Do you REALLY know what communications you’re sending your donors?

As you read the title most of you will be thinking that of course we do. The planners amongst you will be thinking I have a spreadsheet with a calendar of fundraising communications (comms). The Individual giving (IG) teams will be thinking of course we do we put the donor journeys together.  And the Director of Fundraising is thinking hmmm.. I’m pretty sure we do but silos do remain in one form or the other so maybe we’re not as joined up as we could be...

And you’re all most likely right. The planners do have a calendar of comms but aren’t aware that the campaigns team sends out a bi weekly newsletter. The IG team has planned a fantastically engaging donor journey but hasn’t taken into account that events and the online shop have full access to emails for all donors. The Fundraising directors have a pretty good idea but can’t be 100% and yes even after all these years the silos still stubbornly remain. Income targets are being met and no one has really complained so everything is probably fine...

So suddenly the carefully put together donor journeys might not be as considered as first thought. How does this affect the relationship with the donor? Are they confused by multiple messages all talking about different things? Are they wondering why they’re receiving campaigns comms when they didn’t ask for them?

This all seems to be backed up by what I’m seeing from my first year monitoring the ‘top 10’ charities donor journeys.

7 out of 10 charities have sent me what I would call non IG comms i.e. campaigns, events, online shop etc. I feel somewhat overwhelmed by this mix of messaging and I am unsure of what the charities are trying to communicate. This will of course only be compounded further if I donate to other charities that are doing the same thing.

One charity has ring fenced my initial online cash donation for the first six months and then just sent me events comms. This would indicate that this particular charity has me in a specific event only segment.

I’ve received 238 comms in the first year as a one off cash giver from the’ top 10’ (less for other products) and c. 40% of these are non IG in nature. From looking at the donor journeys in their entirely I would be surprised if half of these journeys have been planned with all of the organisations comms in mind. In one month from one charity I received NINE individual comms from five different areas of the charity.

3 out of 10 have sent me an average of two comms per month and appear to be IG purely in nature. This would indicate that these charities have a good handle on the organisations entire comms programme and are planning accordingly, and/ or they have very tight data ownership protocols.

By the very nature of their size the ‘top 10’ will find it harder to join up across all the different organisational areas. Smaller charities send a lot less comms, in part due to many having less fundraising products and fewer overall teams, but more so due to the intimate nature of working in a smaller organisation and knowing what everyone else is up to.

At Media Watch we are not only monitoring the ‘top 10’ but also conduct ‘mystery shopping’ for our client’s comms. In this way our clients see their REAL journey from the perspective of a REAL donor. This is a great way to ‘health check’ their data, to pick up any comms that might have been sent that weren’t planned as part of the donor journey and conversely any comms that should have been sent and weren’t.

So with the current climate and the sector under such intense scrutiny all charities more than ever should understand at an organisational level what they are sending their donors. This means that data needs to be managed more centrally and cross divisional teams need to collaborate more closely together.  This puts the donor first and gives a joined up experience that is a representation of the whole organisation not just within fundraising or the IG team.

There’s been a lot of talk recently of the need for a more considered and structured approach to ‘relationship fundraising’ and how in the long term this will result in a more engaged and loyal donor. It will be interesting to see how some of the ‘top 10’ embrace this approach more (hopefully) and the resultant change in volume and composition of comms over the coming year....

I hope you found this interesting and thanks for reading.

Richard

If you would like to know more about how Media Watch can help you optimise your donor programme please contact [email protected]

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