March 28, 2011

Free White Paper: 11 Ways Data Will Drive Association Growth in 2011
By David Gammel, CAE – past chair of ASAE Technology Section Council.Part I of the Membership Software Success Kit – a 2011 update on key AMS capabilities

A television show now in syndication, Numb3rs, revolved around two brothers, one an FBI agent and the other a mathematics professor. Every week, no matter the crime presented, the math whiz helped to solve the felony by applying game theory, chaos theory, and other mathematical calculations.

The series clearly demonstrated that no matter how skilled, experienced, or brave the FBI agents, someone with different talents and a new perspective could contribute to successful results.

Which brings us to volunteers. One key to increased impact -- and to resolving the ever-present tension between employees and volunteers -- is consciously recruiting volunteers who, by design, are as unlike the paid work force as possible.

The most commonly-used model for volunteer involvement is to carve work for volunteers out of the to-do list of paid staff. In other words, volunteer roles are designed as unpaid staff assistants. It then follows that new volunteers must have the qualifications to help with employees’ jobs (but not too qualified, so as not to be threatening, of course). This sets up several uncomfortable dynamics:

 
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Although nonprofit managers would probably agree unanimously on the need for planning, there are in fact many ways by which to go about planning.

Speaking during the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy’s (AHP) International Conference, William McGinly, president and CEO of AHP, emphasized strategic planning, pointing out that it differs from long-range planning.

Long-range planning, McGinly said, is a projection of the present into the future. Strategic planning, on the other hand, is based on an environmental assessment of the current situation and foreseeable future, driven by needs, issues and priorities, and based on the reality of feasibility, capabilities and resources.

He offered these basic principles of any planning:
* Key stakeholders are an organization's greatest resource.
* The key is to identify untapped potential in the organization.
* Successful planning, which is based on realistic judgments and decisions, focuses on outcomes, integrates all activities toward achieving clearly understood and measurable directions and strategies and assures feedback and monitors implementation.
McGinly added that strategic planning is an eight-step process.
* Definition. For example, key stakeholders, values, vision, mission, direction.
* Environmental analysis. SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
* Key issues. SWOT specific to each direction.
* Focus.
* Action. Tactics, operational plans, budgets.
* Alignments. The plan drives all parts of the organization.
* Feedback and monitoring. Monitoring of implementation and outcomes; an exceptions report.
* Refresh the plan. Review the focus and set new priorities.

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Fundraising …
4 techniques to cost-effectively reactivate lapsed donors

If your renewal strategy to effectively reach recently lapsed or former donors does not include ways to reach deeply-lapsed or lower-dollar recently-lapsed donors, you could be leaving money on the table.

According to Amy Koop, vice president, client services, at Paradysz in New York City, the worst performing lapsed donor can be more valuable than a mid-performing or cold acquisition name. Developing techniques to mail the lapsed groups more effectively is an easy net revenue win. 

* Modeling. This can take many of forms, but ultimately RFM segmentation won’t be enough to fully optimize a lapsed universe. Consider the following analyses for a reactivation program: Predictive Modeling, will cut the weakest prospects from your campaign and identify the most effective deeply-lapsed or lower-dollar universe; Cooperative Database Models offer house file/lapsed modeling which uses transactional data points from donations, subscriptions and purchases. These data points can pinpoint individuals who may not have donated recently to your organization, but are actively transacting elsewhere; and, Promotion History Analysis: PHA provides information on which individuals you’re contacting too much, and those you’re not contacting enough. PHA also informs package/offer rotation on the most contacted segments.

* Review Merge Rules – Lapsed Suppression: Many organizations put their entire lapsed population into an acquisition merge as suppression. Many of those names (deeply-lapsed and/or low-dollar) won’t be mailed in renewal, and removed from acquisition because of the merge logic -- even when those names came from a list/source with high affinity.

* Email Append: A cost-effective way to re-engage former donors is by testing an advocacy or volunteer message versus a straight ask on deeply-lapsed donors.

Renew/Reactivate-as-Acquired: Test re-activating lapsed populations with similar messaging and creative that was used when they were originally acquired.

Fundraisers who have used premiums can tell glowing stories of how premiums brought in reliable donors who helped enormously, just as others can tell horror stories of how using premiums backfired so badly they'll never use them again.

During the recent Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation conference in Washington, D.C., Shannon McCracken of Special Olympics and Karin Kirchoff of Mindset Direct spoke about premiums and some of the issues to consider.

Interestingly, they offered two myths surrounding premiums: Premiums can really increase my file size; and, Premiums are way too expensive for me to use.
McCracken and Kirchoff pointed out that premium donors tend to become planned donors, can often be converted to monthly donors and extend the organization's brand by wearing or using the premium.

That all sounds good, but they urged that the following considerations be kept in mind:
* Are you mailing from front end or back end?
* What is your goal?
* What are your metrics of success (Number of new donors vs. campaign net revenue)?
* Do you have the analytics to determine donor value?
* Can you mail mission-oriented premiums?
* Are there certain list markets that need premiums, and some that don't?
* Do you need to distinguish yourself from similar organizations?
* How will you retain? Do you have a New Donor Conversion series? Does your renewal series allow for renewing with the same offer? Do you need to?
* Is this a membership benefit?