Are you looking for a way to engage your donors without always asking for a donation? Do you need strategies and tactics for doing online acquisition? This free webinar will talk about the relationship between advocacy and fundraising, how organizations are using advocacy successfully for list growth and engagement, and show you valuable case studies from successful organizations. We will also discuss best practices in assessing ROI or Return on Investment for online acquisition, so you can see how to make advocacy pay.

1. Making Advocacy Pay
Understanding the Link Between
Activism and Giving
Presented by:
Vinay Bhagat, Convio
Yvonne Garrett, OMP
Randy Paynter, Care2.com
Ryann Miller, Care2.com
March 24, 2011
For Audio Call: 1-408-792-6300
Meeting Number: 668 671 770

2. Using
• Chat & Raise hand
• If you are having internet audio problems, you
can dial-in using a landline: 1-408-792-6300,
Meeting Number: 668 671 770
• If you lose your internet connection, reconnect
using the link emailed to you
• WebEx Support: 1-866-229-3239
For Audio Call: 1-408-792-6300
Meeting Number: 668 671 770

3. • This webinar is being recorded.
• The webinar recording will be available on
Frogloop blog at http://www.frogloop.com
• You will receive a link to this presentation
following the webinar.
• Tweeting the webinar?
Use Twitter hashtag: #Care2
For Audio Call: 1-408-792-6300
Meeting Number: 668 671 770

4. Agenda
• What is online advocacy?
• What does advocacy have to do with
fundraising?
• How does it work?
• Making the economic case.

5.
What is online advocacy?

9. Advocacy – The active support of an idea
or cause etc.; especially the act of
pleading or arguing for something
Defini'on from: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

10. What does advocacy have
to do with fundraising?

11. Advocacy starts the
conversation.

12. NRDC Activist Conversion

13. Finding New Supporters
• 73,000 new wolf activists through paid and
organic sources
• $40,000 spent on paid sources

14. One Year Later…
• 31,000 took another action
• 700 converted to donors online
• 1,325 converted to donors via mail
• Break even – 15 months

15. Advocacy builds
relationships.

17. Actions Increased Donor Value

18. Advocacy keeps donors
engaged.

19. Analysis of Advocacy’s Impact
on Fundraising

20. Activists:
2+ actions Sept – Nov = 4x more
likely to give at year end
Online Offline
Emails Action Takers Conversion Conversion Unsubs
Moved into 2+, Highly Responsive: 6,172 9.0% 1.0% 0.2% 1.9%
Stayed in L: 88,293 0.7% 0.2% 0.1% 2.0%
Prior 2+ Action Takers: 66,239 12.2% 1.0% 0.3% 1.9%
Moved into L: 30,817 2.3% 0.4% 0.1% 3.7%

21. Donors:
2+ actions Sept – Nov = 26% more
income at year end
Online Offline
Emails Action Takers Conversion Conversion Unsubs
Moved into 2+, Highly Responsive: 6,172 9.0% 1.0% 0.2% 1.9%
Stayed in L: 88,293 0.7% 0.2% 0.1% 2.0%
Prior 2+ Action Takers: 66,239 12.2% 1.0% 0.3% 1.9%
Moved into L: 30,817 2.3% 0.4% 0.1% 3.7%

22.
How Does it Work?

23. Activist Relationship Management
Recruit Engage Convert
Deepen

24. Recruit
• Be thoughtful about form of ask
– Pledge vs. contact your legislator
– Constituent relevance
• Multiple venues in addition to your website
– Paid online (e.g. Care2)
– Social media
– In the field
• Strong user experience
• Viral marketing including social media

26. Engage
• Acknowledge returning Web visitors
• Send tailored updates/ stories
• Related appeals
• Multi-channel appeals - email, text, social
• Rewards/ incentives

27. Convert
• Campaign specific donation forms
• Email welcome/ conversion series
• Follow up in timely fashion with mail, TM
• Apply filters to prioritize investment
• Select appeals based on advocacy actions

28. Website Activist to Donor Conversion

29. Food for Thought
• Major donors frequently active
• It’s increasingly critical to track
messaging intensity/congruency
across programs and channels

30.
Making the Economic Case

31. Online Advocacy Increases Dona2ons
.47%
.07%
No Online Ac2on Took Ac2on Online
Source: : Charitable Memberships, Volunteering and Discounts: Evidence from a Large‐Scale Online Field Experiment.
May 2009, Na2onal Bureau of Economic Research, A. Lange, A. Stocking. Sample size = > 700,000 subjects.

32. How do you measure
economic value?
• Time to pay back investment
• Cost per donor
• Cost per dollar raised
• Return on Investment

33. Online Recruitment: It’s a Relationship
Cumulative Donation Income
(over 36 months)
250
200
150
100 Return on Investment =
Lifetime Value!
50
-
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Source: M&R Strategic Services

34. Value of an Email Address
Human & Environ-
Annual Public Animal
Social ment & ALL
Donations Affairs Welfare
Services Wildlife
Year 1* $17.18 $4.81 $3.36 $15.91 $11.68
Year 2 $8.59 $2.41 $1.68 $7.96 $5.84
Year 3 $4.30 $1.20 $0.84 $3.98 $2.92
Year 4 $2.15 $0.60 $0.42 $1.99 $1.46
Year 5 $1.07 $0.30 $0.21 $0.99 $0.73
Avg Lifetime
Value Per Email $33.29 $9.32 $6.51 $30.83 $22.63
* * Source: 2010 Convio Online Benchmark Study of roughly 300 nonprofits. Email addresses are usable only (approx
50% of total addresses) Years 2 through 5 assume 50% per year drop off in donations.

35. Online Recruitment:
Multi-Channel Returns
Cumulative Donation Income
Online Direct Mail Telemarketing
250
200
150
100
50
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Source: M+R Strategic Services

36. Fully Load Your Expenses
• Direct Expenses
– Campaign costs (fixed and variable)
– Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
– Email appends
– etc.
• Indirect Expenses
– Consultants (fixed and variable)
– Social Media Outreach (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
– etc.

37. The True Cost per Lead
If I spent $1,000 to acquire 1,000 new leads, I spent $1.00 per lead. Great price!
But what if…
• 100 leads have bad addresses; and 200 leads unsubscribe within first 3 mo.
• Now I’ve only got 700 leads, so the real cost per lead rises to 1,000/700 = $1.42
And what if…
• Only 30% are opening my message.
• Now I’ve got only 210 active leads, and the real cost per lead is 1,000/210 = $4.76
And what if…
• Only 10% of these people click through and only 10% of those donate?
• Then I paid $1,000 to buy two (2) donors, and my true cost ( Investment ) was $500
per donor.
Quality Matters!

38. List Growth: Speed vs. Value
10
High 9
Quality Collecting Opt-ins Viral Campaigns
on your site
8 Niche site
e.g. Democrats.com Paid Acquisition from
Google Adwords targeted audiences
7
6
Targeted List Swaps
5
4 Social Name Acquisition Large,
Networks Canvassing General Audience
3
Low Banner Advertising
Quality 2 List Append
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Slow Growth Rapid Growth
(<1k/month) (>10k/month)

39. Calculate the Value of your Leads
SocialNetworkCalculator.com

40. Ryann Miller
Director, Nonprofit Services Yvonne Garrett
416-651-9098 Partner, OMP
ryannm@care2team.com ygarrett@OMPDirect.com
Vinay Bhagat
Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Convio
vinay@convio.com
Randy Paynter
CEO & Founder, Care2
randy@care2team.com