Alison Feuerstein, Author at LemonTree Fundraising

A very good idea

by Alison Feuerstein | Sep 21, 2021 | Behind the scenes, Customer Journey, donor-centric, Sustainable Fundraising

Ruth Wicks explains how RFDS (Queensland Section) and a group of forward-thinking agencies worked together to transform traditional ways of generating and converting bequest leads

Bequests, legacies, gifts-in-wills —whatever terminology you prefer, this critical fundraising channel has always been the quiet achiever… until now.

For as long as I care to remember, the main way to generate bequest leads has been through the tried and tested survey or DM activity to gauge a donor’s level of interest and push them through the funnel from interested, to considering, to intending, to confirmed. When I worked on the charity side, this was what worked. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Wrong.

We know that innovation is not always about the bright and shiny new thing. It’s about taking what we do and making it better — reinventing ourselves and our approaches, testing, tweaking and pivoting (yes, I said it) so we can increase our impact on the world.

That said, it takes guts to try something a little different — and to be honest, a little complicated — especially when your program is already widely regarded as one of the best in the business.

Royal Flying Doctors Service (QLD Section) currently brings in $6.1 million in bequests per year. They are an inspirational organisation and they are great at what they do. But they knew they needed to do something else beyond new donor acquisition to find more bequestors.

RFDS were brave enough to undertake a pilot that relied on their existing donor base to identify new prospects.

That pilot involved a multi-stage, cross-channel journey developed by More Strategic and Cornucopia. The journey incorporates two key elements: 1) an integrated supporter engagement survey (SES) with a new approach to identify propensity in non-traditional audiences and engage them in a personalised nudge journey; and 2) a calling campaign targeted at the best and most engaged prospects.

So the first step in the pilot was More Strategic’s supporter engagement survey, which goes well beyond a ‘bequest lead’ generation approach (and yet still delivers around 15% of respondents as bequest leads). We used sophisticated, highly personalised and engaging surveys to: identify and qualify bequest and mid-value prospects; create segments that inform who we talk to, what we talk to them about and what message frame would influence their behaviour; deliver dynamic and tailored experiences to donors and nudge them to their next ‘move’; and benchmark RFDS against other charities.

So far, so good. But what about the people who didn’t respond? That’s where the second stage came in — the IDEA approach. This approach involves four steps:

Step 1: Insight

In partnership with Lemontree, we combined the past behaviours and transactional propensity score from RFDS’ database with commercial and charitable data to devise a propensity score for each donor in their universe. We then selected the best 11,000 prospects for bequest giving and appended details to them (on average we can append 50-70% of mobile numbers and 20% of email addresses to improve contactability).

Continue reading the full article in F&P magazine to learn more…

LemonTree and its data-driven fundraising solutions for the NFP industry ft. Niharika Singh

by Alison Feuerstein | Sep 10, 2021 | Behind the scenes, Sustainable Fundraising

You work closely with the LemonTree team to grow and develop the LemonTree solutions. Why is this so important?

The product LemonTree has been a first mover of providing data-driven fundraising solutions in the industry. Even after seven years, it is still one of the most unique value propositions available to the market and has immense potential. Working with the LemonTree team has been fulfilling for me both in terms of personal and professional growth.

From a personal growth perspective, working with not-for-profit clients has opened my mind towards their philanthropic objectives. Interacting with the fundraising managers on a daily basis demonstrates the hard work they put in to make the world a better place.

In terms of professional growth, working on this product has encouraged me to wear many hats at the same time. Even though I was hired only to streamline the delivery of jobs, I have been given the opportunity to participate in product improvement, resource management, project management of the jobs, and support marketing initiatives of LemonTree. Such a vast experience with a steep learning curve is something I cherish and am grateful for. It has motivated me to wake up and thrive for the greater good of the product and hence, its members.

Therefore, it won’t be wrong to say that the growth of the product LemonTree has encouraged me to grow with it. The above mentioned are two of the many reasons which encourage me to constantly improve and develop the LemonTree solution and will always do.

– Niharika Singh, LemonTree Fulfilment Manager

When people are deciding to give for the first time, they aren’t yet our donors

by Alison Feuerstein | Aug 19, 2021 | donor engagement, donor-centric, Sustainable Fundraising

At LemonTree, we believe that donor-centricity is the ongoing dedication to increasing the depth and breadth of your donor understanding. In doing so, you generate insights that can be used to tailor your communication and engagement efforts and demonstrate to your donors that they are at the heart of your entire organisation.

Why you ask? Well, essentially this builds trust and loyalty – the critical foundations of any lasting and sustainable relationship.

I recently read an interesting article from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, which made a powerful observation:

“When people are deciding to give for the first time, they aren’t yet our donors. But they are a parent, a cancer survivor, a humanitarian, a moral person, a liberal, a patriot and so on. So the key to raising more money is to resonate with who the donors are, or rather that aspect of the self that is activated during their engagement with your organisation.”

Long ago the commercial world realised that the ‘customer is king’ and so adopted a customer-centric approach to their business strategy. Marketing teams work tirelessly to get inside the hearts and minds of their customers so they can position and promote their products and services in the right way, at the right time and with the right message to engage and nurture the customer and eventually make the sale.

A positive customer experience makes us feel something and – as humans – we are motivated to act based on how we feel. We tend to make decisions based on emotion, then find a way to justify that decision based on logic. This is why we choose to walk that little bit further to get our morning coffee, even though it costs 50c more…but the barista greets us by name, remembers our order, and takes the time to ask how our kids are getting on with that school project. We walk further and pay more because of the way the experience makes us feel; that’s what keeps us coming back. It makes us trust the barista; makes us loyal to the cafe and gives them a competitive advantage.

In today’s challenging times with COVID-19, this entrenched loyalty – built up from years of providing a positive customer experience – is keeping many businesses alive, and for that, we applaud them and wish them every success.

To deliver the best customer experience and earn a sustained competitive advantage, businesses need to earn trust and build loyalty by adopting a customer-centric approach:

Understanding what their customers want, need, like, dislike, hope, fear, and value at each stage of their life:
Infusing these customer insights across all their business functions to help shape decisions.
Creating a unique and ongoing value exchange for their customers.
Engaging in open, honest, and transparent two-way conversations with their customers, across many different channels; and
Empowering customers to interact with their brand on their own terms.

This same approach applies to not-for-profits looking to secure sustainable giving. You need to earn trust and build loyalty by adopting a donor-centric approach, and that starts by increasing the depth and breadth of your donor understanding.

So how can LemonTree help you understand your donors more and implement practical solutions to help you connect with your donors in a more meaningful and valuable way? We have a range of proven solutions for acquisition, growth, and conversion; used regularly by charities such as Cancer Council NSW, World Animal Protection, The Shepherd Centre, and many more!

Explore our FREE resources:

Download our FREE e-book – The Donor-Centricity e-Book
Join our FREE donor-centric community, built for fundraisers just like you!

Donor Relationship Stage 5: Keep Me – ft. Jonathan Storey from Environment Victoria

by Alison Feuerstein | Jul 30, 2021 | Customer Journey, donor-centric, Donor-centricity, Sustainable Fundraising

Continuing with our 8-part blog series reviewing the different stages of the donor relationship, this blog delves into donor relationship stage 5: Keep Me.

For this session, we were joined by guest NFP speaker Jonathan Storey, who has been the resident Fundraising Director of Environment Victoria, for the past 6.5 years. Environment Victoria has been Victoria’s leading environment charity for the past 52 years, campaigning to solve the climate crisis and build a thriving, sustainable society that protects and values nature. Jonathan expanded on ‘Relationship Fundraising’ and the knowledge and insight he has gained from Author Ken Burnett and his experience with Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket.

Here’s what Jonathan had to say on the Keep Me stage’…

One of the key things about keeping your donors interested and engaged (and therefore giving) is actually knowing a bit about them. At a basic level that means getting their names and addresses correct, but it’s also things like:

Knowing how they came into your organisation
Demographic info like age or household status
Interests and motivations
Actions they have taken
Donation history etc.

Once you know a bit about your donors you’ll need to keep their information safe, clean and up to date (yes, a database) and have a plan to engage with them through the channels they inhabit.

Content and delivery strategies will vary depending on your organisation but one piece of advice I would give is not to narrowcast through long complex supporter journeys. The last place you want donors to end up is in the bottomless silo that can be marketing over-automation.

Instead think about the breadth of the journey and build shorter, meaningful journeys based on specific purposes. Make sure it all fits in with your brand communications, so each interaction makes sense with the bigger picture for long term retention.

A good place to start the Keep Me experience is your donation page. It is a short journey, but so often poorly executed. Does your page load in a second or two? Can I read it on a mobile? Do propositions and dollar amounts match the ask? Can I give by PayPal? Why do they want my date of birth? If you are not happy with the experience, then donors are probably less than impressed too.

A final word – in a nutshell, try and send out as much as you can to as many people as possible. Just make sure it’s good.

You can view Jonathan full presentation here.

If you’d like to hear more from the likes of Jonathan and your fundraising peers, we invite you to join the LemonTree Donor-centric Collective; a community built for fundraisers. The community attracts 1000+ fundraisers across Australia, ranging from small to large NFP’s and guess what…its completely FREE! Enjoy member only access to community luncheons, webinars, our LinkedIn community group, the chance to speak on behalf of your cause, and most importantly be involved in the donor-centric movement!

Thank you to Jonathan Storey for sharing his knowledge on the Keep Me stage in the donor relationship journey.

Previously in this series:

Next up in this series:

Grow Me
Keep Me
Endear Me
Renew Me
Win Me Back

The gift of saying “Thank you” to your volunteers

by Alison Feuerstein | May 17, 2021 | donor engagement, donor-centric, Sustainable Fundraising

For many of our LemonTree members, volunteers play a massive role in their fundraising efforts; including The Salvation Army, Vinnies, Surf Life Saving Foundation, Food Bank, Cancer Council, Guide Dogs and many more.

Saying “Thank You” is often cited as the most powerful communication you can deliver to your donor and we truly believe this logic also applies to your volunteers – after all they’re your walking – talking – breathing mascot! Your volunteers give their time freely for a number of reasons; for some its an opportunity to give something back to the community, for others there is an emotional connection to your cause or their just so incredibly passionate about the impact your cause has on the world and for many its just because volunteering makes them happy.

I recently read an interesting article title ‘The Power of Thank You – Gratitude can change the world for the better’, by MJ Blehart, a practitioner of mindfulness, positivity, philosophy, & conscious reality creation. According to MJ ‘hearing “thank you” conveys a sense of accomplishment, positive reinforcement, of appreciation. Saying it expresses your gratitude for people and things… Don’t you love how it feels when you are thanked for a gift, for a compliment, for a job well done, for helping, and/or for thinking of someone? I have not met anyone who did not receive sincere thanks and NOT felt better and more positive because of it.’

Here is what Volunteering Australia has to say about National Volunteer Week…

National Volunteer Week (NVW) is Australia’s largest annual celebration of volunteers. From Monday 17th to Sunday 23rd May 2021, NVW will celebrate the significant contribution of Australia’s almost six million volunteers. Each year these volunteers dedicate over 600 million hours to help others.

The theme for NVW 2021 is Recognise. Reconnect. Reimagine. which acknowledges that it is time to:

RECOGNISE, celebrate and thank volunteers for the vital role they play in our lives.
Never has this been more evident than after a year where Australia has dealt with drought, devastating bushfires, floods and then a global pandemic. Amidst the pandemic, while many of us stayed home, volunteers continued to deliver essential services, organise food packages and offer care, comfort and more to support the well-being of Australians. Volunteers make our communities stronger, especially during times of need, crisis or isolation.

RECONNECT to what is important by giving our time to help others and ourselves.
In a year when many of us have experienced increased loneliness or isolation, mental health or financial stress, volunteering can help. Evidence shows that volunteering connects us to others in our local communities, to better mental well-being or to potential pathways to employment. When we help others in our community or give our time to a cause we value, we also give back to ourselves. Explore volunteer opportunities by visiting www.GoVolunteer.com.au.

REIMAGINE how we better support volunteers and communities they help.
Since 2014, Australia has seen a 20 per cent decline in the number of hours volunteers give. During COVID-19, two-thirds of volunteers stopped working and a recent study highlights that social purpose organisations continue to lose one in four volunteers due to illness or caring responsibilities. In the current changing environment, where Australians are time-poor and experiencing higher degrees of uncertainty and stress, we need to reimagine how we do things. We need to collaborate more and adapt our volunteering practices and programs so we can better support and engage volunteers to continue the necessary work that they do.

Volunteering Australia has created a wonderful resources page to help you show your appreciation for your volunteers using certificates, posters, social media tiles, and more. We encourage you to nurture these special charity-volunteer relationships, just as you nurture your donor relationships. Why not take the time to show gratitude by saying “thank you” to the people who freely give their time and energy to support your cause?