PINKY SWEAR FOUNDATION
How the Donor Impact
Portfolio Inspires More
Confident Asking and
Greater Giving
Despite open lines of communication between Program and Fundraising, Pinky Swear lacked an efficient and consistent way to leverage their data to really show donors what their specific gift would mean for the families served.
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Problem / Challenge
When Pinky Swear began working with Veritus Group to build their Donor Impact Portfolio (DIP), they already had structures in place and a supportive culture that recognized the value of fundraising and the role of donors in achieving their mission. And because they understood the importance of data in telling the organization’s story to donors, they knew they needed a better system to share specific information when asking donors to fund their programs.
Prior to the DIP, fundraisers relied mainly on previous giving in their asks, without specific information or equivalency language about the impact a specific gift would make for the families served. As Pinky Swear’s MGO Chloe Czaplewski explained: “One challenge was figuring out the right words to use when talking about this.”
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Solution
Veritus Group worked with Pinky Swear’s Fundraising, Finance, and Program teams to package the entire organizational operating budget into Program Categories that include real impact per dollar and equivalency language for their donors. The result is the Donor Impact Portfolio (DIP), a document with all of the organization’s programs and projects, what they cost (including overhead expenses), what has already been funded, and what’s still needed for each program to be fully funded.
The DIP, along with the accompanying Donor Offer Toolkit, gave staff at Pinky Swear the tools and equivalency language they needed to create impactful and believable donor offers that showed the tangible impact of gifts at varying dollar amounts.
With the DIP, fundraisers at Pinky Swear have streamlined their internal processes so that everyone is using the same data and no longer duplicating one another’s efforts. Since the DIP is a living document, their team will be able to use it year after year to create future budgets with corresponding donor offers.
To illustrate what this looks like, here’s an example from Pinky Swear’s DIP:
![DIP example](https://veritusgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/DIP-example.png)
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Results
As you can see in this screenshot from Pinky Swear’s DIP, the team can now easily view overall budget, expenses, and committed revenue for each program category. With the DIP, Pinky Swear fundraisers have more confidence about asking for a gift because they’ve developed their equivalency language based on real numbers around impact.
Drawing from the Donor Offer Toolkit, Pinky Swear prepared a presentation to apply for a grant from a family foundation, and they were able to show the impact of their work using equivalency language. Their data-backed projections for what their programs would accomplish led to a $1.75 million grant from the foundation.
In another case, a donor wanted to sponsor a fundraising event. Using the DIP, the fundraiser was able to offer this donor a specific goal for her event with equivalency language about what it would do for the families served. With concrete numbers around impact, event revenue exceeded the goal.
“It helps so much to be able to pull those numbers impact-wise. It gave me confidence
speaking in front of a family foundation for a major grant application, since I had the real,
trusted data at hand, and we were awarded a $1.75 million grant. Using the DIP means
that our team will be using the same numbers going forward, and on the reporting side,
everyone knows how you got there.”
“Being able to have a specific number to share with donors, that’s been super helpful. And
breaking it down by program, and as we learn from Veritus, aligning their passions with
our programs, with what we all want to accomplish – this really makes it easy to do that.
And I don’t have to contact our data person every other day to ask for the numbers!”
Fundraisers Now Have Key Program Data to Help Create Donor Offers
What the Organization Needed
Despite open lines of communication between Program and Fundraising, Pinky Swear lacked an efficient and consistent way to leverage their data to really show donors what their specific gift would mean for the families served.
Our Recommendation
Veritus Group worked with Pinky Swear’s Fundraising, Finance, and Program teams to package the entire organizational operating budget into Program Categories that include real impact per dollar and equivalency language for their donors. The result is the Donor Impact Portfolio (DIP), a document with all of the organization’s programs and projects, what they cost (including overhead expenses), what has already been funded, and what’s still needed for each program to be fully funded.
The Results
$1.75 million
Grant Awarded
Using the equivalency language from the Donor Offer Toolkit in a foundation proposal, Pinky Swear applied for and received a $1.75 million grant.
Efficiencies
System & Structure
With a culture that values the donor and understands what fundraising is all about, Pinky Swear staff recognized the value of the DIP toolkit and collaborated interdepartmentally to create efficiencies to the donor offer process.
Real Impact
Better Donor Offers
When a donor says, “I want to expand my giving. Tell me what you need,” – now, fundraisers have the tools to be able to respond with timely and relevant donor offers.
More FEATURED CASE STUDIES
White Horse Inc.
The organization had an ambitious CEO but no development staff. How could they capitalize on the potential of their major donors?
Holt International
Holt had thousands of passionate donors, child sponsors and adoptees. How could they manage relationships with only two development officers?
American Cancer Society
A national organization with too few major gift officers, 1/3 of existing donors were leaving each year. Veritus helped them build their staff and strengthen the donor pipeline.