McGrath Foundation sent a superb donor care video to all their regular givers yesterday.
In the video message, Glenn McGrath repeatedly uses words such as “you” and “your” as he expresses heartfelt thanks. It is 50 seconds of gratitude, wrapped up in a low cost film, and blasted out to every regular donor via Email.
Looking for a best practice donor care piece? McGrath Foundation set an example for all charities to follow in the new financial year.
It’s tax appeal time.
The fact I give to hundreds of charities throughout the year means I am inundated with tax appeals during May and J
une. With only nine days left in the financial year, I am most surprised at the lack of follow up reminders from those nonprofit organisations I have not yet supported this season.
This last week I received an SMS reminder from CARE Australia. This unique (at least the only one I received) reminder stood out with a clear call to action.
There are nine days left in the financial year. What is your nonprofit organisation doing to capture the donor’s attention and to acquire gifts in the final days before the end of the financial year?
I wrote previously about my giving to conservation organisations, including Bush Heritage Australia (BHA) and The Wilderness Society (TWS). I have also written about best practices these conservation organisations follow in terms of response devices and confirm, edit and enhance. This week I received a tax appeal from TWS. The TWS response device spoke of best practice, yet again.
What makes this a best practice response device?
TWS, and BHA previously, know how to make it easy for the donor to respond to calls to action and to assist the organisations to keep their data clean and correct. Charities across Australia might make a gift to both nonprofit organisations to get on their mailing list and to see live best practice samples for themselves.
It strikes me that I’ve not yet received a tax appeal from any charity.
The end of financial year is just a little over 7 weeks away and not a single tax appeal has hit my letterbox or email in box. I have heard from a number of direct marketing specialist suppliers only a few charities have physically dropped their tax appeal and 90% of the charities they serve will either drop their appeals in the coming week or two.
Is your non-profit organisation behind in your tax appeal tasks? Or, is this donor alone with feelings things appear to be a bit slower this year? Dropping your appeal in the next week or two will still allow for follow up waves to occur. Making it any later will dramatically lessen this capability. Last year, I received tax appear up to and include the week of the end of the financial year.
Have you ever volunteered for an organisation and you were treated like you had received 50 years hard labour? Or, have you volunteered for an organisation which seems to express appreciation to you repeatedly?
The fact is charitable organisations can’t thank volunteers enough. Some do it really well and others quite poorly or not at all.
The fact is volunteers are offering a gift of high value – their time. A volunteer’s time is worth the same or more than a major gift. Nonprofit organisations should create a volunteer appreciation matrix, which identifies the appreciation touchpoints in the same way an organisation would have a stewardship matrix for high-level donors.
Organisations should, at a minimum:
Do you have examples where a charity has gone above and beyond to recognise your volunteer service? How about the opposite – where an organisation has not given you the time of day in return for your service? Let me hear from you.
Mystery shopping is really not something your charitable organisation can ignore or decide to not action. Non-profit organisations must mystery shop.
Mystery shopping defined
Mystery shopping (or secret shopping) is the act by a nonprofit organisation to measure quality of service, compliance with a procedure, practice, or regulation, and/or to gather specific information about products and services. The secret shoppers’ identify and purpose are generally not known by the nonprofit organisation being evaluated – certainly not to the line staff under evaluation.
Mystery shoppers perform specific tasks such as making a donation, registering for community event fundraising, enquiring about leaving a bequest, asking questions, registering complaints, or behaving in a certain way. The shopper then provides detailed reports or feedback about their experiences to nonprofit management.
Examples of areas shopped
FundraisingForce have conducted mystery shopping studies for numerous nonprofit organisations across Asia-Pacific. These studies have helped organisations look at areas such as:
Your organisation has two choices to action mystery shopping – you may choose a do it yourself approach or hire a consultant like FundraisingForce to secret shop your charitable organisation. Choosing to do it yourself will mean you need to identify the shopping areas to be studied and hire independent shoppers who will shop the scenarios identified. Hiring an independent firm further masks the identify of shoppers and also takes the work off of your shoulders.
Secret shoppers help you to praise and reinforce good behaviours. They also help you identify issues or gaps and to action plans to resolve the problems. Mystery shopping ought to be a routine evaluation tool used in your overall fundraising program and across your nonprofit organisation. Seeking more information on mystery shopping? Contact us for more details and to start mystery shopping.
Life is full of surprises – some of them pleasant and some a disappointment. I was both surprised and disappointed by two telemarketing calls I received on Friday of last week. Disappointed because the calls came hours apart, from the same telemarketing firm calling on behalf of two different charities.
Both calls came to my mobile phone. I am not a donor to either nonprofit organisation. I am usually happy to take telemarketing calls. I certainly do not frown upon charities using telemarketing to raise money, acquire new donors, or to sell raffle tickets. I also respect the work of most telemarketing agencies in Australia.
I told the second caller I had just received a telemarketing call a few hours earlier from their firm for another nonprofit organisation. The caller responding by telling me the firm was conducting campaigns for about 12-14 charities and I am likely to get more than these two calls in the coming days. This response both shocked me and added to the issue at hand.
These two calls raised questions or concerns:
I believe both the telemarketing firm and the charities owe it to those being called to coordinate the campaigns, calls, and asks.
Does your non profit organisation have a solid process in place to encourage supporters to update their contact details? Is the process multi-channel?
I received an email from Bobby Goldsmith Foundation on Friday and I was pleased to have the opportunity to update my details. The piece is best practice and I want to share it with you.
When creating opportunities for supporters to update their contact details, the following are essential components:
It’s the time of the year when all charities should be reviewing, strengthening, and, in some cases, developing internal processes. Take a moment and look at your contact details update process.
People often times create a tribute at a charitable organisation when their loved one passes away. They will often times request people to give a donation to designated charities in lieu of flowers. Gifts in memory are a beautiful way to memorialise someone and to also support nonprofit organisations important to the survivors or to the loved one who has died.
The charitable organisations work hard to acknowledge the gifts made in memory of the person as quickly as possible. Nonprofit organisations focus on the processing of these gifts and sending notifications to the designated family member. But, what sort of follow up is done once the gifts start to trickle off?
Perhaps charities might do a better job maintaining contact with the survivors a few months after the tribute period and, likewise, make contact on the anniversary of their love one’s death. Not only is this a humane and meaningful thing to do for the family who will continue to grieve for the rest of their lives, but it is also a prudent act as part of your stewardship activity. It shows the family you truly care and, at the same time, may cause them to remember your charity on the anniversary of the death and/or the next time a sad or happy occasion requires a tribute. It is a safe bet to assume a hand written note or a phone call a few months after the death and, again, on the anniversary of the death will be most welcome.
There is nothing worse than sending a deceased person mail. First, it stirs up emotions when a loved one receives a letter addressed to a person who has since passed. Second, it sends a message that your non-profit organisation lacks best practices. I recently posted, on LinkedIn, about the number of charities not taking the extra steps to remove deceased from their CRM/database – reactively or proactively. The post received a high number of comments. Perhaps it was a little too close to home for some.
This past month, I visited some people in the US in the state of Florida. The husband of the couple visited was the executor for an estate. Let’s call the deceased Mrs Bloggs. Mrs Bloggs has been deceased for more than five years. Yet, the household continues to receive charity mail in her name. Again, Mrs Bloggs has been deceased for more than five years.
What’s even worse is this household has notified the charities of her death. The couple have returned notices in the response envelopes with the response coupons. In some cases, charities have been notified 2-3 times. These same charities, and others, continue to mail to Mrs Bloggs.
The charities are risking offending the survivors, as well as their reputation through poor processes, wasted materials, and postage.
US charities have an even bigger advantage over Australian charities in that the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) exists, which is national register of deaths. When someone passes away in the US, it is a requirement the death is reported to the US government. The end result means all deaths are documented on the SSDI. US charities have access to this list to screen their database through a variety of suppliers.
In Australia, the Australian government does not yet have anything compared to the SSDI. Yet, Conexum has The Australian Bereavement Register (TABR), which is a strong product and increasing in capabilities each year. Additionally, suppliers will match your database against the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) list of deceased individuals. This list is developed via notifications sent to ADMA. Any person may document a death via the ADMA website or we may call or write ADMA direct.
Charities have a responsibility to do the following:
Reactive documentation:
Proactive documentation:
Acquisition Preparation
You would never rent thousands of names without deduping them against your database to ensure you were not marketing to existing donors. Take it a step further. Whenever your organisation rents or exchanges names via a list broker, ensure you de-duplicate all known deceased from your CRM/database. Save your organisation the embarrassment of mailing to known deceased people despite the fact the lists may be dirty from a broker or from a charity. Then, report deceased back to the broker to save your colleagues from embarrassment, as well.
Those of us who work for charities have been on the receiving end of the calls when people are upset because we have erroneously mailed to their deceased loved ones. If everyone takes an active role, in the New Year, in terms of deceased processing, we can vastly improve processes and ensure we decrease the number of times deceased persons are marketed.
Need help with your deceased processes? FundraisingForce assists charities globally to improve deceased processes and others. Contact us today.
