Charity

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Tax Appeals – late this year?

Snip20160508_42It 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.

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Lessons for nonprofit organisations to consider

Snip20160423_52Many Australians shopped for new health insurance before 1 April when rates for most of us increased. When I received a notification from my insurer of my rate increase, I immediately called iSelect to seek a less expensive plan. I had bought my existing plan via iSelect and decided to start with this consolidator to find an alternative plan. The call was a success.

iSelect informed me of a less expensive plan, plus a plan with more coverage. It was a 20-minute call, which saved me ~$40 a month and brought me greater benefits.

About three weeks later I received a call from my outgoing insurer asking me why I was “leaving” their plan. When I explained it was due to cost, the caller said “why didn’t you give us a chance to find you a cheaper plan and alternative benefits?” I suggested customer retention was the job of the insurer, not the customer. I also suggested if there were alternate plans, which were cheaper and more beneficial, the insurer should send those alternatives out to the customer rather than simply send a rate increase letter. The caller suggested I had good points and ideas.

The call from this insurer suggests to me missed opportunities all around. Additionally, the call offers some lessons to be learned by the non-profit sector and retention of donors. The following are obvious lessons to me:

  1. Rather than give donors (in my case customers) a reason to “shop around” or go to another charity, work hard to retain the donor.
  2. Offer donors a menu of choices rather than restrict them to one option.
  3. The donor (customer) is likely to not call you to seek alternative ways to stick with you.
  4. Show donor appreciation before it is too late. Retaining a donor is less costly than acquiring a new donor.

Recognising donor and brand loyalty is critical. Once the donor is gone, it is often very difficult to gain the donor back.

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Make an ask in every communication piece

Snip20160416_30It’s fundraising 101. If you do not ask, you do not receive.

Late last week, I received a newsletter from a Sydney-based hospital. I shouted when I opened it because the hospital foundation failed to make an ask for a donation in the piece. In fact, there was no response device, no letter, and simply a newsletter with a self-addressed response envelope.

Why didn’t this hospital take the time to ask me (and the others who received the newsletter) for a donation? Further, why would the charity include a self-addressed envelope if they were not going to take the time to include a response device to drive donations to your charity?

If it is worth producing the communications piece, it is worth taking the time to ask people for a donation.

Consider the following:

  • Wrapping a letter around the newsletter offers you a chance to recognise the donor’s past support and to draw their attention to key articles in the newsletter.
  • Including a response device, pre-populated with the donor’s details, will short cut the guessing game and drive contributions to your nonprofit organisation.
    • It will not cost any more postage to mail a response device with a newsletter and a return envelope.
  • Sending a self-addressed envelope, without a response device, will likely yield far less returns than a charity would receive if a response device was included in the package.

Don’t believe the statements in this blog post? If your organisation currently sends newsletters with no letter and no response device, create a three part test.

  • Pack one
    • Newsletter and reply envelope
  • Pack two
    • Letter, newsletter, reply slip, reply envelope
  • Pack three
    • Newsletter, reply slip, reply envelope

See for yourself which of the three packs wins. You might be pleased you took the time to make an ask for a donation.

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How do nonprofits show appreciation for volunteers?

Snip20160403_27Have 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:

  • Send a birthday card to you on your special day.
  • Send Christmas or other year-end cards.
  • Send thank you letters or other acknowledgements after each volunteer job is completed.
  • Send volunteer surveys to ask about and measure your volunteer experience.
  • Hold volunteer recognition events to recongise volunteers of superior service honouring volunteers of the year and others.
  • List volunteers and thank them in annual reports.

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.

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Charity reminders for anniversary gifts in memory

A friend of mine passed away a year ago tomorrow. His family and friends have been dreading this one-year milestone. I can only imagine what his parents and sister are facing.

Not everyone remembers the exact date a relative, friend, colleague, or neighbour passed away. At the time of death, people send cards, flowers, gifts to charities in memory of, and perform other gestures to emphasise their condolences.

But, a year on and people typically forget.

AnnivI received a helpful Email this week and it triggered an idea of a possible technique we may wish to adopt in the nonprofit sector. The Email was from a florist I used to send flowers to the parents of my friend a year ago. It reminded me I sent the flowers, the date I sent the flowers, and what arrangement I sent. The Email served as a prompt to send them again.

The Email caused me to wonder why charitable organisations do not use this methodology to prompt supporters to give on the anniversary of the death of loved ones, friends and colleagues. Such a reminder would trigger follow up or further gifts on the anniversary of the death.

Does your nonprofit organisation send any sort of reminder on the anniversary of a tribute gift? If so, tell us the steps you take and about the success of the program.

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Does the left hand know what the right is doing?

Concept of sending e-mails from your computer

I received two Emails within 21 minutes of one another. Sound unusual? Probably not. However…

…the two emails were from the same charity.

One Email was announcing current events of the organisation. The second was a request for me to become a member.

Even more interesting is the fact I have not heard from this organisation since July 2015. Now I have heard from them twice in one day, twice in one hour, and twice..asking me to come to an event AND to join/renew as a member.

When I received the two Emails, I believed the Emails were duplicate until I read them a bit closer. Once I realised these were not duplicate Emails, I asked whether the left hand knows what the right hand is doing? Perhaps, worse, maybe the two Emails were generated by the same party or department? No one knows. At the end of the day, is this best practice?

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Stop blaming the CRM

Snip20160315_1Your customer relationship management (CRM) system is often the victim – unfairly blamed because of other poor practices across the charitable organisation. “Salesforce is a mess” or “that data is wrong in The Raiser’s Edge”. CRM searches often cause an organisation to realise a need to improve internal processes and, sometimes, prove the database is not the issue at all – it is the fault of bad data entry, little or no oversight, and, often times, lack of standardisation across the nonprofit organisation.

When a charity acquires a new CRM, it is an opportune time to “fix” your poor data practices. At this stage, your organisation ought to:

  • Cleanse the data prior to a data conversion.
    • Clean up poorly maintained pick lists/drop down tables.
      • Get rid of duplicate table entries.
      • Ensure proper meaning for communications preferences and opt out coding.
    • Cleanse duplicate records.
    • Create split record for spouses.
      • Complete linkages for the spouses.
    • Establish data policies and procedures.
    • Create roles within the organisation specifically to oversee the data and your CRM.
    • Perform address standardisation and address hygiene to capture new addresses for constituents your organisation may have lost.
    • Acquire deceased and other opt out codes for your data set.

When I discuss moving from one CRM to another, I offer the analogy of moving house from one city to another. Most would never pack everything owned and move things as is – only to open the door of the new home and have it look exactly as your old home in the old city. Instead, most would purge items no longer wanted, organise belongings before they are packed, and acquire new items when you move into the new home. Moving a database is the same process. Purge your organisation of unwanted items, organise the data in a systematic manner, and acquire new, meaningful data elements for the new “home”.

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How to increase use of your CRM within your non-profit

Business Customer CRM Management Analysis Service Concept

Imagine you spend a year building out your CRM and taking the solution live. Doing so costs staff time (money), consulting fees (money), energy (money) and morale (money). Now imagine there is little usage of the CRM after Go live. That’s a lot of money spent for little return. As managers, we have a responsibility to provide the best tools and we also have a responsibility to ensure those tools are well utilised. You can buy someone a Mercedes Benz, but if they do not know how to drive it, do not drive it, and do not like to drive it you have wasted your money and effort.

So, what do you do now?

There are four things you must do to turn this around:

  1. Conduct an analysis of use. Use your CRMs internal audit systems to see who is logging in, when they are logging in, how often and for how long. Most CRMs in the market allow administrators to view usage in these terms. Measure and monitor weekly.
  2. Conduct a survey of use. Understand what the users like, what they find clunky, and what they need now. Perhaps you did not consult with the end users when you designed the system? (That was a mistake). Perhaps you have a new team and their requirements and ideas are different than the previous team? (That’s natural). Perhaps your business requirements have grown and your system has not grown with the business? (That’s a good thing).
  3. Create a policy, which states only activities recorded in your CRM count towards performance evaluations. If activity is not recorded in the CRM and, instead, on an Excel sheet or in diaries, the activity did not happen. Your major gifts offices might conduct 10 donor visits in a month. If only one is recorded in the CRM, the major gift officer only conducted one visit.
  4. Implement the “phase II” items you never got to as part of the CRM implementation project. Every project has items that are not a priority at the time, but are placed on a “phase II” bucket list. Well, it is now phase II. It is sort of like the three cardboard boxes you moved house with, did not unpack the week you moved, and are still in your spare bedroom or garage. Unpack them!

All of the above might be prevented through the original implementation of a CRM. Maybe or maybe not? Nonetheless, when the issue of lack of CRM use surfaces, you must get on top of it. Like any issue unattended, the issue only gets worse. It is at that point you become the issue.

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Ensuring your CRM supplier knows their business is a non-negotiable

Teamwork Team Together Collaboration Diversity People Friends Concept

FundraisingForce works with many nonprofit organisations throughout the year to implement new CRM solutions. One of the things which make or break a CRM implementation is the level of expertise of the staff of your CRM supplier. FundraisingForce call this their bench strength.

Why is CRM staff expertise so critical?

The fact is the product might be amongst the most effective solutions in the market. If the bench strength is weak, your implementation of the solution will be sub-par. Before you purchase any CRM, understand the following:

  • What is make up of the parent company leadership?
    • The make up of the leadership will often times speak volumes about the line staff.
  • What is the financial strength of the parent company?
    • By acquiring the new product, you are entering into a 7-10 year relationship. You want to ensure the parent company will be around for the long-term relationship.
  • Who are the staff who will be assigned to your project?
    • Meet the staff before you agree to the relationship.
  • What is the background of each staff person?
    • How well do they know the nonprofit industry?
      • You likely do not want your organisation to be the nonprofit training ground for the team.
    • How well do the staff know the product they are implementing?
      • While not everyone will have a PhD in the product, you certainly do not want to be product training ground for the team. Ensure someone on the team has at least one year of experience implementing the CRM
    • Understand the succession plan should someone from the team leave the organisation.
      • What transitioning will be done should someone leave the team?
        • There is a high level of turnover on these teams – nearly as much as nonprofit organisations face. Understand the transition plan should someone exit the stage.
      • What sort of on-boarding processes exist?
        • While there are no guarantees your nonprofit will still have the same team across the project, you will want to understand what processes are in place should a transition occur. This on-boarding process should be in place at your organisation and at the CRM parent organisation.

Purchasing a new CRM is the single largest investment for most nonprofit organisations. You are not only purchasing product, but you are purchasing the expertise of the consultants who will implement the CRM. The product part of the decision is 65% of the decision while the consultant aspect is 35%. Organisations spend 90-100% of the time studying product functionality and 0-10% of the time focused on the expertise on the bench. This split needs to closer match the product/consultancy ratio. Spend 35% of the search time studying and interviewing the staff. This will be time well invested.

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Qantas asked me to complete my transaction

Snip20160228_3On Sunday I booked a last minute trip on Qantas. I did not complete the reservation and went to other airline sites to shop around for a better deal. Moments after I closed out of the Qantas website, Qantas sent me an email asking me to complete the transaction.

Why did I think this was so interesting? What can nonprofit organisations learn from this experience?

Clearly one has to be logged into a Website in order for the site owner to send a reminder similar to the one I received by Qantas. Yet, Qantas is taking the added step to ask me to purchase the airline ticket rather than lose me to another air carrier. There are plenty of charity sites where the donor may be logged in and where this functionality could be repeated for donors who do not finish the donation transaction. It is clever for Qantas or, in your case, your nonprofit organisation to put the transaction on hold and to send a reminder to the person to complete the transaction.

I wonder what Qantas’ rate of recovery is for such transactions? I also wonder if any nonprofit organisations are using similar technology to recapture donations which would otherwise be lost?

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