Persistence in the Process

I’m not generally a fan of leader boards. I think they can cause unnecessary competition and anxiety on possibly meaningless KPIs.

But.

My experience in working with a $100M size organization changed my thinking a bit. Their pain point was a large number of donors stuck in the Mid-Level giving range. Increased support resulting in moves to Major Gifts was very slow.

They had a two-person “concierge” customer service approach that focused on solving problems, such as a credit card bounce, or if someone did or didn’t get something. There was some solicitation, and they were touching a decent number of people, but mostly at a one-off, surface level.

What they wanted was a robust pipeline to move donors through the Mid-Level giving range and on to Major Gifts.

So they partnered with Veritus to build a Mid-Level Relationship Management program.

They hired and trained eight gift officers. They put the resources into their CRM to support the Veritus Introduction Series through a built-in engagement plan to add to each donor record as the gift officer sent the Introduction Letter.

That means there was a pending action for the phone call, email, and phone again touches. And then all the remaining touches of our six-step process (that includes a few sub steps, so really 10 touches).

And then, there was coaching (encouragement to stay on track, help with troubleshooting on how/when to realign against plan, and guidance on strategies to dovetail with direct response), an active Teams channel to cheer each other on, and celebration of progress in the process (not just the $) from the immediate leader ALL THE WAY UP to the president.

There was incredible pride in their work and meticulous documentation of all steps taken, including solid “Donor Story Notes” as they learned about the interests, passions, and life of their donors.

They blew our normal 30-33% engagement within 6+/- months out of the water: 32% to 52%. Plus the return rate of the Survey tool we recommend ranged from 24% to 35%. AND there was an 8% YoY increase in giving, not including the 73 donors that gave $792k before transfer to Major Gifts and $465k that same year after transfer. That’s $1.3M in revenue.

At the end of Year 2? A 17% increase YoY and another 147 donors moved to Major Gifts that gave $1.3M before transfer (and not in the 17% increase).

I give you all the data so you can see that engaging donors on a relational level results in increased support.

Yes, there is a cost. And you do need to watch the ROI of any given year. But don’t forget the incredible potential for increased Life Time Value as these donors continue their deeper relationship with the work of the organization.

I took time to reflect on why this was so successful. Here are my conclusions:

• Leadership supporting the process and trusting the results would follow

• Cheering the team on—which was a huge motivator for the Mid-Level Officers

• Building the tools in the CRM to facilitate the workflow

• Coaching support to work through the problems, workflow, and strategy

• Fidelity to the Intro Series process, including types of touches and timing

• Good integration with Direct Response to build a permission-based asking “echo” solicitation plan that used email and phone

Then I applied those learnings to the next two teams I have worked with to build Mid-Level Relationship Management programs.

We gained the same support from leadership and much of the same support to build tools within the CRM or in using the Veritus Donor Engagement Plan tool in conjunction with the CRM. We utilized the same integration with direct response tactics, and the same permission-based asking model.

The results?  In one year, an overall 51% engagement rate and a 14% YoY increase.  While this team is not currently moving donors to Major Gifts, one quarter later, the YoY increase was at 17%. One MLO is now at 58% engagement.

The other team does not yet have their Q4 financial results available, but the engagement rate ranges from to 23% (only a few months in) to 45% and 48%. There have been a lot of wins, including moving 42 to Major Gifts and about 10 more in the queue.

So, back to Leader Boards.

I now have one with the top five engagement results. And I talk about it with gift officers. Why? To show them the process is hard. It can be frustrating. It takes a lot of time. But with fidelity to the process and the right support, they can blow our general 33% engagement rate out of the water.

As a result of this good work, their organizations have grown their support to do more of what they do to change our planet. And the gift officers get to work with engaged donors, helping them to realize their joy through supporting the cause.

Diana

Diana Frazier is a Senior Client Experience Leader at Veritus Group. With over 32 years of experience in the non-profit sector, Diana has helped organizations meet strategic objectives through fund and product development, marketing, and operations management. She has worked on staff or as a consultant in a wide range of non-profits including print and media organizations, missions, higher education, health, crisis counseling, and churches.