Fundraising Trends and the Next Generation of Canadian Giving
How to Kick Start Your Symbolic Giving Program
1. 10 Takeaways to Improve or Kick Start Your Holiday Symbolic Giving Presented by Michael Johnston and Sheetal Persaud
2. A virtual tour What is symbolic giving – or alternative giving? What are the benefits of symbolic giving? How can I deal with restricted giving constraints? Who are symbolic giving donors? What will be more important for marketing? How can you integrate your marketing efforts? How can personal page fundraising be used for symbolic giving? What are some success stories from organizations big and small? How do you steward and convert symbolic gift donors to sustained monthly donors? How can small and mid-sized organizations afford to introduce symbolic giving this holiday?
4. The 3 steps to alternative giving? hjc Proprietary and Confidential 4 Step 1 – Donor selects a gift Step 2 – Donor sends a card to a loved one, friend, colleague, teacher...anyone who they buy gifts for Step 3 – Donor gets a tax receipt for the full amount of their gift
7. 2- What are the benefits? hjc Proprietary and Confidential 7 The everyone gets something mentality
8. Donor – Gets that feel good feeling, a tax receipt, and a fun and interactive way of giving hjc Proprietary and Confidential 8
9. Gift Recipient – Gets a feel good feeling too (they didn’t even donate!) and a beautiful ecard or print card hjc Proprietary and Confidential 9
10. YOU – You get fundraising dollars, new donors, old donors giving more, brand awareness amongst gift recipients and media attention hjc Proprietary and Confidential 10
11. 3 – Restricted giving hjc Proprietary and Confidential 11 I can’t designate my funds two specific programs. How can I adopt alternative giving?
12. The industry’s best kept secret – most alternative gift catalogues are UNRESTRICTED GIVING hjc Proprietary and Confidential 12
37. 7 - What about personal pages and designated small gifts?
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39. Don’t get me anything this holiday – go to my personal page – and help me reach my goal as a holiday present!!!
40. Sick Kids holiday personal page fundraising: No promotion except button on home page Three weeks on home page during Christmas season $120,000 in three weeks They love the idea of having people make their own page and proactively going out to friends, family and colleagues saying ‘no gifts please…’ and asking for donations Will people begin to make their own pages for a designated purchase e.g. $10,000 piece of equipment or $10,000 for one designated researcher/doctor – and seek small gifts from their friends for their designated personal page solicitation?
41. 8 - Some case studies Alternative giving can work – for bring brand AND small brands
45. $40,256 total giftsIntroduced year round School Fundraising focused campaign Re-launched holiday focused campaign September 2007 703 total donors – 544 in December Average gift $97.76 $68,725 total gifts Campaign Year 2 – 2006 Launched October 2006 520 total donors – 462 in December Average gift $96.32 $50,085 total gifts
64. By creating designated gifts – both small and large – Canuck Place has attracted larger gifts from Foundations and from companies. The ‘commodification’ of what a donor’s dollar can do is getting both larger and smaller gifts
65. 9 - How do you steward and upgrade your symbolic gift donors? hjc Proprietary and Confidential 46 Your symbolic gift donors love your brand and can be upgraded with the right stewardship streams
66. Be sure to email and thank your symbolic gift donors after the campaign and let them know how their gifts helped your organisation hjc Proprietary and Confidential 47
68. CHF called 5000 of their DM, telephone and symbolic gift donors to upgrade the donors to monthly. The symbolic gift donors converted at a rate 1000% higher than the other two groups! hjc Proprietary and Confidential 49
69. What have we learned from CHF and Oxfam’s commitment from these donors? Use the phone!!!! These donors have joined Oxfam and CHF’s normal monthly giving programs with an average conversion rate of 5-7% from the phone. These donors feel a personal connection to your organisation – so the personal touch of a phone call really works!
70. 10 – A technology choice for the mid-sized to small organisation hjc Proprietary and Confidential 51 Setting up your own symbolic gift catalogue can get expensive. With CharityGiftBag.org an organisation with even a small budget embrace this effective form of giving