Keeping your in mem donors?
Howard Lake | 5 July 2012 | News
Bluefrog has released the interim findings of a survey conducted on in memoriam donors from 67 charities.
There were over 100 in-depth telephone interviews from charities including Barnardo’s, Sue Ryder and Marie Curie, plus a mystery shopping exercise with the 67 charities.
Head of Research at Bluefrog Amber Nathan said the research had thrown up a huge diversity in the people and the reasons for them giving to a cause. People gave for a variety of reasons from ‘it’s the done thing’ and ‘just paying our respects’ to ‘to keep their memory alive’. Less than half the respondents saw themselves as donors to the charity and also less than half said they would choose that charity again.
A number of people were disturbed by ‘shabby attention to detail’ from the charity – a bad facsimile of a signature, having a letter ‘pp’d by the CEO’s PA, getting the name of the deceased wrong, making irrelevant personalised comments, and above all – not saying thank you properly.
In the mystery shopping exercise, two donations of £10 were made to each organisation, one by cheque, the other as an online gift. These elicited 499 communications in total which included 252 emails, 166 thanks, 228 direct mail responses and 300 cash appeals. There were no overt legacy asks.
The full report on the research will be released in September.
www.bluefroglondon.com
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.