WBU Fund Development - Day 2
Tuesday 5 February
RNIB Judd Street, London
Tour of RNIB Fundraising Department
We have a new donor - now what?
Leif Jensen, NAPB
 A donor base will decline over time (defection curve) and half of
donors will not leave a gift in second year
 The largest reason for leaving (68%) is due to lack of interest
from supplier
 Need to build donor loyalty and make donors want to be loyal
 Leif talked about drivers of commitment and loyalty; active and
passive
 Research has indicated which drivers are most important. The
perceived service quality is the most important, shared beliefs
second and trust third. These are the three drivers for
commitment and loyalty to focus on getting right.
 Good experiences will affect donor commitment
 Showing what the gift achieved creates a positive experience
 Trust is created by the organisation demonstrating competence
and good judgement
 Getting the donor engaged in multiple ways strengthens loyalty
and commitment
 Building donor relationships over time: awareness; acquisition;
engagement; retention; reactivation
 Honeymoon period for cash donors is around 30 days - this is
the amount of time you have to engage and keep the donor
 Need to thank people in a way to produce serotonin!
 Saying 'thank you' ends the relationship, but we want this to be
the start!
 Say how the gift made you feel
 Donors remember the thank you letters more than they
remember giving the gift
 Donors fear that their gift will not matter and will become lost so
need to show how their gift has changed someone's life
 Fear of 'spam' - put control with donor about communications
and show you will listen, e.g. opportunity to opt out of
communications
 Sending a dialogue letter increases the chance of receiving a
second gift from the donor rather then just sending a thank you
letter
 Fast response gets better response than a slow response - the
faster the better
 New donors - if let them rest will become cold
 Channels - using many channels is better
 Always use written letter for first thank you letter
 People who donated for the puppy calendar received a SMS
(text) thank you message
 Invitations have been sent out by SMS, email and letter. Had
very good response by SMS.
Steven Greenberg, RNIB
 Research propensity of donors to give a gift
 Do some database work to find out who your hot prospects are
 Personalised thank you based on the appeal they responded to
 Welcome programme to convert donor to regular giving could
be as long as 12 months
 May initially ask for a lower level monthly gift with a strategy to
upgrade the donor to a higher gift over time
 When calling the donor for an upgrade their attrition is lower
and they are less likely to leave
 Important to recognise which channel was used to bring the
donor in, particularly for digital channels
 Conversion rate after 2-3 weeks, 5% conversation. Varies
between 3-5%
 Older donors - find that after 6 weeks they may have forgotten
about making the donation
 Monthly gift of £5 via SMS & mobile phone bill. Proving to be
quite successful in the UK
 In Ireland there are SMS problems with different providers and
VAT on text donations. Believe problem is being sorted in the
UK re VAT and around 96-100% of donations being passed to
the charity.
 SMS donations - set up through street fundraising initially.
Donor sets up with Fundraiser on the street. Fundraiser sends
text on the street and then technology sets up monthly gifts to
go through. Donations show up on phone bill.
Tim Alcock, CNIB
 Thank you efforts driven by tax receipts to donors - get
response out in 4 days
 Seven days after the gift the donor receives a thank you call
and four weeks later there is a telemarketing call to the donor
 Compare existing monthly base against existing database
 Don't tend to use SMS but do use email
 Cost of digital printing is falling - materials can be customised
and sent out at any time in the year
 Communications can be customised, e.g. send a personalised
calendar to monthly donors
 Attributes to make someone more likely to convert? Use a
predictive model to work this out. CNIB have a data team to
take care of this.
 In Australia the second call is made between 30 & 45 days and
they find that 8% convert. Vision Australia is testing at the
moment with asking sooner, including in the thank you letter for
the first gift.
 In Canada conversion is between 3-5%
 In Norway calling after 6 months conversion is around 7%
 Australia - majority of donors are cash donors. All action
happens within first two months. Thank you, welcome back, ask
for regular gift by phone or second cash gift.
 Send SMS - answer yes to upgrade your donation - has been
tried by another organisation
Anne Marie Tiedmann, Denmark
 Called to upgrade donors and response rate was 65%
Eifron Hopper, RNIB - Legacy Fundraising
 RNIB team brings in 35-40 million per year from Legacies,
about one third of charity's total income
 Asked what prompts someone to make a Will? Birth of a
child/grandchild. Marriage/divorce. Illness.
 Charities used to scare people into making a Will, although this
wasn't effective in encouraging people to leave a legacy to
charity
 What prompts someone to leave a legacy to charity? Affected
by the condition, helped by the charity, family member helped
by the charity, perception, tax avoidance, religious - a sense of
duty
 Believe in the cause - and someone asked them to do it!
 Research by RNIB showed that over 50% of legacies were from
people who had experienced sight loss themselves, or
someone close to them had.
 Research also shows that someone has asked them to leave a
legacy in a Will
 Ken Burnett - created the donor pyramid. At the bottom are lots
of people who give small amounts of money. At the top, fewer
people giving large amounts of money. But giving is not this
linear! Journey is more complicated than this.
 Eifron showed diagram of a very complex chart showing all
touch points that people have with the organisation which could
lead to them leaving a legacy. Financial donors are just one part
of many. Also members, service users, volunteers,
campaigners
 Sight loss is a low incidence disability but will become more so
as people live longer.
 With sight loss need to explain to people what we do before we
can gain their support
 People don't tend to respond to legacy marketing immediately takes many touch points
 Look into ways of reaching stakeholders with legacy messages
 Do a mailing and send a magazine. Recipients largely selected
from donor base, but also from other areas. This is first stage of
the journey.
 RNIB hold 30 legacy receptions per year all around the UK.
Colleagues who deliver services for RNIB and Action for Blind
People are invited to speak at the events about they work they
do and the difference they make. Contacts are invited (filtered
by propensity model). They tend to be aged 60 or older; when
most Wills tend to be made. The legacy ask is made very subtly
at these events.
 Wording of the invitation: Hear about the work of the
organisation and how you can support it - signed off by a staff
member with 'Legacy Development Officer' title.
 Retention and recognition of legacy pledgers is important
 How do you know how many people will attend? Logistics of
venue etc. RNIB been doing these for around 10 years. Invite
around 2000 people to each reception and we get around 70200 people. Different numbers in different areas of the country.
We know from responses how many people would like to
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attend. If too many responses RNIB have then organised
another event in that area.
Experience working with financial planners and legal services.
People already decided when seeing lawyers whether to leave
money to charities. RNIB don't want to be seen to be influencing
lawyers.
Group of 150 charities together working to nudge lawyers &
banks, financial planners) to ask people if thought about leaving
money to a charity.
Previously the RNIB legacy team have asked RNIB's
membership team for their contact list to send legacy
information. The membership team were concerned about
maintaining their relationship with their mailing list so we asked
how they communicate with members. They communicate via
newsletters, so we put our messages into their existing
communications.
Had an exhibition where we were showing our materials. Had a
leaflet for this. Library service asked if could have this in Braille
to include in books large print & Braille & audio being sent out.
They are now coming to us with ideas of how we can use them
to get the legacy message out. Hope to have good results from
this.
Legacy marketing is a slow process. Need lots of messages out
there to act as prompts to do something. We get the message
in front of around half million people per year.
RNIB uses internal marketing within the charity. There is an
annual internal marketing campaign about legacies; the
importance of legacies and the role that everyone can play.
Delegates asked how they can get involved in this kind of
activity with the limited resources they have. A dilemma for
regional presidents of WBU who represent a lot of countries.
Would like to know how to apply this information to be
applicable to organisations such as ULAC.
Next Steps: Going forward strategy
 Asked delegates if it is useful to continue meeting in this way.
Yes, but need to make it more meaningful. Need region-specific
seminar, noting legal, cultural difference of each region
 Need to strengthen regions to ultimately strengthen WBU
 Has been useful from regional perspective to hear basic
premise on which Fundraising to be undertaken well understood
throughout seminar
 Useful to hear psyche of donor and how we should approach
and follow up with donors
 Has enriched our knowledge and will be useful
 Need to devise similar seminars that address regional specific
differences
 Suggested organising on a global level to inspire regions to
then hold regional workshops
 Big differences between regions and even within regions
 Fundraising needs to be adapted to each country and each
culture
 Some regions getting more funds than WBU does centrally
 Need to put a fundraising element into other meetings to make
fundraising integrated with the work of WBU
 Fundraising is now a fully-fledged and highly professional
activity. Select from activities appropriate to the region/country
 Set up a mentorship for the regions to learn from organisations
that have already tried those fundraising methods
 Gathering and sharing of ideas has been useful and worthwhile
 Brazil - workshop has been useful. ULAC works at political
level, umbrella organisation not working with individuals directly.
Asked how is the fundraising relevant?
 WBU also an umbrella organisation
 Suggested offering mentors to less developed regions
 In 1992 there was the Institutional Development Partners
initiative. Could something similar be done now? Fundraisers
would be happy to contribute expertise to a similar programme.
 Sharing information using technology such as 'Dropbox'. Allows
users to share information over the internet. Could set up a
Dropbox folder for fund development.
 WBU has a Talking Communities licence which enables them to
host seminars over the web. The service is free to use and just
requires an internet connection and basic IT knowledge. It
would be possible to arrange 'webinars' on fund development.
The service can be used for regular conference calls, so talks
about different aspects of fundraising could be set up. It would
be possible to have virtual rooms for different regions/groups to
use.
 WBU should be utilising technology to enable better information
sharing with each other
Review and onsite evaluation of the seminar
 Evaluation form will be sent out to participants by email
 Gained some new ideas from other countries
 Would be useful to have workshops where professional
fundraisers can help regions and other countries
 Will have more participants in future if we continue to do this
and will get better and better
 Would prefer to have horseshoe style seating rather than
cabaret style tables
 Has been good to pick up new ideas
 Powerful to meet colleagues in other organisations, helps when
wanting to contact
 Concern about representation from smaller organisations and
how much value it has been to them
 Suggested that, going forward, have sharing between similar
size/types of organisations to make it more relevant
 Ask people to come with questions about what their challenge
is, make it more practical
 Event has been very positive. Suggested that the next event
could have connection to be transmitted abroad e.g Skype so
that others can join
 Dropbox folder and community software would be very useful
 A room for executive staff to meet and exchange ideas
 Technology would provide useful facility for reaching out to
various different members within regions
 Large organisations can also learn from the small organisations
 Good idea to have segmented seminars for orgs at different
levels
 The WBU Fundraising School?
 Fundraisers for the Blind Facebook group? Post good
campaigns and websites
 Fundraising is everyone's business, not just for professional
fundraisers.
 Fundraisers also need to immerse themselves in the services of
the organisation
 Need to strengthen members, regions and WBU
 Many organisations don’t have the resources to attend these
events
 Mentoring and buddying
 Add a sequence on how to work with corporates
 Fundraising has become an international industry
 Useful and helpful to meet with organisations at more advanced
stage with their fundraising
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Can go back to your region/country as champion of new ideas
Workshop has been useful and work should be continued
Can support with knowledge, not just money
Good for fundraisers to go to international events to pick up
knowledge
 Thanks were given to Wanda, Jan, Leif & Marianne for
organising this workshop
Open Meeting: WBU resource generation working group's
strategic plan - Actions for 2013 and beyond
Priority 1 - Engage WBU members
1.1 Membership Fees
 Arnt introduced WBU plan for resource generation
 Funds in addition to membership fees
 Encourage fees to be paid in a timely manner. Fees an
important part of income for WBU
 Ways to help facilitate paying fees
 Translation services could offset fees - speak to Penny Hartin
about this
 Present operating budget about $500,000. $250k from
membership fees, 40% from member sponsors, 10% from other
donations. Need to increase what is received from external
sources of funding. Based on 2012 figures.
 $50k of fees were not paid in 2012. Could we help these
organisations with our fundraising expertise? Ask a corporate to
sponsor?
 Do we know why they have not paid? Need to know this before
we have a strategy to collect the fees. If not paid then not a
member!
 Want to work hard to have everyone as a member.
Organisations stay as inactive members with no vote if they do
not pay fees.
 Countries can buddy up to enable less affluent countries to
become members
 WBU have been asked if membership fee can be reduced.
Need to convince members that supporting WBU is a way to
support blind and partially sighted people and to assist their
own members.
1.2 Sponsorship
 Looking to revise recognition programme
 Devised a questionnaire
 Achievements page on the website
 Acknowledgement of in-kind gifts - could be captured on the
website
 Make known progress of committees and working group - need
feedback so that this can be updated on the website
 Need to do more acknowledgement about work through press
releases
 Find suitable matches with companies CSR policies
 Use a description for WBU that is a better sell to investors
 Don't want to be seen to be poaching funds away from member
organisations
 Same 15 organisations being called on year after year. How do
we bring in new organisations to support WBU?
 Basic value of organisation - money doesn't get access to
power (e.g. seat on the Board)
 Preference for sponsorship rather than investment
Priority 2 - Fundraising from member countries
 How to get other organisations involved and how to raise funds
in addition to the membership fee?
 WBU needs to have global focus. Case for support would be to
have a global effect on sight loss
 WBU would like members to send in photos to use from their
organisation/region
 Suggested organisations could fundraise jointly with WBU and
share the funds; direct mail talking about project by WBU as
well as project by the member organisation. It was suggested
that WBU could create mail pieces that can be used by
organisation that do not have their own fundraising team.
 Working with WBU shows international responsibility
 There is a small segment that was mailed about WBU in
Norway and had 85% response rate.
Priority 3 - Develop & provide fund development workshops
for member organisations
 First workshop taking place today
 WBU to look at other ways of doing these fund development
workshops; in regions, online
 Suggested adding fund development discussion to all regional
meetings
Priority 4 - Core funding
 Market this as paying for expertise in certain fields
 Need to redevelop case statements - why does WBU exist?
This will make it easier to make asks and requests.
 Open to look at new ideas
 Asked member organisations to send their case for support
documents to WBU to help shape theirs
 World Blind Union is the only international organisation for all
blind people
 How to get international recognition? For large corporates?
WBU and members a source of knowledge for large companies.
 Need to decide what budget WBU would like to have for core
funds
 Have a regional co-ordinator in each region to work with regions
and find resources
Priority 5 - Identify & research external sources of funding
 Request to send in-kind policies from your organisation to
Marianne McQuillan
 Nominate member organisations for awards
 Find champions and promote them
 Contact producers of consumer products. Will need to meet
demand for ethical products. Consumer goods with a share
going to WBU
 In Norway a scarf was produced as a Christmas gift for
purchase by companies. Blind people had been involved in the
production of the scarf - a high quality product.
 If people interested in the cause would they give to multiple
organisations doing the same kind of work?
 WBU advise of who they approach and are careful not to
conflict with members
 Need a clear and simple message: what you do and why you're
better at doing it than anyone else. WBU doing something that
no-one else can do.
Priority 6 - individual giving strategy
 Friends of WBU circle of support to include past presidents,
past regional presidents etc. A way for these people to remain
involved with WBU.
 Look at legal aspects of tax receipts
 Any thoughts on a Major Donor programme which offers
benefits, invites etc to high level donors?
 Use champions - people to go out and get supporters
 Set up a fund development working group
 Suggested that WBU send out a list of tasks that need to be
completed and which members can offer to assist with. Jan
Chisholm, Vision Australia, offered to help with Case for
Support.
 WBU asked if members would send photographs and direct
mail examples to them. Also asked that regions send case
study material to see how this can be used
Timeline
 Get a core group together to help write?
 Later this year write some direct mail pieces to share with
member organisations
 Work on direct mail pieces jointly with member organisations
 Research external sources of funding. May be asking members
to support requests late 2013 and 2014
 Look at fees
 Look at new organisations for support
 Support with Facebook page for WBU
Arnt Holte thanked everyone for a good two days!