Finding the Gold in Your Database

Baird Straughan, LeadGreenbaird@leadgreen.org

With Kevin Kasowski, River NetworkRiver Rally 2011

Goals:•Decide if your list needs to be cleaned up, and how you’ll do that.•Decide how to segment your list, identifying potential major donors.•Decide how to replenish your list.•Decide whether to reduce mailing costs by limiting mailings to recent donors.

How much gold is in a mailing list, anyway?

Group A: EstablishedDollars from individuals (dues, donations, major donations)

  2007 2008 2009 2010

Dollars $184,586 $149,950 $135,408 $135,000

# donations 616 621 741 500

average gift $300 $241 $183 $270

How Group A’s income breaks down

444

274

29 367

$0

$10,000

$20,000

$30,000

$40,000

$50,000

$60,000

below 100 100 andabove

500 andabove

1,000 andabove

5,000 andabove

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

# of gifts

Sum of gifts

Dollars contributed

# of Donations

Size of gifts

B: Sporadic major donor work

2007 2008 2009 2010

Dollars $63,394 $91,607 $41,734 $72,660

# donations 553 523 470 597

average gift $115 $175 $89 $122

Dollars from individuals (dues, donations, major donations)

C: Neglecting and restartingDollars from individuals (dues, donations, major donations)

2007 2008 2009 2010

Dollars $54,711 $32,500 $57,280 $52,805

# donations 382 110 735 672

average gift $143 $295 $78 $79

Group C’s revenue distribution

$-

$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

$25,000

$30,000

100 500 1000 5000

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

# of donations

sum of donations

Size of gifts

How much gold do you get from your mailing list now?

Annual income from dues: $__________

from donations: $__________

from major donations: $ ___________

How many people donated in the last year? __________

Average income per donor: $__________

Average donation size: $__________

How much could you get?Annual income from dues: $__________

X renewal rate: __%

Total from dues: ____________

Average donation: $ _____________

X response rate: __%

X number of appeals __

Total from appeals: $__________

Number of major donors: __________

Average gift: ___________

Total from major donors: $________

Total Income from the people in your list: $ ___________

3 minutes: Estimate your current income from your mailing list, andyour potential.

5 minutes: Form groups of 5 and share.

Take-aways: - Set a target for individual revenue income.- … and

One list to rule them all,

One list to find them …

Just One List

Cleaning Up Your List

Two approaches

• Roll up your sleeves and clean it up in your database or spreadsheet.

• Send out a mailing and see how many duplicates you have and bad addresses are returned.

Approach #1:Run reports and sort by Last Name

Sort by Email

If you have a CRM,

get Dupe-

BlockerAn example of DupeBlocker, a program free to nonprofits who use the Salesforce database or customizations of it, like Watergrass.

Send out a

mailing.

Clean up the

database as you get

returns.

How much work is that?I asked Shanda Minney, ED at West Virginia Rivers Coalition and a WaterGrass user, what had led to the improvement in their mail responses. She replied:

“To answer your question about what we did differently, I would have to say that I think these results are the product of a year long effort to do better at our overall supporter servicing.  Amanda has done a tremendous amount of work cleaning up our database, removing duplicates, chasing down correct details and amending previous errors.  In addition, our appeals are firmly incorporated within our overall outreach strategy - newsletters, thank you acknowledgments, personal contact, major donor development, rapid problem solving etc.”

But there’s really no way around it …

About 30% of all email addresses become defunct each year.

About 16% of the population moves, so their addresses change.

CHURN

YOUR MAILING LIST

1 minute: If necessary, what steps would you take to clean up your mailing list?

5 minutes: Form groups of 5, share and discuss.

Segmenting Your List

By Giving Potential

By Check-ing in NOZA

By Interest

By Partic-ipation

By email opens

MD March Mailing Response Rates

0.015 0.0142

0.0188 0.019

0.0245

0%

1%

2%

3%

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Begin thank-you calls

Begin email reinforcement

Example: MD Sierra Club

More touches

$0

$2,000

$4,000

$6,000

$8,000

$10,000

$12,000

$14,000

$16,000

$18,000

$20,000

12-Nov

14-Dec

16-Dec

18-Dec

21-Dec

23-Dec

27-Dec

29-Dec

31-Dec

4-Jan

6-Jan

8-Jan

FoundationMDChapterTotal

Reminder calls to our list of top donors

March Mail AppealCumulative Donations to 2011 March Mail Appeal

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

20000

3/3/2011 3/10/2011 3/17/2011 3/24/2011 3/31/2011 4/7/2011 4/14/2011 4/21/2011 4/28/2011 5/5/2011 5/12/2011

Reminder email 3/30

Mail piece goes out 3/24

13,434 pieces, 2.45% response rate (including online gifts from donors who received letters).296 gifts.Average gift $62.11.Largest gift $2,000.Smallest $5.

This bump may be due to anomalies in our processing.

Total Gross:$18,386

Cost: $6839 or $.51/ltr.

Chesa-peake mailed.

Wind issue e-alert goes out

March Email AppealCumulative Annualized Value of 2011 March Online Donations

$0

$500

$1,000

$1,500

$2,000

$2,500

$3,000

$3,500

$4,000

2/26

/201

1

3/8/

2011

3/18

/201

1

3/28

/201

1

4/7/

2011

4/17

/201

1

4/27

/201

1

5/7/

2011

Assumes Sustaining gifts repeat for 12 months, quarterly every 3 months

Email announcement 3/16 Email

reminder

19,000 initial emails.400 (2.1%) opens.49 gifts, 42 of them from people who also received the letter.33 of them had given before, avg. gift was $65.16 new donors gave $1,235, avg. $77.24 unsubscribes (avg is 9 for two mailings).

Total $3382.

By Partic-ipation

1 minute: How do you want to segment your list and reach out to special groups in order to improve your response rate?

10 minutes: Form groups of 5, share and discuss.

Replenishing Your List

Acquisition Mailings

Mailings to Lapsed Members

Enter your participant lists!

Acquisitions

1 minute: How do you want to replenish your list?