How Mid-Level and Direct Response Can Partner Together

Jeff Schreifels 

There’s often a kind of tension that exists between direct response and mid-level programs. I sometimes hear stories about one department or the other getting territorial about their donors or receiving credit for their gifts. But it doesn’t have to be this way. For this episode, I’ve invited two special guests to join me for a conversation about how mid-level and direct response can work together to make the most of everyone’s time and resources while fostering stronger connections with donors at every stage of giving. And we’ll talk to you about how you can create this kind of collaboration at your organization. Thanks for tuning in. And I’m glad you’re here.

Recorded 

Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.

Jeff Schreifels 

Welcome to the podcast today. I’m Jeff Schreifels. And today I’ve got two special guests to join our conversation around how mid-level and direct response can work together. As we know, mid-level is a rather new fundraising strategy, especially compared to the lengthy history of direct response fundraising. And having a relational mid-level fundraising approach is even newer to most non-profits. Generally, when I talk to fundraisers, and non-profit leaders, their experience with mid-level is through the high-touch direct mail campaign. And while this has a lot of value, it’s different from a relational approach to mid-level, although direct response still plays a critical role in that relational strategy. To discuss all of this, I’m thrilled to have Kara Ansotegui, Senior Director, Leadership Giving at ACS and Becca Burgess, Vice President of Client Services at Moore on the podcast today. Welcome Kara and Becca.

Kara Ansotegui 

Thanks. Thank you. Great to be with you today. As you know, I was a Veritus client for the mid-level program that I built years ago; worked with Veritus for a few years, as well, and really love implementing so many of the Veritus tactics and techniques now that I’m at the American Cancer Society. I’m so thrilled to be here today.

Jeff Schreifels 

Great. Becca, why don’t you share a little bit about yourself?

Becca Burgess 

Sure. So, I’ve been in the fundraising world and marketing world for about 15 years. I’ve had the opportunity to be on the client side for a little bit and then moved over to the dark side of the agency world about seven years ago. And since then, I’ve had the privilege of working with many, many non-profits from you know, smaller, mid-sized to large. And there’s just so much going on with mid-level right now considering the environment and how fundraising is changing post-COVID. So I’m really excited to talk about this topic today. It’s near and dear to my heart.

Jeff Schreifels 

All right, awesome. All right. So to kick things off, I just want to talk a bit more about the different approaches you can have with mid-level. And what a relational approach to mid-level looks like. Kara, why don’t you share a bit more about that?

Kara Ansotegui 

I would be happy to. So you know, I think a lot of organizations think about mid-level, Jeff, and they think about solely a high-touch direct response program. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s wonderful. We recommend it, right?

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah.

Kara Ansotegui 

In addition to that, when we think about a relational mid-level program, we think about, almost like major gifts, right? It’s very personal, but it’s one-to-some versus one-to-one. That’s really how we view the relational side of mid-level with that program. They have dedicated mid-level officers, caseloads that are tiered, just like in major gifts, but they’re in the 500 to 700 range. We really find a sweet spot usually for most organizations around 600. We build personalized caseload, or excuse me, personalized communication plans. We tier those donors, like I mentioned earlier, based on gift size and cumulative giving over the years. And then we do that as a layer on direct response. Right? It’s an add on to what they’re already getting from the direct response program.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yep. So direct response plays a big role in any mid-level strategy. What are some of the creative ways you’ve seen organizations create a partnership between direct response and mid-level? Becca?

Becca Burgess 

Well, I think, first of all, we have to talk about how organizations are starting to think differently about mid-level. So you know, maybe a couple of years ago, it was really just variations of packages that you would give to regular-dollar donors, you know, they would have some sort of, you know, feel of value to it, maybe we would talk a little bit more about impact. But the way the landscape has changed with fundraising, we’re seeing that the value of donors is starting to creep up. Part of that has to do with lower-dollar donors falling off the file. Part of that just has to do with people giving more. And so in order for organizations to continue to grow, they have to look at those higher-value donors. And so the way we handle direct mail for those folks has changed. We’re looking more at cultivation pieces, we’re really going deep into the investment of their dollars into programs and how that is helping solve major problems.

Becca Burgess 

And so that is kind of how it’s all shifting and changing. And there’s a lot of obstacles that are coming about because of that change, you know. When you have a shift in the way you think about something, the organization as a whole has to shift, not just the fundraisers. And so you know, you have to be able to start at the top and have everyone in leadership start to understand what it is that you’re trying to achieve. That way you can begin the direct mail portion of it and then go into what Kara is talking about for the relationship management.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah. Good points.

Kara Ansotegui 

So great. Well, I loved so many things that Becca just said, but, you know, I was just at a conference for mid-level with my two direct response colleagues that oversee the mid-level program of direct response at ACS. And it’s incredible what a unique partnership we have with them that most organizations don’t have. But there’s really no fighting over credit, which is one of the biggest issues that Jeff, you know, we would see this all the time with clients. “Well, I can’t give you those donors, and I’m not gonna get credit for those donors.” It’s really not like that. We’ve put some parameters in place. And that helps, right? So if it’s an acquisition, obviously, they’re going to get credit for that donor. If we have reached out to them, but we haven’t reached out to them at least three times in the last four months, direct response is still getting the credit. Because we can’t really credit our relationship with them that way.

Kara Ansotegui 

So what we’ve seen is these parameters kind of help us know who’s doing what, but organizationally, we’re looking at the donors as donors to the organization, not direct response versus relational. Our program, Leadership Annual Giving, starts at $1,000. We go to $9,999, so just under $10,000. And mid-level for direct response really is typically about $500 to $999. So they are a pipeline; they see us as a pipeline. And they, oh excuse me, I should say, they see themselves as a pipeline. So they really see the value of our partnership together. And we’ve really started doing some different tactics to see, hey, if direct response sends out an appeal that we would have sent out at year end a little early, well, we get money in the door earlier. So it’s just this beautiful partnership that is so valuable and important that I think more organizations really need to focus on.

Becca Burgess 

You have said so many valuable things right now. We’re seeing a lot of issues with some of that, because people are talking about attribution. Everybody wants a piece of their pie. And you know, “This goes to my budget, and if I don’t raise this much money, I’m not going to get this much to spend next year.” And with the way fundraising is, attribution is not the same as what it once was. And so you can’t quite do it by channel anymore, you have to really look at all of it, evaluate all of it by audience. And that’s the same with your mid-level audience. And if we’re fighting over dollars, rather than working together, in partnership with all of the other departments within the organization, you’re gonna leave dollars on the table. And again, that starts at the very, very top: the people that are building the budgets, and holding others accountable for what they’re raising.

Kara Ansotegui 

That’s so true.

Jeff Schreifels 

So I’m wondering… Okay, so you’ve identified, there’s some barriers out there that have prevented people from playing nice. So Kara, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you’ve done at ACS to kind of overcome some of those barriers. What have you been doing to promote working together in that partnership, so that other non-profits that are watching this can like, have some real practical ideas?

Kara Ansotegui 

You know, I think in some ways, I’m really fortunate because a lot of this started before I got there. But let me back up to say, it started before I got there because… we have 16 Leadership Annual Giving officers, right? We have a big team.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah.

Kara Ansotegui 

We’re raising this year, probably just under $8 million. So it’s value to the organization. And the leadership in fundraising saw the value to the organization. And you know, to Becca’s point, it’s a top down kind of approach. I would say since I’ve gotten there, it’s partnering, and it’s stewardship of our teammates, right? We talk all the time about stewarding our donors, but we have to steward our partners and think about how it works both ways. Yeah, they’re our pipeline, but when I have good things that they can use in their stream that can be beneficial for them, it’s my job to do that as well. Right? So I just feel like we have this really beautiful partnership now, that allows us to think holistically at putting our donors at the center of it and not fighting over who’s getting credit. And it’s not always easy. It really isn’t. And I know that.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah. Becca, do you have some strategies for folks? Like, how they can show that financial performance without having these issues around crediting?

Becca Burgess 

Yeah, sure. So we like to do both bottom up and top down budgeting, you know, so the bottom up is traditional. You’re looking at it by campaign and response and average gift and all that. But the top down really looks at life cycles and the capacity of your file. And that’s really how we’re taking the approach now. So that when we’re working with organizations, we could say, “Oh, yeah, you have the bottom up for us to have basically like a gauge of how things are moving, but you can’t always just assume that all of these exact dollars are going to come in through your direct mail program. They may be coming in through digital, but that doesn’t mean that the touch points in direct mail aren’t valuable.” And so what we do then is we have that pulse on, you know, what’s coming in from all of the campaigns across direct response, but then we are also evaluating the life cycles of the donors, at least once a quarter, to see where those KPIs are landing. And that’ll help us determine whether or not we truly are meeting where we should be. Because even if the dollars are coming in, if they’re not coming in from the right places, your file isn’t working the way it should. So that’s one of the techniques we use with our clients to help them see what’s working and what’s not working and not to fight over dollars at the campaign level.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah, that’s a great point…

Kara Ansotegui 

Yes. Oh, so sorry Jeff, go ahead.

Jeff Schreifels 

Well, I mean, yeah, because in the direct response world, all those, you know, the appeals, the email, whatever, you’re tracking every one of those. What’s the, you know, how did those individual tactics perform? Right?

Becca Burgess 

Right.

Jeff Schreifels 

And if that’s all you’re tracking, then you’ll get very territorial, because if you see donors moving away, that’s gonna reduce the, you know, the performance of those individual appeals.

Yeah, and it’s not even accurate anymore. I mean, we’ve moved into this omni-channel approach and you know, without the surround sound, your response overall is not going to be as high. And if you attribute it to, you know, an email or direct mail piece, or, you know, some sort of digital ad, and you put that up against, you know, a return on investment, it’s not accurate. And if you’re only evaluating your programs based on that, you’re going to be missing out.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah.

Kara Ansotegui 

So it’s funny, or ironic, I should say, when we attended this event, they asked all these questions in advance, so they could put you in breakout sessions, right? And one of the questions was about your program size. Well, they answered it, when my colleagues in direct response answered it from their program size, they put us in a small group. Like, the smallest fundraising group. And we all chuckled, but it’s because when they look at their, not their budget, but their number, it is really, truly this small from what they’re counting. But it’s this big when you encompass all the credit they’re not getting right? The number that they’re mailing to is very different than the revenue that they’re counting in the program. So it’s really not indicative of the work that we’re doing across the organization.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah.

Jeff Schreifels 

And if you’re going to start… here would be my advice: if you’re going to start this mid-level program, you have to figure out first how you’re going to measure it. Because if you can’t measure it, you can’t move it. And so that… all the parameters, I think, Kara, you talked about in the beginning, of how you’re figuring that out, that needs to be figured out upfront. Because if not, you guys are just going to be fighting over dollars. And you know, somebody’s going to ask you “Well, can you prove to me that this program is working?”

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah, exactly. Kara and I, we were talking about this the other day, on what do you measure? And so for us, our big measurements are retention rates; usually mid-level donors already have fairly high retention rates. We want to see those maintain or increase a bit. And then the revenue per donor increasing as well, which takes into account average gift and number of gifts per year. And our final one is, what percent of those mid-level donors are moving into major gifts every year. Those are the three big ones.

Becca Burgess 

Those are really good. I would add in, for those organizations that are just starting, say you’re putting together a mid-level program, and you’re just starting to add maybe cultivation pieces and stuff like that. What we found was… an organization we work with, and we just did just that. We added three cultivation pieces into the mid-level approach. And the KPI that showed us that it was working was that the number of $1,000 plus gifts doubled. So it wasn’t just the average gift we were looking at creeping up; it was actually those gifts over that amount. So that told us right off the bat, the program was working, and that we can keep moving in that direction.

Jeff Schreifels 

It’s interesting. All right. So we know that mid-level and creating a strong partnership with direct response is so important to the organization’s success. Becca, what are some of the things you’re hearing from clients in the market about the importance of this, and how to approach it when your organizations may have limited staff or resources?

Becca Burgess 

Yeah, I mean, these are the conversations that we’re having with our clients quite often, as we’re looking at the capacity of their file and the trends within fundraising over the last couple of years. I can’t stress enough that in order for organizations to grow, they have to find value within their current file. And so, you know, like it or not, you’re going to have to figure out how to invest in that particular strategy. And we have built strategies for our clients that, you know, we’re from, you know, the infancy stages of it to a bit more of a sophisticated program leading into relationship fundraising, and how that works together. And we put in, you know, here’s the dream of what we want it to look like, here’s how we’re going to step into it over the next three to five years. And that’s just how you get them started. And you have to get your day to day contacts that live and breathe fundraising as well as their top leadership excited about doing this. And the why behind it. We talked about pipelines. This is the pipeline.

Kara Ansotegui 

Yeah, and I would add to that, Jeff, if you have really limited resources, think about starting, maybe have a joint, dual role, right? You have a few mid-level, your top mid-level, that you want to really focus on to move to major gifts, but you’re doing something else. Let direct response be your best friend. Figure out what pieces you can put lift notes on; figure out what pieces can have variable print and come from you.

Kara Ansotegui 

So this is something new we’re doing this year with our direct mail team and mid-level, every piece that has a contact information on it, is their relationship manager’s name and number. There’s going to be a couple asks this year that are going to be signed and have the name and number from the relationship coordinator. And then we’ve got a lift note on a couple of them like “Hey, check out the stewardship piece.” They’re genuine stewardship pieces, right? Most direct response programs are going to have a couple genuine stewardship pieces; get a name and a number on those in case people want more information. There is so much you can do that doesn’t cost a lot that can really add in that partnership and work to increase those donors. And do some testing. Test some increase asks with those lift notes. See if that’s making a difference, right? There’s things you can do without a lot of resources.

Becca Burgess 

Yeah, I would add to that, too. Some people are probably asking, “Well, how do you determine which ones to do that with and which ones not?” And there are propensity models out there that are being built to show who in your file was not giving mid-level at this point, has the propensity and past behavior to give; are they giving in that level to other organizations like yours? You know, do they have the ability to give that amount of money? And then also for the asks I would add that’s… what we’ve learned for mid-level is you don’t want to box people in. So you would typically start with some sort of priming number. You know, prime that brain to focus on whatever number it is. Say it’s $300, $500. whatever it can be based off of their… a number of different things. But then you leave it open. Don’t box them into you know, the smallest gift here and the largest gift here. Just open, you know, first number and then leave it open. We’ve done that test multiple times. And we see that the response rates go goes up along with the average gift. So.

Kara Ansotegui 

You know, I had a client that did that, Becca. We did… this was when I was with Veritus. We did… we didn’t even do one ask. It just said, “Would you be willing to consider your highest and best gift to date? And it performed really well.

Becca Burgess 

Yeah.

Jeff Schreifels 

Interesting. Good stuff. So what do you say to someone who’s listening going, “I know we need to do this. It just seems so overwhelming.” I’m just wondering, Kara, where do you start?

Kara Ansotegui 

I would start by getting some weekly, bi-weekly meetings on the calendar with your direct response team. Ask them to share their calendar with you, right? Ask them to share examples of those pieces they’ve done last year. They’re probably going to be similar pieces, year over year. Look at those and feel… put yourself in the donor’s shoes of what’s going to feel best from the donor, to receiving that. And where you could do those lift notes. Where you could do…. I’ve had some clients have the stewardship pieces mailed to them, and they’ve sent them out themselves with a personalized note, right? That’s where I would start. Build the relationship, understand what your partners are doing, and figure out how you can start to layer on to that if you don’t have any other resources at the time.

Jeff Schreifels 

Becca, how about you? Any other advice?

Becca Burgess 

Yeah, I mean, the approach I was talking about before is dream big, build it out, and then step back into it, like the tiniest steps at a time. To Kara’s point too, an easy way to start is taking a look at your mark/comm and understanding what’s already going out and seeing what you could add to it. Very simple adds; it doesn’t even have to cost any money. You can just… simple changes in copy or, you know. Very simple things. If you have nothing, start there.

Jeff Schreifels 

What if you don’t have full time staff? How do you engage, you know, like volunteers and students and stuff?

Kara Ansotegui 

Oh, my gosh, I will tell you, when I worked in a university setting, we would have students in advance prep holiday cards, and thank you cards. And then we just would mail them out. It is so easy to do that. I’ve worked in the settings where we would send a weekly $1,000 plus list to our board members. Or I would send a $10,000 plus list to my board chair, and they would take care of it from there. I mean, it doesn’t, as long as you can work with your database partners to get those lists out of the system, and you can work with your volunteers on your expectations and some draft language, so you know that what is going out is what you want it to be, it’s a pretty easy lift.

Becca Burgess 

That’s exactly right. You remind me of… I used to work at Canines for Warriors, and on Thursdays, we would have Thank you Thursdays. And we’d have a number of volunteers come in. And we would give them lists of donors to call and they would call them and they would talk to them or leave them messages. They would, you know, write their notes in the spreadsheets that we gave them. And then we can very easily import into the, you know, the CRM, it goes, it just goes a long way. And there’s other simple things, like we were able to, you know, print out pictures of the warriors and their dogs. And, you know, the President would sign it, and we would send it for anyone over $500 or $1,000, whatever it was. But they loved it and it was you know, it was very high touch and they would call and then they would sit and talk to you know, one of the staff about their donation and what more they can do, so.

Jeff Schreifels 

Awesome. Awesome stuff. Kara and Becca, thanks for joining me today. I think you got some great tips out to our audience. And you know, for how to really create a successful and a productive partnership between direct response and mid-level as well. And if you’d like to get important support for yourself, for your team, with direct response strategy, we highly recommend reaching out to us more, to discuss that further. And if you’re looking for coaching and expert training on creating a relational mid-level fundraising program, we’d love to chat. Head to the show notes to get the conversation started or send my colleague Amy an email at achapman@veritusgroup.net. Take care and we’ll see you next time.

Recorded 

Thank you for joining us for the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group. Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at veritusgroup.net. Please join us again next time.