they will tell you. If you phrase it correctly, they are unlikely to be angry with you.  An opt out upgrade is not an increase in the gift whether the donor likes it or not, but it is making sure the question is heard and asking if they really don’t want to increase their gift.

The ethical arguments against an opt out upgrade are usually around idea that it’s removing the donor’s choice. But asking them to opt out, still gives them a choice which we are not usually granted in other areas of our lives.  My electricity company doesn’t give me the opportunity to opt out of their price increases. The government doesn’t ask me to contact them if I choose not to increase my taxes.  Cooper’s brewery are yet to give me a heads up about the increase in beer prices and give me the chance not to pay extra if I don’t want to. The option of opting out keeps the choice  in the donors hands, which in turn reflects the optional nature of a donation.

One flaw in this theory is that there will always be a number of people who you haven’t see your communication and therefore are unaware that they had the option not to increase the donation.  They only see that it has increased when they look at their statement. There are two basic situations where this could have arisen.  It could either be because they received, but chose not to read the email or letter or you have their details wrong and they didn’t receive it.

A number of these people will be upset at the increase and a number will tell your incoming call team in no uncertain terms how upset they are. The percentage of these people is comparatively small, but they more than make up for it in their volume. The important thing, as with any complaint, is to listen to them and explain what has happened. Be ready to offer refunds at the drop of a hat. Tell them that you’re sorry that they feel that way, that they have missed the communication or that you didn’t have their correct details. You shouldn’t be sorry for the program of opt out increases.

All of the stats evaluations that I’ve seen on opt out increases show that the increased income far out-weighs the slight increase in attrition. This can be improved by making intelligent who is upgraded based on tenure, gift, age etc…  So  there can be no question that it is very effective and ethical, but I am unlikely to run an opt out upgrade again.

The problem with an opt out upgrade is that some people, even if they understand it, will not necessarily like it.  They won’t cancel their donation, certainly not immediately.  They won’t call you and tell you that they’re upset, but there will be a feeling of negativity there. Fundraising works on a very base level; it’s all about emotions and our lizard brain. If there is a feeling of negativity then there it makes getting people to agree to things later on, much harder.  They may say no rather than yes when you next ask them to upgrade. They may be more likely to cancel when that big bill comes in or that holiday comes up.  We’re not talking about big swings in emotion here, but they may only be 3% more likely to say “no”.  But a successful RG or indeed any wide scale fundraising program is about getting as many of the small percentages work in your favor.

The problem is now you’re aware that there’s one way of making an RG database retain it’s value at low cost, there must be another way which doesn’t colour you negatively.

I’ll save those ideas until the next post.

Terrible ideas for Face to Face programs thought up by people who clearly have never done any face to face

During my time as an account manager for a face to face agency I learned that all new client contacts would go through a similar journey at the start of their tenure.  They would start off over compensating for their initial discomfort in working with F2F. They would eulogise about the benefits and even offer to go out and campaign with the team (although when push came to shove this rarely happened). This enthusiasm is really positive and should only be encouraged, but the stage that followed was just a little awkward.

After 3-6 months they would often try to start suggesting “innovations” to the program.  There is nothing wrong with innovation, but the issue was that these “improvements” would never make sense to anyone with any experience of the practicalities of running a team of Fundraisers on the street. Oddly their seemed to be a psychic connection between these clients that forced them to suggest the same ideas one after the other.  So if you are new to your job running an F2F program, please take note not to suggest the ideas below, this will save you uncomfortable exasperated conversations with you account managers.

Balloons and/or sweets

A fairly innocuous one to start with. The idea behind it seems to be a way of attracting children to a shopping Centre stall.  If the children are there then they surely the parents will want to stick around, listen to the pitch and sign up. The first comes from the assumption that parents want their children to accept candy from strangers, generally the opposite is advised. Accusations of bribery are also likely to follow and you’ll be lucky to find a shopping centre that wants its aisles covered in deflated balloons or sweet wrappers. Last but not least, public liability insurers tend to look unfavourably on the use of compressed gas and choking hazards around members of the public.

Thank you for listening cards

There is some logic behind this.  It’s certainly true that a large number of people ask for more information on the streets and so giving them a reminder pointing them to a website might work.  Sadly though, of the people who ask for more information, most are just doing it to politely get out of the conversation and have no intention of ever giving to your charity. Of the rest some will want to sign up when given a little more information from the fundraiser and those with a genuine desire to do some deep research will do so without a card to remind them.  What the thank you for listening card does do is give the fundraiser, especially a new one, a false sense of success. When asked how they’re doing, they tell you that they’ve had a brilliant day because although they haven’t signed anyone up, eh have given out 400 cards.  Thank you for listening cards do have a couple of great uses however; for handing to people who are inappropriate to sign up while leaving them on a good note and for getting rid of time wasters

Funky pitch cards

Pitch cards, for those who don’t know, are an A3 or A4 laminated cards used help Fundraisers out when they can’t remember what they’re supposed to say next or to point at for emphasis. They’re simplicity sadly makes them ripe for pointless reinvention attempts.  There have been a variety of things tried which remind me of early attempts to redesign airplanes, you know the ones that have 14 sets of wings stacked on top of each other and look really impressive for 3 seconds before they crash and burn killing all on board. To my knowledge no ones ever been killed by a pitch card, but the heroic failure can’t be counted, even with my socks off.  I’ve seen pitch cards with intricate folding mechanisms that make it impossible for the fundraiser to open.  I’ve seen pitch booklets that allow the fundraiser to choose a variety of topics to talk about, if they can convince the donor to stick around long enough for them to find the write page. Pitch cards with interchangeable sheets sounded like a cost effective way of keeping them up to date before it was realised that interchangeable was a synonym for easily losable.

Other innovations that crop up quite frequently include getting the agency to Fundraisers “interesting” locations like music festivals (the people who chose talking to fundraisers over spending time with their friends or watching band are rarely sober or serious).  Suggesting changes to the agency’s payment model that would see the agency go under in a week while favouring the client.  One of the few ideas from a client I really liked was when a client told me that account manager role we were recruiting for was drastically underpaid and we wouldn’t find anyone decent for that salary. Although on second thoughts this was maybe a comment on my skills.

There is also a special place in hell left for the client who revises their “product” without warning or consultation, but that in itself will get its own post.

As mentioned at the top of the article, innovation is a good thing, as is that naive optimism that generated these is also to be encouraged.  It only becomes a problem when the client enforces a bad idea on an agency.  Working collaboratively with them will see much better results for all involved.

In-House Vs Agency

Due to the high cost of recruitment  a suggestion often made by senior management is to bring a Face to Face fundraising program in house.  The general conversation seems to run along the lines of “hire some back packers, get them out on the street and it’ll be as good as what we have at the moment but cheaper, more reliable and we’ll have more control over it”. This argument is flawed in a very large number of ways, as well as being really quite disrespectful to the people who have devoted their careers to making F2F work. In case you’re ever in a position where someone in your senior management team suggests bringing the program in house, keep this guide handy so you can smack their arguments down quickly and efficiently.

Recruiting Fundraisers is hugely difficult

Let’s say you’re lucky enough to have recruited a person to who is experienced enough to run your team but not so burnt out  that the thought of ever asking someone for money again terrifies the hell out of them. The first thing you’re going to have to do is find someone for them to work with. Recruiting new fundraisers is one of the most frustrating things in the universe. Very few people wake up in the morning and decide that they’re going to apply for F2F fundraising jobs that day. You have to sell the idea to them in the advert. When you find an advert that seems gets respondents, the respondents will often turn out to be unsuitable. When you find an advert that gets decent respondents one week, you can run it again the following week and no one will respond.  Also be prepared to do this in perpetuity. If you ever get to a point where you think that you have “enough” Fundraisers, you’ll still need to recruit or you will find that the on you had have suddenly all gone and you have no one again.  This process will cost you lots more money than you realise and far more heartache than you ever thought necessary.

The only organisations who have made an in house fundraising team work in Australia to scale are ones that have in-built or adoped recruitment mechanisms for recruiting fundraisers. Greenpeace, The Wilderness Society and UNHCR have all succeeded done this in Australia, for different reasons.  Greenpeace and TWS have a cultural cache built from their public engagement for the last few decades. UNHCR have understandably strong connections to refugee and recent immigrant communities who often face a lot of prejudice when looking for employment. This means that their F2F team often pick up highly intelligent and incredibly skilled people who may have struggled to find work in more conventional sectors.  I’m sure this alone doesn’t make their recruitment a walk in the park, but it helps. Another overseas example of an in house success story was started when one of the charity’s main suppliers going under and the charity hired the entire work force. They were such a large organisation that they were able to sustain the recruitment costs needed to keep a team.

Managing an F2F team is REALLY hard

When you have some fundraisers on board, do not underestimate how much time, effort and pain will be required to keep them out there signing people up. F2F has a ridiculous staff turnover for a reason. The Fundraisers will spend all day in rain, sleet, heat, hail and wind being told “no”.  This means they either resign soon after they start or they are crazy. Crazy is perhaps a little harsh, but in order to survive they will need the following qualities

• Headstrong (this means they will only do what you ask them to if they agree with it)
•  Excellent negotiation skills (they will practice this by negotiating every single possible issue with you)
•  Passionate about the cause (if they are passionate about the cause they tend to be passionate about everything in their life, to the extent that their results will stop should at the slightest thing happen in their personal lives. E.g. One fundraiser stopped getting results because he couldn’t decide what he wanted to get his girlfriend for a birthday present)
• Inspirational (they affect other people, not just when they’re pitching either. If one person is having a bad day, it’s likely everyone will have a bad day

It’s not just about the Fundraisers

If you are running an in house program purely for financial reasons, it’s unlikely that you have taken into account what goes on in the background. Before the Fundraisers go out they’ll need locations and permits booked.  You’ll need staff to enter the data or at least verify it. You’ll want welcome calls meaning more cost internally or outsourced.

You’ll loose flexibility

One of the great advantages of an agency is that when things aren’t going well, they’re likely to be able to move capacity onto you campaign from somewhere else.  If you have an in-house program you’ll never have this option.  You can increase your recruitment budget, but that doesn’t guarantee an increase in recruitment.

It’s not likely to solve your problem

This is the real kicker.  There are plenty of good reasons for starting an in house team, (some willing subjects with which to test new methodologies, a gang of experienced F2fFers knocking down your door in a desperate need to work for you) but they’re rarely themain reason for starting one. More often than not it’s to substitute for a lack of available capacity or a need for more consistency in results. In house teams provide no guarantee of this. This isn’t to say that they can’t be found in an in house team, but there no correlation with their in-house/outsources status. Good teams are good teams no matter who employs them. The main difference is that an agency is far more likely to be able to deliver you a good team in less time than starting one yourself, completely from scratch.

Balancing average pledge

As a fundraiser working for an agency I was very concerned with retention.  Our efforts for recruiting a higher percentage led us to looking at the effects of pledge amount.  We found what most of you reading would expect, that generally. The more you give, the more likely you are to cancel sooner. As we prided ourselves on giving our donors the best return on their investment we then worked hard and successfully on reducing our average pledge.  The followed a positive impact on retention and our clients were generally happy; on top of the improved retention a drop in average place in F2F generally also means a cheaper cost per donor.

However one thing that I didn’t realise at the time was medium term effect of a lower average pledge. The first, most important and perhaps most surprising that a lower average pledge means it takes longer to break even on a cohort of donors. There are a number of assumptions that are involved in this statement, and feel free to challenge any of them, but the evidence I’ve seen for myself plus the anecdotal evidence, backs it up. Assuming that the recruitment cost is based on donation amounts with a retention clawback or built in, assumed discount. Assuming that the reduced gift means that there is a relatively consistent attrition level across all donation rates. And assuming that the improved attrition isn’t more than say 10% better at year one. The reason for this is that there is less money coming in in “profit” from the donors who passed the break even point. The reduction in pledge is necessarily caused by a lowers targets across the board, meaning it stops donors signing up for more than they can afford or care to give, but it also lowers the amount that people who could afford to give more, give less.

On top of this, the reduced pledge means reduced overall income and, to rub salt into the wound, less financial gain from upgrades.  As an RG fundraiser, the frustration felt from these issues is only topped by the knowledge that this is only a medium term problem and you’re actually getting better value for money. Regular giving is all about the long term. It may take you six months longer to break even and be running a $10,000 under budget, but you know in two years time this will have paid off, probably several times over.

So what’s more important here? Higher initial income or more donors down the track. The slightly dull answer is somewhere that you need to find balance that works for you and you’re suppliers. They know that a high average pledge will mean higher attrition and less work for them in the long run, so they’re likely to work with you to try and keep it in boundaries that work for both you and them. It’s also important to remember that constantly pushing the pledge amounts down won’t increase retention after a certain point.

The Active Donor

One of the times I’ve been angriest in my career as a fundraiser, actually in my life, was when someone  working at a charity said the following.  To my face.

“They’re just the Face to Face donors.  They’re not engaged with what we do, most of them probably don’t event know who they’re giving to.”

After I’d been sedated and had time to think, I realised that this is probably the way in which many people in NGOs think of F2F donors. There are some common, but deadly, misconceptions about the donors that fuel our organisations work. This include

• Most don’t know much about the work the charity does.
• They care very little our the work we do, they don’t share the same values
• Many don’t even know the organisations they donate to.

Although there is an element of truth to some of these claims (see the left hand side of the bell curve of engagement) it does an enormous discredit to vast numbers of people.  Part of this attitude comes from negative views on the methodology of F2F, assumptions that people are bullied into signing, or only join because they fancy the fundraiser.

However, we can’t lay the blame for these attitudes solely on others.  The way in which we treat donors reinforces this idea, when there’s the opportunity to do so much more.

In general terms, our communication do little or nothing to encourage anything other than sit back and not cancel. We send them magazines and newsletters telling them how great we are, and, if we’re better at our job, how great they are. We call them up and ask them for more money or to update their details, but none of this invites them to do anything more.  The thing is that we can and we should.

Do not underestimate what kind of a commitment making a monthly gift is.  Admittedly some donors won’t notice the gift going out each month, but declines tell us that a good percentage of our donors don’t have enough money in the account or on their card to complete the donation.  They are committing their last cents to our cause.   If they are doing all they can financially so why limit them to just a financial contribution. Imagine if we tapped into the enthusiasm and asked them to take a small action. Something easy and immediate other than donating that helps attain your organisational  goals: sign a petition, send a postcard to send off, tell a friend about the charity.

Not everyone will take the action of course, as with any call to action there are going to be a majority of people who say no, or who cant be bothered or who forget.  But imagine if just 5% of your donor base wrote to their MP about an issue you’re campaigning on, or encouraged one of their friends to sign up as well. For many charities this would be a sea change in what they can achieve.

On top of that as well imagine the possibilities for retention.  When donors do something other than give you money, the more they are engaged.  The more they engage, the longer they stay, the more likely they are to increase their gift, the more they are likely to remember you in their will. When donors move on being active they become much more than RG donors, they start to become an integral part of your fundraising strategy and even your organisation.

However, all of this requires a change of thinking however and possibly one outside of just the fundraising department.  There needs to be shift in viewing the donor as sitting in an armchair not remembering that they’re giving to you, to someone standing on the front line of your protest, telling their friends that they give to you. And the paradigm shift is only the beginning, when you’re looking at your donor base in this way, the entire way in which you communicate with them changes. It becomes more interactive, more frequent, more inspiring and yes, more work.  But the rewards more than make up for it.

Why F2F Flourishes In A Recession

Recently the PFRA in the UK (the self regulatory body for face to face over there) released a report showing that in 2011/12 more people pledged to make a regular gift to charity through a face to face fundraiser than in any previous year. 800,000 donors were recruited, a growth of 18.2% in two years. This would be commendable for any industry during the sort of economic pessimism the UK saw during that period. For charity giving, which is often though of being a low priority for people in times of financial strife, a period of growth in a recession goes against all logic.

Unsinkable?

It’s not to say that F2F is recession proof. The figures here don’t give details about the amount people were giving, wether their gifts were successful or attrition rates, all of which are incredibly important in determining “success”. However, the fact that more people came on gave through F2F raises the question of why and how.

A lovely way to do it

As PFRA spokesperson Ian MacQuillin says, F2F is a brilliant way to give. People are more likely to give to another human being than they are to a Facebook advert. In the face of increased regulation by local governments and negative coverage in the media, it is important to remember that lots more people have positive experiences of F2F than negative ones.

People are nice and RG is nice

Even in a recession people are inclined to give. It’s human nature. Making a small donation each month is a great way to give effectively. Speaking to a nice person on the street is a nice, easy way to do it.

New Blood

Much like the blood sausage industry, F2F relies on new blood; not literally you understand, but in the form of new recruits to start fundraising. However It’s fair to say no child dreams of becoming a face to face fundraiser when they grow up. It’s something that people fall into. With fewer job prospects around more people fall into it. There really isn’t a maximum number of fundraisers that can be out there, the more fundraisers the more pledges. This seems to me to be the most likely reason for the increase. A hypothesis backed up by strong recruitment in the US over the last few years. But this is just an opinion, what are your thoughts?