What a digital doorknock looks like and other fundraising lessons

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by Samuel Pordengerg Nov 28, 2022 News
What a digital doorknock looks like and other fundraising lessons

The second round of digital fundraising insights was shared by F&P'sFiona Atkinson.

The first half of a two-part article about what I learned at the nrich summit was published last week. In this week's column, I look at more brilliant digital fundraising insights from three nonprofits.

FUNDRAISING & DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Janine Kewming – National Head of Fundraising, The Salvation Army Australia

The Salvation Army is a 140-year-old organisation so it comes as no surprise when she explains that change and innovation can be difficult.

They changed because of the global health crisis. The charity's focus had already been shifted to the future before COVID arrived. The nonprofit's tworitories were merged in 2019. They were dealing with two completely different strategies for raising money and no national oversight.

An organisation in need of a national governance structure for campaigns is one of the findings of a review. The Red Shield Appeal door knock is more challenged by the decline in cash than ever before. Australia Post hated us so they asked donors to return an envelope with six $2 coins in it.

There wasn't a digital focus back in 2019. Direct mail was the focus of the budget and activity, and the team would have a hard time convincing internal stakeholders that digital was the way to go.

The swine flu changed that.

“In 2019 digital accounted for 15% of fundraising revenue, today it’s 31%. What’s more, income attributed to DM has not dropped at all – in fact, it is sitting at 37% compared to 2019’s 36%.”

The Salvation Army was going to start the Red Shield Appeal with door knocking. As the team worked furiously to convert all key activities, they entered the critical pivot. Ntegrity was brought in to help switch those activities to digital.

How did this look?

  • A digital door knock.
  • Digital bucket shaking.
  • Converting ambassadors into social influencers. 

The goal was to make the web red. 30 celebrities were persuaded to record video messages after they took over news sites.

They went to email. There was a belief within the organisation that email would be bad for the business. The team wanted to break that myth. They created content around key moments such as the Red Shield weekend.

The Salvation Army has a great digital leap forward. The Christmas appeal has made a lot of progress so far. Today, digital accounts for 31% of the total revenue. The income attributed to DM has not gone down at all, sitting at 37% compared to the previous year's 36%.

We are future-proofing our revenue

PANEL: BRINGING UNITY AND INTEGRATION TO A LEGACY ORGANISATION

Ian Finlayson – General Manager – Fundraising, Marketing & Communications, Vision Australia; Bronwyn White – Digital Marketing Manager, Vision Australia; Romena Ibrahim, ntegrity

Vision Australia has a turnover of $110 million and accounts for 40 million of that.

Ian says that VA's digital maturity was "immature" in the past.

After 14 years in commercial digital roles, Bronwyn is venturing into charity land.

She says the to-do list was long. It was about the long game for me.

She established a central digital team and center of digital excellence. It was important to hire an analyst in order to move away from the approach of just getting it out of the way.

There is a problem of sending multiple campaigns to the same donors at the same time. They worked hard to educate internal stakeholders on what makes good digital marketing and how different channels offer different benefits, which has stopped or slowed down ill-thought-out activity such as last-second Facebook ad requests that have no strategy.

Evidence can be used to demonstrate issues such as audience overlap in a campaign.

She undertook an audit on adwords and paid search over a 6 month period.

Here are the victories.

THE PROCESS OF SUCCESS

Rebecca Cowan – Executive Director, Good Friday Appeal

If it wasn't for the Good Friday Appeal, it wouldn't be an institution in Victoria. It is 91 years old and doing well. It can be difficult to pioneer change when you have an appeal that is well-known. The approach and scope of the campaign has changed because of the digital transformation that took place during 2020 and 2021.

Rebecca had her first headaches at the airport. Within days, the team of 10 were faced with the reality that they had lost 50% of their revenue due to lock downs and other activities.

The government stepped in to help fill some of the income gap when a virtual tin shake was developed within 10 days. The result of $18.2 million was equal to the result of the previous year, but 2020's campaign put the need for a digital strategy under scrutiny.

The challenge was to balance the history of giving and the change of technology. What do we change, what do we keep, what do we remove?

There are changes.

In 2020GFA had a website hosted on Everyday Hero and they were using a highly-customised version ofSalesforce. They used funraisin for their virtual tin shake after moving to the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) which standardised processes and made the platform's plethora updates readily available.

They made it easy for managers and volunteers to change shifts. They introduced a marketing automation tool.

In 2022 the team brought in ntegrity to help develop Give for the Kids, a strategy that let the kids behind the Good Friday Appeal create as much of the campaign as possible, with their contribution spanning colourways, artwork, messaging and video. ntegrity brought that to life everywhere they could – across digital, social, outdoor and on TV. This approach raised $742,000.

The virtual tin shake was the most successful ad because it shows how much tin is connected to the appeal and how important it is to combine old with new.

There are key learnings.

  • 97% of donations came in the last days of the campaign (approaching Good Friday). Future ad spend will be skewed towards this period and the team will develop ‘last chance’ creative.
  • More spend will be allocated to paid search to reach more donors.
  • The team will mix up video and static creative for online ads.
  • They will adopt a different approach for 18 – 24-year-olds, who did not respond well to the campaign in 2022.
  • Always on and programmatic advertising is being considered.
  • The team is thinking about their data strategy – they now have access to more data than ever before (many people who used to donate via a tin now donate online) and they are considering how to best use it.
  • GFA does not have a data analyst and Rebecca is making the most of skilled volunteers – for example, Telstra overlayed VicTraffic data to show Melbourne’s busiest intersections so that GFA can send tin rattlers to those locations.

What have they achieved with their focus?

  • No more COVID scenario planning! Because of their now-strong digital presence, the team is planning just one integrated campaign for 2023.
  • $4.7 million from 42,000 online donations in a 24-hour period in 2022.
  • 8000 calls to the phone room, raising $1,287,902.
  • Kids Day Out welcomed 80,000 people (against an early target of 5000!).
  • 85% of online donations came through mobile (20% of which was Google Pay).
  • A new record total of $22,328,154 in 2022.

That’s a wrap!  

The nrich event hosted by ntegrity was rich in ideas and inspiration. Thanks to the team's Amy Womersley, I was able to watch the event at home after my son's school was closed due to a stomach bug.

Click here to read the first part of my coverage.

Click here if you want to read more about the campaign.