Online Engagement Increases Offline Gifts
	Posted by Allison Porter at Jul 27, 2012 07:02 AM CDT

Although online fundraising is becoming a greater source of income for many charities, it still doesn’t bring in the donations like the more traditional channels of mail, phone, etc. Some people take that information to mean your online channels shouldn’t take up very much of your charity’s time and resources, but I’ve seen how valuable online efforts can be when they are integrated as part of a larger campaign. I’ll share a recent example from our work with the National Parks Conservation Association’s (NPCA) Calendar Engagement Campaign. 

NPCA recently analyzed their activist-members -- supporters who engage with NPCA in their advocacy work AND donate -- and discovered that these individuals have a stronger renewal rate. So to increase their renewals further, we decided to give their supporters the opportunity to feel more active and involved.

To facilitate the opportunities for multi-channel engagement, NPCA used a series of emails to involve and engage their supporters leading up to one of their signature appeals of the year, and the results speak for themselves.

OBJECTIVE

NPCA had been mailing a beautiful calendar appeal every year -- but Avalon found they were missing an opportunity to engage their supporters and leverage the calendar even further to bond people to the organization and strengthen the bottom line for this campaign. The calendar presented an opportunity to engage members and encourage them to join or renew their membership online ahead of mailing the calendar. This multi-effort series of emails asked members and prospects to choose the calendar cover image with follow ups asking them to join or renew to ensure they were eligible to receive the mailed calendar in a few months -- a meaningful incentive.

STRATEGY

The touch point strategy included the following emails:

1. Vote for the cover image for the calendar -- included ask to give an additional gift (current members), or renew, or join to receive the calendar via mail.

2. Winning image announcement -- included ask to give an additional gift, or renew or join to receive the calendar mailing.

3. Renewal ask -- regular renewal ask with calendar language included.

4. Acquisition ask -- regular acquisition ask with acquisition language included. 

The engagement was simple, but gave supporters an opportunity to provide their opinion and weigh in on what image they thought captured NPCA best. It also got them excited about the calendar and what other images would be included, prompting them to join or renew their membership to ensure they received the calendar. 

RESULTS

The engagement on the voting was incredible and overall fundraising response exceeded budget. In addition, the soft asks that were presented immediately after voting as well as the follow up harder asks helped NPCA raise money from a never-before-used campaign that can be replicated in the future.

Finally, members will likely be even more motivated to give an appeal gift when they receive the calendar mailing.