Blackbaud HFH User Forum

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Professional Services | Page 2 Year End Best Practices © 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud Agenda Introductions & Ground Rules Housekeeping Year End Best Practices 1. Year End Appeal Targeting & Segmenting your best prospects The ‘Ask’ 2. Analysis & Planning Question and Answer Professional Services | Page 3 Year End Best Practices © 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud Introductions & Ground Rules Today’s session is a part of an ongoing series of User Groups that Blackbaud hosts for its affiliate customers. Attendees are encouraged to share their experiences for the benefit of the group. Our facilitator: Jeff Terry, Blackbaud’s HFH Account Manager Joining our conference call are affiliates from across the US and Canada Ground Rules: Your participation is requested; this session was designed to be interactive. Feel free to ask questions and share your experiences. Be aware of your background noise and/or hold music. Enjoy this time with your peers!

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Non profit year end best practices - Fall 2008

Transcript of Blackbaud HFH User Forum

Page 1: Blackbaud HFH User Forum

Professional Services | Page 2Year End Best Practices© 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Agenda

� Introductions & Ground Rules

� Housekeeping

� Year End Best Practices

1. Year End Appeal

� Targeting & Segmenting your best prospects

� The ‘Ask’

2. Analysis & Planning

� Question and Answer

Professional Services | Page 3Year End Best Practices© 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Introductions & Ground Rules

� Today’s session is a part of an ongoing series of User Groups that

Blackbaud hosts for its affiliate customers. Attendees are encouraged to share their experiences for the benefit of the group.

� Our facilitator:

– Jeff Terry, Blackbaud’s HFH Account Manager

� Joining our conference call are affiliates from across the US and Canada

Ground Rules:

– Your participation is requested; this session was designed to be interactive. Feel free to ask questions and share your experiences.

– Be aware of your background noise and/or hold music.

– Enjoy this time with your peers!

Page 2: Blackbaud HFH User Forum

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Housekeeping

� To encourage your participation, we will prompt you during the session for your experiences and comments.

� The concepts of this session should be applicable to any size affiliate

� Feel free to ask questions at any time.

� To keep the conversation going after the User Group, we have created an Affiliate Forum on our web site. This is a place where affiliates can ask more questions and share best practices.

– http://hfhforum.blackbaud.com

Professional Services | Page 5Year End Best Practices© 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Agenda

� Introductions & Ground Rules

� Housekeeping

� Year End Best Practices

1. Year End Appeal

� Targeting & Segmenting your best prospects

� The ‘Ask’

2. Analysis & Planning

� Question and Answer

Page 3: Blackbaud HFH User Forum

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Year End Appeal

Q: Why do ‘Year End’ or ‘Holiday’ Appeals?

A: Loads of tactical reasons…

� donors are trained to give during the holidays

� tax deduction donors are writing checks now

A: Strong strategic reasons

� ideal time for new donor acquisition (cost to acquire vs cost to

retain)

� you’ve spent the last 8-10 months telling your story and building

affinity with your constituency

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Year End Appeal

Q: Why do ‘Year End’ or ‘Holiday’ Appeals?

A: HFH Tuscon’s 2005 numbers explain:

18.49% $357,882.96 1,277December

7.86% $152,161.54 547November

7.51% $145,258.77 394October

4.27% $82,640.13 240September

5.72% $110,736.11 308August

3.50% $67,695.02 130July

24.73% $478,583.36 231June

4.51% $87,217.63 410May

Month

Percent of total given

Total given

Number of gifts

Raiser’s Edge Tip:

Run the Statistical Report, by

Month for this analysis

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Year End Appeal

Q: Why do ‘Year End’ or ‘Holiday’ Appeals?

A: Blackbaud’s Online Giving Data shows that peak online giving happens in November & December every year

Gift Amount Monthly Comparison

$0

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$4,000,000

$6,000,000

$8,000,000

$10,000,000

$12,000,000

$14,000,000

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2002 Donation Amount

2003 Donation Amount

2004 Donation Amount

2005 Donation Amount

2006 Donation Amount

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Year End Appeal

Q: Who are our best targets?

Affiliate Comments for Discussion:

– “We mail to everyone in our database so we don’t miss anyone”

– “Our affiliate focuses on renewing prior year donors”

– “We’ve just begun coordinating our messaging across direct mail and email appeals”

– “Our new Dir of Development is insisting that we have different appeal letters for different types of donors”

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Year End Appeal

Q: Who are our best targets?

To determine which segments warrant the effort & expense, reviewing data from prior efforts is critical. As a best practice, think about tracking:

– Which appeals were sent to which donors

– Who responded to each appeal

– Which appeals generated the highest volume AND highest dollar amount

– Overall cost of postage, printing, etc for each appeal

– Instructions for tracking each of these metrics can be found in Blackbaud’s Knowledge Base article # 149072

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Year End Appeal

Some Common Segments:

Your best supporters should be recognized as such…perhaps a year-end thank you is more appropriate than an ask?

Major/Top Donor Segments

Prior year donors are among your first priorities. Consider language that connects their previous gift with mission delivery.

LYBUNTS & SYBUNTS

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Year End Appeal

Some Common Segments:

Identify middle tier donors and use language that suggest an increased level of support.

Upgrade Segments

Friends, family, business associates of your board members are grouped. The board member signs her group of letters before mailing.

Board or Leadership Segments

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Year End Appeal

Some Less Common Segments:

Will a 1-4% response rate from this group justify the cost of mailing to them? Consider excluding constituents that haven’t given in 3+ years.

Non Donor Segment

The number of touch-points your constituents have with the affiliate can be quantified. (a person that volunteers regularly, sits on a committee and receives the newsletter scores high) Different appeals are sent based on the range of scores.

Connectedness Segments

Longevity is often a better predictor than previous gift amounts. These donors may be a prospect for a planned or major gift ask, in addition to their annual type gift.

Consecutive Years or Long Time Donors

Raiser’s Edge Tip:

Run the Consecutive Years

Report to identify these

donors

Page 7: Blackbaud HFH User Forum

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Year End Appeal

Some Less Common Segments:

Identify constituents that gave online or have opted into your eNewsletters or registered to volunteer online. Appeal to them using the same electronic medium.

eDonor Segment

Some non profits will recognize the anniversary date of the first gift as an important occasion in the appeal letter….a subtle reminder that 12 months have passed.

Anniversary Donors

Identify constituents that have made their first gift to the affiliate. Use appeal language that makes it easy for them to give a 2nd time (small gift amount, online giving, etc)

New Donor Segments

Professional Services | Page 15Year End Best Practices© 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Year End Appeal

Q: Who are our best targets?

Best Practice Take Away:

– Your supporters have different interests, giving histories and

levels of connectedness with your affiliate. Your appeal shouldspeak to these differences.

� The deeper the profile you keep in your database, the easier it is to

appeal in a ‘donor centric’ way

� The more donor centric your appeal, the better the response

– Affiliates need to measure response rate within each segment in

order to improve the following year.

Raiser’s Edge Tip:

Run the Appeals Analysis

Report to measure response

rates and cost per dollar

raised

Page 8: Blackbaud HFH User Forum

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Year End Appeal

Q: How does an affiliate make the best ask?

Affiliate Comments for Discussion:

– “Every appeal we send out includes a story of one of our

families…they generate a much stronger reaction”

– “We send the same letter to everyone to keep it simple”

– “We struggle with suggesting a gift amount”

– “We don’t have the staff to send different letters out”

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Agenda

� Introductions & Ground Rules

� Housekeeping

� Year End Best Practices

1. Year End Appeal

� Targeting & Segmenting your best prospects

� The ‘Ask’

2. Analysis & Planning

� Question and Answer

Page 9: Blackbaud HFH User Forum

Professional Services | Page 18Year End Best Practices© 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Year End Appeal

Q: How does an affiliate make the best ask?

Blackbaud’s Recommendations:

– If you can’t be personal, don’t bother

– Leverage the Brand Power that HFHI brings

– Use email, website, PSAs, etc to boost response rates

– Recruit families to provide quotes or success stories

– Automated database functions make this process manageable with limited staff resources

Raiser’s Edge Tip:

Use the Segment Function to

combine segments in a single

mail run

Professional Services | Page 19Year End Best Practices© 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Agenda

� Introductions & Ground Rules

� Housekeeping

� Year End Best Practices

1. Year End Appeal

� Targeting & Segmenting your best prospects

� The ‘Ask’

2. Analysis & Planning

� Question and Answer

Page 10: Blackbaud HFH User Forum

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Analysis and Planning

Q: What are affiliates doing to prepare their 2007 fund raising plan?

Affiliate Discussion Points:

– “Looking at our build projections and revenue needs”

– “Hoping to find new funding sources”

– “Reviewing performance data to build our 2007 plan”

– “Just hoping to maintain sanity through December!”

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Analysis and Planning

Q: What are affiliates doing to prepare their 2007 fund raising plan?

Year over year comparisons:

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Analysis and Planning

Q: What are affiliates doing to prepare their 2007 fund raising plan?

Donor retention & acquisition analysis:

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Analysis and Planning

Q: What are affiliates doing to prepare their 2007 fund raising plan?

Giving Trends Within Affinity Groups:

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Analysis and Planning

Q: What are affiliates doing to prepare their 2007 fund raising plan?

Cost Per Dollar Raised & Appeal Response Rates:

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Questions

Suggestions or Questions from the Group?

Jeff Terry

Blackbaud, Inc.

[email protected]

1.800.443.9441 (ext. 3133)

Elizabeth Brunner

Habitat for Humanity International

[email protected]