Blackbaud HFH User Forum

Professional Services | Page 2Year End Best Practices
© 2006 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud
Agenda
ƒ Introductions & Ground Rules
ƒ Housekeeping
ƒ Year End Best Practices
1. Year End Appeal
ƒ Targeting & Segmenting your best prospects
ƒ The ‘Ask’
2. Analysis & Planning
ƒ Question and Answer
Introductions & Ground Rules
ƒ Today’s session is a part of an ongoing series of User Groups that
Blackbaud hosts for its affiliate customers. Attendees are encouraged to
share their experiences for the benefit of the group.
ƒ Our facilitator:
– Jeff Terry, Blackbaud’s HFH Account Manager
ƒ Joining our conference call are affiliates from across the US and Canada
Ground Rules:
– Your participation is requested; this session was designed to be interactive.
Feel free to ask questions and share your experiences.
– Be aware of your background noise and/or hold music.
– Enjoy this time with your peers!

Housekeeping
ƒ To encourage your participation, we will prompt you during the session
for your experiences and comments.
ƒ The concepts of this session should be applicable to any size affiliate
ƒ Feel free to ask questions at any time.
ƒ To keep the conversation going after the User Group, we have created
an Affiliate Forum on our web site. This is a place where affiliates can
ask more questions and share best practices.
– http://hfhforum.blackbaud.com
Agenda
ƒ Housekeeping
1. Year End Appeal
ƒ The ‘Ask’

Year End Appeal
Q: Why do ‘Year End’ or ‘Holiday’ Appeals?
A: Loads of tactical reasons…
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ donors are trained to give during the holidays
ƒ tax deduction donors are writing checks now
A: Strong strategic reasons
ƒ
ƒ ideal time for new donor acquisition (cost to acquire vs cost to
retain)
ƒ you’ve spent the last 8-10 months telling your story and building
affinity with your constituency
Year End Appeal
A: HFH Tuscon’s 2005 numbers explain:
18.49%$357,882.961,277December
7.86%$152,161.54547November
7.51%$145,258.77394October
4.27%$82,640.13240September
5.72%$110,736.11308August
3.50%$67,695.02130July
24.73%$478,583.36231June
4.51%$87,217.63410May
Month
Percent of
total given
Total
given
Number of
gifts
Raiser’s Edge Tip:
Run the Statistical Report, by
Month for this analysis

Year End Appeal
A: Blackbaud’s Online Giving Data shows that peak online giving
happens in November & December every year
Gift Amount Monthly Comparison
$0
$2,000,000
$4,000,000
$6,000,000
$8,000,000
$10,000,000
$12,000,000
$14,000,000
$16,000,000
$18,000,000
JanuaryFebruary
M
arch
April
M
ay
June
JulyAugust
Septem
berO
ctober
N
ovem
ber
D
ecem
ber
2002 Donation Amount
Year End Appeal
Q: Who are our best targets?
Affiliate Comments for Discussion:
– “We mail to everyone in our database so we don’t miss anyone”
– “Our affiliate focuses on renewing prior year donors”
– “We’ve just begun coordinating our messaging across direct
mail and email appeals”
– “Our new Dir of Development is insisting that we have different
appeal letters for different types of donors”

Year End Appeal
To determine which segments warrant the effort & expense, reviewing data
from prior efforts is critical. As a best practice, think about tracking:
– Which appeals were sent to which donors
– Who responded to each appeal
– Which appeals generated the highest volume AND highest dollar amount
– Overall cost of postage, printing, etc for each appeal
– Instructions for tracking each of these metrics can be found in
Blackbaud’s Knowledge Base article # 149072
Year End Appeal
Some Common Segments:
Your best supporters should be recognized as such…perhaps a year-
end thank you is more appropriate than an ask?
Major/Top Donor
Segments
Prior year donors are among your first priorities. Consider language
that connects their previous gift with mission delivery.
LYBUNTS &
SYBUNTS

Year End Appeal
Some Common Segments:
Identify middle tier donors and use language that suggest an
increased level of support.
Upgrade
Segments
Friends, family, business associates of your board members are
grouped. The board member signs her group of letters before mailing.
Board or
Leadership
Segments
Year End Appeal
Some Less Common Segments:
Will a 1-4% response rate from this group justify the cost of mailing to
them? Consider excluding constituents that haven’t given in 3+ years.
Non Donor
Segment
The number of touch-points your constituents have with the affiliate
can be quantified. (a person that volunteers regularly, sits on a
committee and receives the newsletter scores high) Different appeals
are sent based on the range of scores.
Connectedness
Segments
Longevity is often a better predictor than previous gift amounts. These
donors may be a prospect for a planned or major gift ask, in addition to
their annual type gift.
Consecutive
Years or Long
Time Donors
Run the Consecutive Years
Report to identify these
donors

Year End Appeal
Some Less Common Segments:
Identify constituents that gave online or have opted into your
eNewsletters or registered to volunteer online. Appeal to them using
the same electronic medium.
eDonor Segment
Some non profits will recognize the anniversary date of the first gift as
an important occasion in the appeal letter….a subtle reminder that 12
months have passed.
Anniversary
Donors
Identify constituents that have made their first gift to the affiliate. Use
appeal language that makes it easy for them to give a 2nd time (small
gift amount, online giving, etc)
New Donor
Segments
Year End Appeal
Best Practice Take Away:
– Your supporters have different interests, giving histories and
levels of connectedness with your affiliate. Your appeal should
speak to these differences.
ƒ The deeper the profile you keep in your database, the easier it is to
appeal in a ‘donor centric’ way
ƒ The more donor centric your appeal, the better the response
– Affiliates need to measure response rate within each segment in
order to improve the following year.
Run the Appeals Analysis
Report to measure response
rates and cost per dollar
raised

Year End Appeal
Q: How does an affiliate make the best ask?
Affiliate Comments for Discussion:
– “Every appeal we send out includes a story of one of our
families…they generate a much stronger reaction”
– “We send the same letter to everyone to keep it simple”
– “We struggle with suggesting a gift amount”
– “We don’t have the staff to send different letters out”
Agenda
ƒ Housekeeping
1. Year End Appeal
ƒ The ‘Ask’

Year End Appeal
Q: How does an affiliate make the best ask?
Blackbaud’s Recommendations:
– If you can’t be personal, don’t bother
– Leverage the Brand Power that HFHI brings
– Use email, website, PSAs, etc to boost response rates
– Recruit families to provide quotes or success stories
– Automated database functions make this process manageable
with limited staff resources
Use the Segment Function to
combine segments in a single
mail run
Agenda
ƒ Housekeeping
1. Year End Appeal
ƒ The ‘Ask’

Analysis and Planning
Q: What are affiliates doing to prepare their 2007 fund raising plan?
Affiliate Discussion Points:
– “Looking at our build projections and revenue needs”
– “Hoping to find new funding sources”
– “Reviewing performance data to build our 2007 plan”
– “Just hoping to maintain sanity through December!”
Year over year comparisons:

Donor retention & acquisition analysis:
Giving Trends Within Affinity Groups:

Cost Per Dollar Raised & Appeal Response Rates:
Questions
Suggestions or
Questions from
the Group?
Jeff Terry
Blackbaud, Inc.
Jeffrey.Terry@blackbaud.com
1.800.443.9441 (ext. 3133)
Elizabeth Brunner
Habitat for Humanity International
EBrunner@habitat.org

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