Month: December 2020

Understanding how to efficiently use data to identify top-performing prospects is important to all aspects of nonprofit fundraising. Michelle Tilton, VP of Marketing at Infutor, discusses constantly evolving data collection methods and the importance of data accuracy for finding prospects who will be receptive to a donation request.

Infutor, a partner of WealthEngine, is a company at the forefront of consumer identity data management and identity resolution. Their mission is to help clients instantly know what they need to understand about consumers.

Increase and Advancement in Data Collection Methods

Each day, data is collected from millions of consumers across multiple channels. This information ranges from donor profiles to website engagement. While data collection has steadily increased as data collection methods have advanced over the years, 2020 has seen a huge influx of new activity.

The pandemic has driven almost all demographics and businesses online. Because of this, new people, like the boomer generation, are beginning to navigate the digital world. Shopping, business meetings, and social events have begun to take place in virtual settings.

Nonprofits are directly impacted because of these shifts. There has been a permanent change in the way people engage with digital content. Now, organizations are competing with more commercial companies for consumer attention. 

Data Breakage

This term defines what occurs when your donor profile doesn’t line up with the true information about a person. Michelle explains, “We’re seeing about 30% of data breakage within a donor database over a 12-month period.”

Many factors contribute to data breakage. Michelle observes that it’s common for data to be entered incorrectly during the first capture of donor information. 

Michelle notes another contributing factor is that consumers often try to be purposefully elusive. To support this contention, Michelle points out that surveys demonstrate that up to “60% of consumers intentionally provide wrong information.”

Data is always evolving. Personal information like addresses, phone numbers, and emails, are dynamic. To illustrate this fact, Michelle notes: “One in three consumers change

email addresses, 50 million phone numbers change annually.” When these components change, your database becomes full of obsolete profiles. 

The main problem with data breakage is its impact on your return-on-investment (ROI). Impressions and engagement rates fall when data leads your marketing to the wrong destination.

Data Cleansing Ensures Data Accuracy

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Letting data go unrefreshed for a long period of time can cost your organization in the short-term by causing you to lose out on donations. In the long-term, the time staff must take away from vital fundraising efforts to manually cleanse and restore your donor profile data is detrimental to overall campaign success. 

Customer relationship management (CRM) maintenance is a major factor involved in data cleansing. Regularly working with a system that provides data enrichment will keep your information up-to-date. 

Referential data plays a key role in ensuring data accuracy. It provides context for time-sensitive data and helps to provide key identifiers for each profile in your system.

Activation Improvements

After gathering and refreshing data, organizations need to activate the information against an audience. This plays out as successful targeted messaging across multiple channels of communication. 

For example, Infutor works with a highly recognizable nonprofit healthcare organization that is primarily funded through public donations. 

They receive information across multiple platforms including inbound forms, call centers, direct mail, and social media. Infutor identified the organization’s need to bring together all of the data their channels collect into one database.

As a solution, Infutor implemented a single-point entry master database. They took all of the donor information, added intelligence from Infutor’s data, cleansed at all points in the process, and made this database accessible to key members.

Through this process, Infutor was able to identify 42,000 donors who were incorrectly marked as deceased in the organization’s records. Taking the time to have quality data allowed this group to add 42,000 new names to their list of prospects.

Building First Party Data

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The importance of first party data emerges in three overarching patterns: cookies, walled gardens, and privacy.

Third party cookies are becoming obsolete. They expire quickly, are easy for consumers to opt-out of, and cannot be used cross-device. 

Walled gardens refer to sites working with a company that has a closed data ecosystem, like Google and Facebook. You can use the technology on these sites, as well as access the audience, but you cannot export this data to other channels.

Privacy is one of the most influential factors when building first party data. Understanding privacy implications is more than knowing laws and regulations. Michelle stresses it is crucial to have a deep empathy toward a consumer’s right to opt-out of marketing communications.

Utilizing Your Data Collection

The first step in producing high potential donors is to find the key indicators of your top customer base. WealthEngine’s WE Screen feature is a great way to discover insight into a person’s lifestyle. 

This information allows you to build out profiles on each of your highest performing donors. Using these indicators will make it easy to analyze the information.

WealthEngine’s WE Analyze feature automates this process for you. With a couple of clicks, WealthEngine provides specific segmented lists, like major donor profiles or annual gift donors. With this access, it’s possible to personalize marketing efforts for higher engagement rates. 

Look-alike Modeling

After figuring out who your top donors and prospects are, the goal is to multiply your contact list by finding other people with similar profiles. Look-alike clients share the same attributes, such as similar lifestyles and wealth scores, as your highest performing donors.

With WealthEngine’s prospect tool, there are 300 million Americans that WealthEngine can search through to generate your look-alike list. 

Understanding Channels and Deep Data Analytics

Looking at channels helps organizations understand how and where consumers spend their time. This information guides marketing dollars to personalize messaging, which allows for targeted engagement during fundraising campaigns.

Although this insight into consumer activity is important, it’s just as crucial to remember that it is always changing. Constantly analyzing data for data accuracy and new trends can help maximize your ROI. 

For example, Infutor was able to help a client conduct an in-depth segmentation analysis to identify five clusters out of their 130 that were producing 3-4 times the results of the median. Conducting deep analysis helps to make sure you are optimizing all of your data. 

Want to know more about how the WealthEngine comprehensive platform can assist your organization in making the most of its data? Request a free WealthEngine demo today!

This article summarizes a podcast hosted by Raj Khera, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer of WealthEngine, and Blake Groves, VP of Products and partnerships at Salsa Labs. Blake offers several timely fundraising tips for nonprofits struggling to fundraise in the face of resource constraints.  

Fundraising Tips Despite Resource Constraints

Nonprofits encounter numerous challenges caused by limits on staff and other resources. These resource constraints contribute to the following issues:

• Pressure to balance the necessity of continuing to meet organizational needs despite budgetary and other resource shortfalls 
• Limited budgets going toward supporting the mission rather than advancing marketing initiatives
• Funding cuts resulting in remaining staff having to adapt to wearing “many hats” 
• A conflict of priorities between gaining new supporters and retaining current ones
• “Not enough time in the day” for effective fundraising

Smart engagement emphasizes devoting more time to those supporters who are most willing and able to give. Rather than spreading a wide net, target specific supporters with customized messaging. Focusing on who will best achieve your marketing goals results in effective fundraising campaigns. 

The implementation of smart engagement enables nonprofits to work efficiently, not harder. Blake asserts that for fundraising success, nonprofits must “cut through the clutter and noise.” Organizations must understand their donors and know where they are on their fundraising journey. 

Blake emphasizes that smart engagement begins with data. Combine this data with the appropriate technology to identify and interact with your prospects. The right strategy comes from knowing your audience, their interests, and donation capacity, and includes “day to day techniques.”

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Targeting the Right Prospects and Supporters

Technology makes it easier to target and familiarize yourself with prospects and donors. Gathering and using data to create specific messaging will vary. Blake proclaims, “Smart engagement technology is not a single piece of technology.” 

Blake asserts Salsa Labs partners with WealthEngine to develop automated, targeted data and messaging. The propensity to give (P2G) score and additional wealth indicators on WealthEngine’s WE9 platform are proprietary data analytics tools. These features identify supporters and prospects’ ability to give and their giving histories. 

The Wealth Score assigns a number from 1 to 10 to each supporter. The score reflects a person’s wealth, giving capacity, and inclination, intent, and affinities.

The two scores help nonprofits focus on the most qualified prospects and donors. You can set and adjust scores for specific donor types including major gift donors and annual donors. Your fundraising efforts are made more efficient by focusing on high-potential donor groups. 

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While data technology has changed, the traditional cycle of targeting donors hasn’t. Every nonprofit organization utilizes some form of the following cycle:

1. Target potential donors
2. Connect with donors
3. Convert donors
4. Understand the data
5. Rinse and repeat

Blake remarks that machine learning improves this cycle to better meet fundraising goals. He further states that leveraging technology enhances “the ability to do the targeting” when “prescriptive and automated” methods are used.

Organizations can’t achieve all of their goals, initiatives, and campaigns, even with all of the necessary data and fundraising tips. The prescriptive method looks at compiling donor data to direct the next actionable step of a fundraising strategy. Instead of getting overwhelmed pursuing a range of donors, focus on those who can make the biggest difference. 

A key component of the prescriptive method is the use of automation. Blake gives an example of how important automated reminders are in reaching and engaging donors:

“The system lets you know, ‘Hey, Raj did something with us.’ We know Raj is a good supporter; you should call him rather than wait for that monthly report. Having a system alert you, do automated messaging, and automatically score supporters, lets me know these are my best prospects and I know what I want to do with them.”

Even with the data, your ideal supporters may not be who you expect. They may be overlooked. Machine learning helps expand your search for these supporters. 

Blake gives an example of targeting the wrong donors: 

“Imagine your best supporters happened to be in their mid-50s. They have kids in college, and they have an interest in social reform. I want to look at finding look-alike audiences for prospecting.” 

Blake suggests asking, ”How do I find other people that look like them in terms of profile, interests, and wealth scoring? How do I find those people so that I can say, ‘Well, these are my best supporters?’”

Blake goes on to ask whether his system can identify and alert him of his ideal prospects. Additionally, he wants to know their engagement levels and how he can move them toward a higher ask. Blake suggests people in their 30s with no kids in college could prove to be a key demographic that should be looked at to identify and target top supporters.

Choosing The Best Campaign Strategy

Blake relies on what he calls the “five minutes from concept to completion” idea. He explains, “I should be able to create a new donation form specifically targeted to that campaign within five minutes.” He can pick a template, find the data, and push out the content using automation tools. 

Blake suggests easily putting together a donation form featuring smart asks. This technique allows the donor to easily click the form to generate a specific ask. 

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 Having a “Day-to-Day” Strategy

The amount of technology and data can be overwhelming. When you analyze the data and present it in an actionable way, it becomes powerful and manageable. Blake states data is valuable but numbers aren’t as useful if they can’t be immediately acted upon. 

Some successful, actionable strategies are virtual galas and mini-galas. COVID has made these events necessary; ingenuity and adaptability have made them an effective fundraising tool. These smart engagement strategies allow virtual community-building around shared interests.

Only invite specific supporters. The small number of targeted invitees makes virtual mini-galas successful and cost-efficient. These online events focus on the invitees’ common interests, familiarity with the organization, and giving capacity.

Peer-to-peer initiatives are another actionable smart engagement strategy and fundraising tip. It embodies the “word of mouth” concept. Identify and target loyal supporters who will share your organization with their networks.

Data identifies ambassadors and machine learning streamlines donor communication and engagement processes. WealthEngine can gather, analyze, and incorporate data into your nonprofit marketing initiatives. For more information about how WealthEngine can help your organization optimize its fundraising potential, contact us for a free demo today.

Many executives responsible for fundraising often spend long weeks of painstaking spreadsheet analysis to create a donor pyramid, also known as a fundraising pyramid or gift table.

WealthEngine‘s donor pyramid modeler is the industry’s first machine-learning based platform that automates this arduous process to create accurate donor segments and formulate strategic fundraising plans.

Watch a quick 15-minute training video on how to use this WealthEngine feature, which provides several use cases to help segment donors quickly, populate major gift portfolios, and create a data-driven plan for 2021.

How can nonprofits stand out from an overproliferation of information and connect with their ideal donors? According to international best-selling author Rohit Bhargava, the answer is understanding and leveraging three non-obvious trends. In his keynote address for WE Prosper Summit 2020, Bhargava discusses these three trends and how nonprofit fundraisers can use them to their advantage. 

Click here for a replay of WE Prosper Summit 2020, a virtual conference exploring trends and best practices for finding high-potential donors in the COVID economy. 

Why Nonprofit Fundraising is More Difficult Than Ever

Take a look at these three headlines. Can you identify whether each story is real or fake?

• Chemical in McDonald’s Fries Could Cure Baldness
• Bumblebee Vomit: Scientists Are No Longer Ignoring It
• Sassy Seal Accidentally Slaps Man Across Face With an Octopus

The answer, according to Bhargava, is that all of these headlines are real. “My point with doing this exercise was to share with you that we live in a world where we don’t know what’s true,” he explains. “When we don’t know what’s true, we lose a little bit of faith in the idea that anything’s true.”

This makes it increasingly challenging for organizations to appeal to prospects. Fortunately, Bhargava’s research for his book, Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future, can help organizations stand out and reach donors who would otherwise remain skeptical.

3 Non-Obvious Trends for Nonprofit Fundraising

• Human Mode

“A human mode is the idea that when we have more and more technology surrounding us, we greatly value the human interaction,” explains Bhargava. 

Nonprofit fundraisers know the value of face-to-face interactions and in-person galas. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations need to foster donor relationships digitally. 

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A quick way to implement our first non-obvious trend and keep communication authentic is to use a real background when meeting prospects on Zoom. The initial urge to conceal a cluttered home office with a virtual background is understandable. However, giving people a peek into your unscripted life is better for cultivating connections.

• Instant Knowledge

“Instant knowledge is the idea that because we have all of these tools at our fingertips, we expect to be able to learn anything and get smarter, faster,” notes Bhargava. 

To take advantage of this non-obvious trend, Bhargava advises nonprofits to try to “connect people with the knowledge to inspire their beliefs.” When your marketing or donor cultivation efforts provide massive value to prospects, they’re more likely to buy into your mission and vision. 

• Revivalism

“Revivalism is a trend that is about bringing the past back,” explains Bhargava, “because when we don’t know what to trust, we turn the clock backward so we start to listen to analog, like music on vinyl.” 

Nonprofits should consider ways to implement this non-obvious trend and how they can appeal to this kind of nostalgia when engaging with donors. This could include explaining how your organization honors the past or giving your gala a vintage theme. 

Actionable Tasks for Non-Obvious Trends

• Be Opportunistic

Nonprofits should always have their finger on the pulse and be ready to jump into the conversation as it’s happening. 

For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, people began hoarding toilet paper and paper towels. “Then they realized, ‘Oh, I don’t actually need this much toilet paper,’ and they tried to return it and they couldn’t,” notes Bhargava. “There’s an opportunity if your nonprofit provides items to people who really need them for you to step in and say, ‘Look, you bought all this stuff. Now you can’t return it, donate it to us.’”

• Engage the Unreachable

With COVID-19 canceling productions, actors are recording custom videos for people through Cameo. “They’re open to doing stuff like this that perhaps they wouldn’t have been otherwise,” notes Bhargava. “That might be an opportunity for your nonprofit as well.”

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Consider that when donors hear a message about your nonprofit from a figure they know, like, and trust, they’re more likely to be receptive to your ultimate ask. 

• Go Behind the Scenes

At the end of every film Jackie Chan does, he shows outtakes of his stunts. This humanizes him and shows audiences how much hard work goes into his craft. Organizations can borrow this technique to better connect with prospects.

“We have to take people behind the scenes of our work,” explains Bhargava. “[We] show them the amazing things we’re doing, show them what their money is going towards because the more we can do that, the more people are likely to give more, [and] they’re likely to feel good about what they have given.”

• Master Technology

The pandemic has increased our reliance on technology to do business. As such, you either need to improve your tech skills or prepare to get overtaken by the competition.

“We do not live in a world anymore where you can just give up and say, ‘Oh, I’m no good at this technology stuff, I can’t figure it out’ or you just wait for the IT person to show up,” explains Bhargava. “Guess what? We’re at home doing this stuff. We are our own IT people.”

• Pivot Fast

Flexibility and creativity are the lifeblood of any organization during a crisis. Those who can quickly adjust their strategy are more likely to survive.

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“There was a bookstore in Texas that when the pandemic hit, [they] immediately pivoted and [turned] their bookstore into a travel agency,” notes Bhargava. “When you went to book a trip, essentially what you were booking were books about the place that you wanted to go.”

• Don’t Panic

No one is sure when things will go back to the way they were or if they will at all. In the meantime, organizations can’t give up or try waiting things out. Instead, you need to think carefully about your strategy for reaching new donors and consider the non-obvious trends.

WealthEngine can help. With tools that zero in on the prospects most likely to give, your team can spend time connecting with the people who most want to hear from you. Get in touch today for a free demo. 

Adapted from presentation by Rohit Bhargava.

Rohit Bhargava Bio:

Rohit Bhargava is an innovation and marketing expert, skilled facilitator, and keynote speaker. After a successful 15 year career as a brand and marketing strategist at two of the largest agencies in the world (Ogilvy and Leo Burnett), Rohit became an entrepreneur and has since started three companies. He is the Wall Street Journal best selling author of six books on topics as wide ranging as the future of business and building a brand with personality and has delivered sold out keynote presentations and workshops to business leaders in 32 countries. His signature book Non-Obvious  is updated annually with 15 new trend predictions, has been read and shared by more than 1 million readers and is translated in ten languages. Rohit has been invited to share his insights at some of the most forward-looking organizations in the world including Intel, NASA, Disney, JP Morgan Chase, LinkedIn, Microsoft, American Express, BP, the World Bank, Coca-Cola and hundreds of others.

Outside of his consulting work, Rohit also teaches his popular signature course on storytelling and marketing at Georgetown University in Washington DC and has been invited to deliver guest lectures at many other prestigious schools including Stanford and Wharton. For the past 14 years Rohit has also been writing his personal “Influential Marketing Blog” which has been featured in global media and named one of the top 25 marketing blogs in the world by AdAge magazine. He is regularly interviewed and featured as an expert commentator in global media including Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, and NPR. Rohit also writes a monthly column for GQ magazine in Brazil on technology and trends.

Thanks to his many years of sharing insights, Rohit has been recognized alongside visionary business leaders like Sir Richard Branson and Tom Peters as a “Top 100 Thought Leader In Trustworthy Business Behavior” and was named by global recruiting firm Korn Ferry as one of the “Most Influential South Asians In Media and Entertainment.”

On a personal level, Rohit is married and lives with his wife and two young boys in the Washington DC area. He is a lifelong fan of anything having to do with the Olympics (he’s been to five so far!) and actively avoids anything having to do with cauliflower (yuck!). Outside of work, Rohit believes that the most entertaining and impactful job he will ever have is being a great dad and teaching his sons to be kind when no one expects it, curious about the things others take for granted, and confident enough to change the world.