Secret Giver scheme to give year-long insight into charities’ treatment of donors
Howard Lake | 27 January 2017 | News
Fundraising consultancy John Grain Associates (JGA) is offering an annual mystery shopper scheme for charities, designed to give fundraisers further insight into how they are treating their donors.
The Secret Giver Scheme has developed in particular to help charities meet the challenges of the new fundraising environment and changes to legislation. MD John Grain said that it is “the voluntary sector’s most comprehensive mystery shopping and competitor review programme.”
He added:
“Rather than being a simple snapshot of a charity at one or two points in the year, we have carefully built and tested a set of unique and robust criteria to consistently measure quality, accuracy, frequency and speed of every communication across the whole communications cycle. We believe it offers fantastic strategic potential for members and an unparalleled depth of insight and information for fundraisers, senior staff and trustees.”
More than mystery shopping
The service is provided on an annual membership basis, costing £6,500 annually and also includes the value of between £250 and £500 of gifts each year. There is a 10% discount launch offer available until the end of March 2017.
The Secret Giver Scheme includes:
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Mystery shopping programme
A number of gifts and engagements over the year are made and reported on. Charities receive “an extensive assessment and evaluation” of each contact had with them, both on and offline.
Tracking supporter journeys
JGA will track and test the supporter journey over a 12 months, offering advice on identifying strengths weaknesses.
Competitor review
JGA is working with over 30 charities to gather comprehensive data for each type of communication throughout the year. Clients will receive a confidential report featuring benchmark data for their organisation.
Compliance check and comparisons
JGA will test and evaluate the different approaches taken by participating charities towards compliance in gathering and using donor data. It will report on the responses to any changes in regulations or legislation by every member.
Members will receive two confidential reports annually.
Michael Dent, Director of Fundraising at founding member Alzheimer’s Society, said:
“The Secret Giver Scheme is a fantastically innovative and thorough initiative that gives us the opportunity to genuinely benchmark our supporter care, identify improvements, celebrate best practice and measure ourselves against the external marketplace. For the first time we will be able to genuinely assess and validate the quality of our service and our communications with supporters, and gather up-to-date and relevant information in a consistent and intelligent way.”
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.