UNCOVERING INTEGRATED FUNDRAISING BEST PRACTICES FOR UNIVERSITIES

Presented by: Michael Johnston, President, Hewitt and Johnston Consultants

Who Am I?

Michael Johnston

At the end of the session, we’ll ask you to go online and fill out our integration survey. We’ll select 1 WINNER to receive complimentary 1-hour Canadian University integrated fundraising consulting session

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MDGRWSJ

Take our survey at the end of the session!

The current reality – what you told us• Over 20 Universities answered the

questionnaire• Here’s what you’ve told us – and your

peers

All hail direct mail!

1 2 3 4 5Rating

Average

Direct mail 71.4% 0.0% 28.6% 0.0% 0.0% 1.57

Events 0.0% 14.3% 14.3% 42.9% 28.6% 3.86

Online 0.0% 14.3% 42.9% 28.6% 14.3% 3.43

Phone 14.3% 14.3% 14.3% 14.3% 42.9% 3.57

Face-to-Face 14.3% 57.1% 0.0% 14.3% 14.3% 2.57

Please rank the following channels in the order of importance to your annual giving program? (1 is most important)

The King is Dead. Long live the King.

17%

33%33%

17%

Which of the following channels do you think will be most important to your annual giving program in 10 years?

Direct mailEventsOnlinePhoneFace-to-FaceOther

04/12/2023 proprietary and confidential

Channels used by Canadian donors

Your University donors are – fundamentally…

The bugbear: integration needs to take place in more than one direction

Horizontally

StyleMessagingTheme

Renewal

Donor Development

AcquisitionVerti

cally

In a chronological

customer contact flow

Integration to Grow Your Pyramid – with annual campaign as the foundation…

Prospects

One-off

Monthly

Major

Wills

One-off

Prospect

Monthly

Major

Wills

• The cultivation survey:– Sent to 57,400 donors– 3 key segments: Monthly, Active &

Lapsed– 5,530 responses (response rate of 11%)– Raised $17,574 – a bonus!– Reactivated 30 donors– Found 85 expectances and 292 legacy

leads – 143 middle and major donor leads!– Key: shared budgeting!

Integration for the Whole Pyramid

DATA – AND HOW TO SORT IT…

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE

THE FUNDRAISING TRIUMVIRATE

Self-Identification

Surveys

RFM

Propensity Modeling and

Wealth Screening

The Fourth – customer lifecycle planning

38%

38%

25%

Do you have a lifecycle plan for your alumni (from student to death) to map out how you will steward and cultivate them?

YesNoI don’t know

CLM

Online is still early days for everyone – including Universities

13%

50%

13%

25%

What best describes your online vs. offline donor ratio?

0% online : 100% offline5% online : 95% offline10% online : 90% offline15% online : 85% offline20% online : 80% offlineMore than 20% online

13%

13%

13%

25%

13%

25%

What is the approximate one time gift donation amount made offline to your University?

$10-$49$50-$99$100-$149$150-$199$200-$249$250-$499$500 or more

However, you receive a higher average gift than most other verticals (health, environment, social services)

You receive a higher average gift than most other verticals (health, environment, social services)

14%

57%

14%

14%

What is the approximate one time gift donation amount made online to your University?

$10-$49$50-$99$100-$149$150-$199$200-$249$250-$499$500 or more

Do you have a middle donor program to steward and cultivate donors multi-channel?

You are beginning to look at peer 2 peer fundraising more…

45%

18%

18%

18%

If you use a peer to peer giving application to raise funds for your University, what specifically do you use it to raise money

for? (Please select all that apply.)

Memorial/Honour/TributeSpecific Class/Faculty/DepartmentFor events (ie. a mountain climb to raise money for research at the faculty of medicine)For athletics/Sports departmentOther

Maximizing peer 2 peer

• friends asking friends in all channels• third party event portals• memorial/tribute/honour giving• virtual galas to compliment real galas

04/12/2023 proprietary and confidential 22

College of the Holy Cross: Multi-Channel Friends Asking Friends

• Holy Cross has a longstanding tradition that has helped encourage alumni giving.

• Volunteers in each class write letters to classmates several times a year that detail how donations are being used and appeal for future gifts

• How can you leverage online and offline to do this?

Friends and Family get results

• Call 15,000 donors• Reach 30% = 4,500 donors called• 22% ask for a kit and 16% send them out

(to 10 family members or friends)• 40% of people who receive the ask from a

friend or family member give!• Do you do this online or offline at your

University?

Leveraging online

A peer2peer portal

Peer to Peer and Memorial Giving

Peer to Peer and Memorial Giving

proprietary and confidential 29

Commemorative, in memory, peer to peer

13%

13%

38%

38%

What best describes the average size of monthly sustainer (automatic deductions from bank account or credit card

without an end date) gifts?

1015202530$35 or more

$20

You have lots of potential, do more with monthlies…

Poll Question 1: do you use the telephone to upgrade monthly donors?

You are lower than other nonprofit verticals in Canada

14%

29%

14%

14%

29%

Approximately what percent of your fundraising revenue comes from monthly giving?

0%5%10%15%20%25% or more

0-10%

• Create a monthly brand that is relevant to the experience of the individual e.g. Relay for Life participant

• Create a relevant, passionate premium

• Use multi-channels:

a) Face to face at the eventb) Email, telephone follow up

How can Universities create more relevant, passionate, evocative monthly giving programs?

33

A form that makes monthly important and adapts to any donation desire

https://secure2.convio.net/cco/site/SPageServer?pagename=on_donationapi&s_locale=en_CA&s_src=Cancer.ca&utm_source=Cancer.ca&utm_medium=Header&utm_content=DonateOnline&utm_campaign=DONATIONS_ON

34

Another form that makes monthly important and adapts to any donation desirehttps://www.donate.startanevolution.ca/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1730&ea.campaign.id=12454

04/12/2023 proprietary and confidential

13%

63%

25%

Approximately what percentage of your annual fundraising revenue comes from planned gifts?

0%5%10%20%40%Other

You are ‘punching under weight’

Poll Question 2:You are significantly lower than the hospital vertical – and most others.

Why?

89 b

eque

sts w

orth

appr

oxim

atel

y $8.

9

milli

on

345 middle donor

gifts worth

approximately

$345,000

28 endowments gifts worth

approximately $100,000 to $2.3

million each Cost to create and

deploy online

survey: $7,500Online – planned gifts and major gifts…

A higher education online survey found

1. Collect personal preferences of donors for targeted marketing appeals

2. Collect demographic data for marketing purposes – and connect it automatically to the database!

3. Build a deeper relationship with donors – give them a platform to be heard

4. Uncover leads for other forms of giving – including legacies, middle gifts, and major donor gifts

The goals of the survey

Planned Gifts and the Telephone

13%

25%

25%

38%

Do you use your call center to uncover planned gifts, and/or monthly gift supporters?

Planned gifts onlyMonthly gift supporters onlyBoth planned gifts and monthly gift supportersNeitherWe don’t have a call center

Phone and Legacies

Events are not of top importance – but how can you do them more effectively?

67%

33%

What percentage of your annual fundraising is done through events?

0-19%20-39%40-59%60% or more

Proprietary and Confidential

43

Proprietary and Confidential

44

1. Average raised per committee member: $17,129.83

2. Top 3 committee fundraisers raised $189,252

You see a changing future...

61%14%

14%

7%4%

Which channel do you think will be most important to your annual/regular giving program in 10 years?

OnlineEventsFace-to-faceDirect MailPhone

And the data backs up your projections about online

• Charitable web site traffic growth in 2011: 38.9% in Canada vs. 11.1% in US

• Charitable email open rates in the US were 18.4% vs. 29.2% in Canada

• 33% of online donations in Canada are monthly (and monthly is growing online at 7.4% last year)

• But in many ways, we are play ‘catch up’ with our US counterparts

Data above from Blackbaud:Convio 2012 Online Benchmark Study - http://www.convio.com/2012benchmark

Rising interest in mobile

33%

50%

17%

How interested are you in using mobile giving to raise money?

Very InterestedSomewhat InterestedNeutralNot interested

DONOR EXPERIENCE STAFF PRODUCTIVITYVS.

Data in your back pocket

Not as new as some other nonprofit verticals…

60%20%

20%

How many years ago did you last redesign your website?

Zero-TwoTwo-FourFour-SixSix+

Poll Question 3: Compared to hospital foundations and health-care charities: 100-200% more sites over 5 years old.

Why?

04/12/2023

1. Link to the BIG PICTURE2. Stories for each faculty 3. A listing of special appeals

that fundraising is working on for all the faculties

4. The place to connect those who want to volunteer/mentor/hold a reunion that is then funnelled back to faculties

5. Site is SEO/SEM optimized to help capture people and then move them to a faculty specific site

6. Integrating with Alumni Affairs and Marketing and Communications

If you are going to redesign your web site for giving…

THE INTEGRATED CALENDARHow do you meet the demands of an ‘omnivorous’ alumni and donor?

By coordinating your marketing!

STRUCTURE: ARE YOU READY TO INTEGRATE?

Traditional

Organizational Structure

Separate Metrics & Team for Online Marketing

Disparate (Sometimes Conflicting) Goals

Inconsistent Voices Representing Organization

Communications

Development

IT

Others (?)Government

Affairs

Coordinated

Organizational Structure

Shared Metrics

Thematically Integrated

Coordinated Appeals

Communications

CoordinatingTeams

IT

DevelopmentGovernment

Affairs

Optimized

Organizational Structure

Unified Strategy & Full Integration Across Channel Managers

Communications MarketingDevelopment Online

CoordinatingTeams

THE STRATEGY MAP AND THE BALANCED SCORECARDThe Dramatic Oversimplifcation of Integrated Fundraising, Marketing, Communications and Campaigning or

Putting Your Organization on One Sheet of Paper – or two

l”

“a tool for identifying the underlying model of success for your organisation and then communicating about it, reporting on it, aligning people with it, and managing performance to deliver the results demanded

The Balanced Scorecard is…

Your Mission

Development Perspective Measurements: alumni participation %; donor

satisfaction (retention, LTV, gift size) cross channel stewardship and cultivation business rules

Alumni Relations Measurements: % of contact information for different alumni cohorts (per

channel); % who attend events; % of recent grads who give (mobile,

monthly, etc)

Internal Perspective Measurements: internal cooperation (culture, structure, reporting);

Learning and Growth Measurements: Courses, Qualifications, Proven Application of New Knowledge

Marketing Measurements:

Branding perception statistics,

Creating a Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard is a Full

Contact Sport

But it’s worth it!

Towson University (Baltimore) – Gary Rubin’s Journey: Full Contact Sport

Gary’s view of the Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard

• Gary Rubin, VP Advancement, Towson University (The Wire)

• A crooner for his University• “A hanging in a fortnight…”• Needed his 75 staff on the same

page• Alumni Affairs, Communications,

Donor Relations, Fundraising

Gary’s view of the Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard

• My biggest challenge – integration, coordination and team work

• The strategy map and balanced scorecard helped us get there

• Technology has put even more pressure on being on the same page

67Proprietary & Confidential04/12/2023 Slide 67

68Proprietary & Confidential04/12/2023 Slide 68

69Proprietary & Confidential04/12/2023 Slide 69

The End Result

• Integrated team: some senior (Directors) people had to go and new people brought in – healthy change

• The President is on board• Fundraising results are already

improved in retention and acquisition and average gift!

Southwest Airlines Strategy Map

Financial

Customer

Capacities

Learning &Growth

Lower costs

Increased revenue

Profitability

On-time Flights

Lowest prices

Fast ground turnaround

Ground crew aligned with company goals

OBJECTIVES INDICATORS TARGETS INITIATIVES

Financ

e

Market value 30% CAGRStockholder communications

Seat revenue 20% CAGRPrice check comparison

Plane lease cost 5% CAGR Preferred supplier

Customers

FAA on-time arrival rating

No. 1Quality management

Customer ranking (market survey)

No. 1Customer-loyalty programme

Capacities

Time on ground 30 minutes Cycle-time optimisation programOn-time

departure90%

L and G

% ground crew shareholders Year 1: 70%

Year 3: 90%Year 5: 100%

Employee stock option plan

% ground crew trained

Ground crew training

Profitability

Increased revenue

Lower costs

On-time flights

Lowest prices

Fast ground turnaround

Ground crew aligned with company goals

Take our survey!

At the end of the session, we’ll ask you to go online and fill out our integration survey. We’ll select 1 WINNER to receive complimentary 1-hour Canadian University integrated fundraising consulting session

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MDGRWSJ

Thank you!

• Mike Johnstonmjohnston@hjcnewmedia.com