revitalising rfv

A joint project byRSPB and Plug the Gap

• Julie Pitt– Director at Plug the Gap– Database marketing and analysis for the charity sector

• Ruth Smyth– Supporter Insight Manager at the RSPB– Understanding support and supporters from across the

organisation

• Cath Campbell– Business Information Analyst at the RSPB– Deciphers the information and helps the planning

process

Our appeals were stuck in a rut and a couple

showed poor results. We wanted to know why.

We also wanted to grow, but weren’t sure how.

The RSPB asked Plug the Gap to collaborate on a project.The objective was to learn

more about the behaviours of donors

in cash appeals and the factors that affected those

behaviours.

• How many?4- 5 each year• What topics? Purchasing a reserve /

campaigns• Who to? Members, recently

expanded• How are they segmented? –Active

–Lapsed–Deep Lapsed

We started off with some basic concepts

Some things we knew.

Some things we knew we didn’t know.

Some things we didn’t knowwe didn’t know.

But we chucked in another one as well

Some things we thought we knew, but did we?

We pulled together lots of campaign reports, pieces

of analysis and some views and ideas of the

people that worked with appeals and data

Pulling them together and reviewing across

activitiesexpanded our understanding

We could identify what we knew and

we could identifywhere the holes were

And we knew there was a lot of stuff that

wedidn’t have any ideas

about

But most importantly we were able to see

that some of the things we thought we knew

just weren’t true

myt

hs!

We crossed referencedall of the information

from all of the different sources

This showed us which pieces of insight didn’t stand up to statistical

scrutiny,

...and which pieces of our

understanding were assumed

Armed with all of this information

we came up with a radical plan

Step 1:Create an RFV matrix

...but structure it so that it accurately reflects the

donors behaviour

Step 2:Analyse gift prompts

...but not in thetried and tested way that

Is normally seen

Step 3:Take the findings and

apply them to an appeal

...but make sure the results

are measurable

We looked closely atthe R the F and the V

We kept in mind that each variable had to accurately reflect the

behaviours of the supporters

Recency is easy:measure the time

between the last gift and another fixed point

Frequency is harder:Should this be the number of times a

supporter has given?

That’s OK but what if someone has been asked to give 10 times and donated twice are they the same as another supporter who has

been asked twice and donated twice?

There’s a subtle difference in

their behaviours:ask twice > get twice

Versus

ask ten times > get twice

The difference is their propensity to donate

which should put themin different cells in the

matrix

Value is the hardest:last, highest, average

We approached this by thinking of how we would

feel as supportersin a few different

scenarios

“I had a windfall and was able to donate a little

more. I normally give ten pounds but I was able to

give one hundred pounds.”

There are many reasons why supporters donate

an amount that falls outside of their normal

pattern of giving.

As a supporter I would feel “put upon” if my chosen

charity felt that I could now afford to give at a much

higher value than normal, just because of a single higher

value gift.

With this in mind we opted to use the mode

value: the value that best reflected the supporters’normal giving behaviour

It lets supporters knowthat we value their contribution regardless of how big or small.

We avoid making them feel that their contribution is never quite

enough by always pushing them for more.

Most supporters fell into only a few cells in the

matrix

Delving deeper it seemed that most

supporters gave ten pounds; a lot less than

previously thought

They gave ten pounds because they were

always asked for ten pounds so they gave ten

pounds...

...and on and on it went!

Which brings us very neatly to...

Were the gift prompts driving the donations or

were the donationsdriving the gift prompts?

We looked around atdifferent appeals; some

good, some bad

One appeal stood outand we needed to find

out why

Unlike other appeals the gift bands were

increased in number and decreased in value

spread

We also dissected the prompts and came up

with a way of showing the relationship between the previous gift value and

the prompts

We ended up with something that looked

like this...

This is the highest valuewithin the gift band

Gift prompt 1

Gift prompt 2

Gift prompt 3

Gift bands that were too wideconsistently failed to perform asWell as those where the band wasnarrower

Gift bands with unevenly spaced

prompts that were too far removed from

previous giving at both the top and

bottom didn’t perform as well as

those that were more evenly spaced and closer to previous

behaviour

GoodBad

The evidence seemed to suggest

that the prompts didn’t always determine the

value of the donation...

...but might determineif a supporter donated

We have no way of knowing why this might be, we can only hypothesise; prompts that are too far removed hark back to being pushy or unappreciative

of the contributionsof a supporter

When the 3 values are badly spaced it feels unnatural and a little inarticulate; if the top two are grouped it looks like we don’t really want you to

give at the lowest value

How do you bring all of these bits of information into an appeal so that it

sits together comfortably?

We pared down the information into

the key elementsthat we felt could be

applied

Firstly we worked out the modal value for each

supporter, removing the impact of large or small

gifts

Next we built a gift prompt matrix; with narrow value

bands we added 3 prompts and tested each one

using our visualisation tool to ensure it met the new spacing

criteria

We added an additional criteria;

each band should aim toincrease the normal giving

behaviourby a small amount

And we wanted to break supporters old habits and establish

a new one;the gift prompts would be held in place for the period of one years’

worth of appeals even if a supporter changed their normal

giving behaviour

This is the big question and the reason that

we’re all here tonight

I’m going to hand over to Ruth and Cath who will

talk you through the outcomes

First Appeal - report by Julie

Brainstorming sessionFurther analysis for subsequent appeals

Low Prom

pt

Medium

Prompt

High Prom

pt

Below low Low to mid Mid to high Above high

And what happened to theten pound donors?

£10£10£10

£10£12£15

66% of people moved!

Appeal1 Appeal 2

M

H

L

Low: StuckDonated to subsequent appeal at

the same prompt level as the previous appeal.

Appeal 1

M

H

L

Low to Mid: MoveDonated to subsequent appeal at the next prompt level up from the

previous appeal.

Appeal 2

Appeal 1

Appeal 2

M

H

L

Low to High: MoveDonated to subsequent appeal at two prompts up from the previous

appeal.

High to Mid: MoveDonated to subsequent

appeal at the next prompt level down from the previous

appeal.

Appeal 1

Appeal 2M

H

L

Popular gifts at five pound incrementsand use of the prompt values

Low Prompt Value £6 £12 £16 £21 £26 £32 £42 £48

Most popular donation above low prompt £10 £15 £20 £25 £30 £50 £50 £50

Most popular donation appears as other prompt? H M M M M No H No

Online donors behave differently

Appeal 1 Appeal 2 Appeal 3

Online DM Online DM Online DM

25 10 25 10 25 10

15 12 11 20 15 20

11 20 15 25 11 25

20 6 50 12 20 5

10 16 20 5 50 12

50 5 10 6 5 16

Analysis: Building from the basics

Taking a step back

Idea generation

Questioning assumption & myth busting!

Myth’s busted...

Average gift is twenty five pounds!

Most people give ten.

Land purchase appeals always do better!

Super appeals have a range of characteristics.

People paying for membership give less!

Channel is more important than fee.

Adding volume increases income!

Not necessarily. It may be better to decrease volume.

The RFV was based onreal behaviours so it helped

us to explore the implications

The project raised some big questions, which

we’ve started to answer

It also reminded us that it’s all about the relationship andnot just getting a one-off

donation