Unlocking the donor database doors
Howard Lake | 31 August 2003 | News
Ian Cracknell, Marketing Director of UIA Insurance, looks at brand extension as a way to unlock the potential of charities’ donor databases.
The time when a charity’s donor database was a list of sympathetic and supportive individuals has ended. It has been replaced by a more commercial age where the database is the bedrock of revenue raising and the charity that does not mine it fully can lose out financially.
The donation environment is becoming more competitive. Key performance indicators on marketing activities, such as cost per response, show that many charities have to make their marketing budgets work harder and harder.
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However, charities are rightly concerned about the potential issues that exploring new revenue streams can expose. A new offering communicated to the charity’s donor database can be a complicated and emotive issue so it needs careful consideration and handling.
Brand extension can be the key that really unlocks the database doors.
Charity brands are well trusted and it is this equity that has enabled many to stretch their brand into new markets profitably. Choosing an experienced partner for any move can help ease the process and address legitimate concerns.
Some of the more common are considered below.
If donors buy products and services they will donate less.
A natural assumption is that supporters won’t want to pay for both the product and the donation. However, if the product or service being offered is an everyday purchase and if it is competitive, then the buying decision will normally be based solely on the offering. A sale can be cemented through the strength of the brand and the fact that monies will end up with the charity.
The database will be over-used if numerous offerings through numerous mailings are undertaken.
The most successful lists are those where people have demonstrable interest in receiving information in the product/service category, or they have characteristics common to interested parties.
Defining active buyers in a list and developing a mailing programme to tap their disposition to purchase is a more significant issue than over-use. Data tagging and data modelling techniques can effect this quite simply.
The donations department will lose control if data is handed over to the trading business management team.
Trading is a major cultural change for many charities so the whole management team have to work together on planning and execution. The whole organisation needs to support the activity so that issues such as loss of control are removed.
A donor receiving poor service will stop donating.
This is a business risk, but one that a charity could be running already. For example, if a charity operates high street outlets then donors could be exposed to customer service issues within these outlets. Charities need to ensure management buy-in at the outset of the venture.
It is time to re-examine the traditional revenue model and to utilise charity assets in new lateral ways to maintain competitive advantage. The donor database is a great asset and a professional marketing approach can ensure it is used with diligence and success.
Ian Cracknell is Marketing Director of UIA Insurance, the UK’s only ‘not for profit’ general insurer with over 100 years of experience in offering general insurance schemes for ‘not for profit’ business partners.
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.