A Few More Topline Numbers

     Since I posted our direct mail results I've received a few questions about overall costs. Above is my Gross & Net Revenue growth which will give you an idea of costs including staffing.

    For those of you who haven't attended one of my presentations... I started the fundraising programme from scratch on Sept 1st, 2008.  That was exactly two weeks before Lehman Bros. crashed, followed by the Irish Banks and property market. It's been an adventure.

Another little number which might be of interest.

2013 Retention Rate

Let me be clear, 64% is our retention rate for cash(one off) donors. Our retention rate for monthly donors is over 90%.

This is very much a work in progress. 

I hope our team goal becomes your team goal. 

Gettin' Donors & Keepin' Donors

   
I've been making promises about putting the results of MQI's donor communications programme out in public. So here we go. This isn't going to be fancy. It will serve as a reference point for future blogs.

Gettin' donors

Acquisition

     I've been doing direct mail acquisition in Ireland since late 2008. Data has always been a challenge and my results have mostly varied based on the quality of data available. But I use all the same lists everyone else does. No big secrets there. Lisa Sargent began writing for us in Sept 2009. I can't begin to emphasise the importance of good creative.

     With the exception of one or two campaigns that only reached break even, most of our acquisition campaigns have an ROI of 1.2:1 to 1.8:1 (120%-180%).

     In the early years we only spent about €.69-.89 per pack, including postage. Some of our more recent packs have been €.99-1.38 including postage. 

Keepin' donors

Newsletters

     In late 2009 I realised we were losing donors almost as fast as we were bringing them in. We spent 2010 focusing on our internal processes. (Which was just as well, we had run out of usable ACQ lists) I hired my first staff member. We got a donor database and tightened our thank you letter process. Then Lisa Sargent overhauled our newsletter. You can read about that here.  before-and-after case study on Merchants Quay Ireland’s donor newsletter Our newsletter from Summer 2010 had a 2.2% RR before the overhaul. 

     The ROI on our newsletters over the last couple of years has averaged 7:1- 9:1 (700%-900%). We've also seen our Response Rates for Warm Appeals increase as we increased the number and quality of our newsletters.

Warm (House) Appeals

     Response Rates on our Warm Appeals vary by the time of year, naturally. But we also use one appeal a year to focus on converting cash donors to monthly donors and those RR's are a bit lower. The appeals in red are our Christmas Appeals. 

     We've seen a steady upward trend as we improved our newsletter, thank you's, increased the number of mailings and offered opportunities for donor engagement. You'll see that Christmas 2013 was down from the previous year but considering we had Typhoon Haiyan in November and the CRC scandal in Dec, I think we weathered it pretty well.

     I didn't include stats from 2008 - early 2010 because we didn't have a donor database yet. I'm just not certain of the accuracy of my records so I'd rather not put them out in public.

Ugly Stepchild...?

     Anyone who knows me… knows I’m not a secretive person. But up until now I’ve only given random public glimpses into the donor communications programme that built Merchant Quay Ireland’s fundraising income from €200K a year to €2.2mil a year in 5 years(in a recession). Over the next few weeks I plan to put my results out in public. From Acquisition to Appeals and Monthly Giving. Some of it will be beautiful… some of it… not so much. 

     Let’s start with what is often the ugly stepchild of fundraising... the Donor Newsletter.

     Newsletters are a HUGE part of our fundraising programme. A great newsletter tells wonderful stories about how donors are changing the world. A great newsletter also raises funds… by thanking, not asking. Our newsletters average a 7:1 ROI (700% return on investment) and they drive donor loyalty and retention. As you can probably guess, our newsletter is no ugly stepchild… it’s our precious baby.

  My newsletters are written by the extraordinary Lisa Sargent. She also writes a great e-newsletter called The Loyalty Letter. Below is an excerpt.
_________________________________________________________________

Can You (Finally) Ditch Your Donor Newsletter?

Never-Before-Revealed Results Offer New Insights

     Sooner or later, someone in your organisation will ask if it's (finally) time to replace, cut back on, or eliminate entirely, your direct mail donor newsletter. What I reveal here suggests these are the wrong questions to ask altogether... 

     Since 2010 -- as part of a simple donor communications plan that MQI's Head of Fundraising Denisa Casement and I orchestrated – MQI has mailed donor-focused newsletters three times every year.

Until this year, 2014. 

This year, the newsletter increases to four times.

Seriously? Who in this day and age mails more? Why not just switch to email? (After all, it's "free.") 

MQI's direct mail donor newsletter response rates, never before revealed, show you why we upped the ante:

• 2011, response rates of 6.35%, 6.59% and 8.00%.

• 2012, response rates of 7.40%, 7.33%, and 12.08%.

• 2013, response rates of 9.90%, 12.38%, and 12.73%.

Upward trajectory. From a newsletter. And a profitable one, at that.

For the record, this hasn't killed their donor retention rate. Au contraire. It now stands at sixty percent, double that of most U.S. nonprofits. (And no, their file is not dying. We do acquisition rollouts 2-3 times per year. The database has grown over 5X in as many years. Five times.) *see note

So if your direct mail donor newsletter is underperforming, the question is NOT: should we cut back on mailings? 

And it is NOT: Should we replace it with email only?

And it is DEFINITELY NOT: Do we ditch it altogether?

The real questions you should ask are: 

WHAT are we not doing... 

HOW do we do what's right... 

And HOW FAST can we transform our direct mail donor newsletter so it gets (much) better results?

Five years ago, MQI's team took a chance and invested in a relentlessly donor-centric fundraising and communications program.

So the question to ask isn't, Should you ditch your donor newsletter?

The question to ask is, What kind of success story do you want your nonprofit to tell in 5 years?

I'll be anxious to hear it.

    Lisa Sargent

_____________________________________________________________

     Lisa and I will be presenting a masterclass on How to Do Donor Communications for Relationships, Retention and Results at Fundraising Ireland’s National Fundraising Conference.

     We’ll cover all facets of our donor communications and reveal 5 years of detailed results from Donor Acquisition, Appeals and Newsletters.

     To read Lisa’s Loyalty Letter in its entirety, click here

You can follow both of us on Twitter 

@lisasargent2        @DenisaCasement 

*The donor base has grown from approx 500 to over 13,000. Lisa only had figures from our 2nd year on.