Nuts & Bolts - Case Study : Participatory Approach Works With Younger Donors

Challenge: Increase new donor acquisition

Solution: Integrated marketing, including rich media, e-mail blasts and retail partnerships

Results: E-mail opens totalled 40.5 percent, and the clickthrough rate was between 16.3 percent and 20.7 percent. The end result was $100,000 raised.

Working to gather new donors in support of lupus research, Joshua Estrin, CEO of the Southeast Florida division of the Lupus Foundation of America, often finds himself asking, "What does it take to ignite the philanthropic spark to ‘harvest’ new members?"

This year, he found the answer in integrated marketing and social media. Although last year the chapter was effectively targeting the majority of its potential new donors, "We needed programs that spoke to a new generation of ‘givers’ who grew up on video games, MTV, MySpace [and] Twitter. These technophiles live by their iPhones and e-mail, and we needed to speak a language donors understood, bringing the concept of what we do into a more cutting-edge, responsible and hip [brand image]," he says. The foundation also began using a business model known as "user end," designed to invigorate the consumer to help create and sell the product. "Our product is lupus and meeting the needs of those affected by it," Estrin says. "By creating design contests, blogs and engaging people via electronic mediums to become involved in our projects, the conversion process to donor is far easier."

About a year ago the foundation began using a double opt-in service for e-newsletters and e-mails, which resulted in an opt-out rate of 2.8 percent or lower, according to Estrin. "Any time we visit a health fair or event, the strategy is, ‘How many e-mail addresses can we get?’ as, with the double opt-in we know the people who respond want to hear from us," he says.

The foundation sends an e-mail blast every Friday, designed to let members (the term it uses for potential donors) and existing donors know what happened each week and "how [donor] dollars helped make it happen," Estrin says. It also added bimonthly e-mail updates because, "Donors deserve to know how we will continue to sustain and what we have planned to grow—of course, in time that growth will demand donor support, so we are setting the stage," he explains. While at some point you need to ask a donor to donate, he says a well-informed member is someone who usually already understands the needs of the organization and will eventually donate.

The foundation recently began to post educational videos on YouTube, "as we know that is where potential donors are visiting," he says. It then integrated this with a local Starbucks project to offer a campaign called "'Lupus, Learning and Lattes,' something that even people without lupus can understand," Estrin explains. The program offers support and education that allows for both social and supportive components.

Last year the foundation updated its main Web site with information and the branding strategy of: 1) There is more to lupus than you know, and 2) someone you know has lupus. According to Estrin, "Those two messages restated against the backdrop of our e-communications makes the ask logical." The foundation then sent a new e-mail campaign with the message, "We can see that you have enjoyed and (from the back-end dashboard) that you are reading our e-mails. Would you be: 1) Willing to upgrade your membership; 2) attend our gala; or 3) donate to our Mother’s Day, Passover or Annual Campaign?" This new campaign, sent to members who had not yet donated, was met with increased clickthroughs, hitting between 16.3 percent and 20.7 percent.

Estrin says he encouraged the foundation to add an electronic component to its campaigns because "donors and potential donors are merely a click away from any number of links to our main site, event landing pages and the like. They can learn more about lupus based on what they feel is compelling for them." By integrating links to search pages and information about every form of lupus, he says it "do[es] not discount interest in donations to a specific area of service provision."

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