Best donor development campaign

Howard Lake | 15 May 2007 | Blogs

For the best campaign to persuade current supporters to renew and upgrade their giving using any or many fundraising techniques.
Shortlisted nominations are – in alphabetical order:
National Trust for Scotland Patron’s Club

The Patron’s Club was launched in 2003 to provide the most generous supporters with exclusive benefits and to help to identify and establish relationships with new high-level donor prospects. It launched in the US and the UK with a goal of 20 members in the first year and a membership fee of £5,000. Since then the Club has attracted 53 members donating over £670,000 and a retention rate of over 95 per cent with 29 members making some extra commitment.
Exclusive events are organised for members of the Club and contribute to the high retention rate and relationship building that results in renewals and upgrades. The events are original, unique and informative and also provide access to people and places that would otherwise not be available. Members are thanked for their generous support at least once a year in a letter from the chairman/chief executive and at the same time they are given an update on the Trust’s activities.
Success was intended to be measured financially and in relationship building. Thirty five of the members are from the UK and 18 from the US.
ORBIS Welcome Pack

This mailing thanked donors within around 10 days of their first donation to ORBIS and aimed to provide a ‘thank you’ and to emphasise how interesting and effective the charity is. The pack had no financial ask but included a postcard that donors could use to write a message of support which is given to children on board the Flying Eye Hospital (FEH). This gives supporters a chance to get close to ORBIS’s work and offers a way of engaging without having to give more money. The pack also included a schedule for the FEH so the donor could track its progress throughout the year.
Since the pack was about donor stewardship rather than initial results, the success will be measured by how donors who have received the pack respond in future, compared with those who have not received the pack. ORBIS will segment donors who returned the postcard to see if they respond differently and track the impact of the pack on the lifetime value of donors to see if those who return the card prove more profitable in the long-term.
The campaign achieved a five per cent response rate (371 postcards) and garnered an additional 61 gifts amounting to £1,275. Donors subsequently enter a donor development programme that incorporates cash appeals, conversion communications, newsletters and regular updates. This programme has been developed and refined over the past three years and the welcome pack is the latest addition to the strategy.
RSPB Sutton Fen land purchase appeal

Sutton Fen represented a rare opportunity for the RSPB to buy and manage an exceptionally rich and species-diverse nature reserve within the heartland of the Norfolk Broads. The appeal aimed to generate funds for the purchase and subsequent conservation of Sutton Fen as a nature reserve by engaging active, lapsed, deeply lapsed and non-donor members across the UK. The communication aimed to remind readers of the RSPB’s vision and reinforce its objectives of large-scale landscape conservation. The pack also aimed to generate leads for legacies and in mem gifts through tick boxes on the donation form.
The site cost over £1.5m and several approaches were taken. The Tubney Trust contributed £464k and the Garfield Weston Trust donated a further £50k. The appeal, which aimed to raise a minimum of £415,000, was sent in October 2006 to 250,000 RSPB membership households asking for their help to buy and protect the Fen. This resulted in more than £562k being raised, including £62,000 from major donors. An additional £595k from legacies has been allocated for the project. Active donors made up the bulk of the contributions and the campaign achieved a response rate of 7.35 per cent.
Using an agency, Whitewater, led to the development of a radically different approach with the letter to prospective donors coming from the Fen itself, rather than an individual.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.