Using Stewardship to Increase Donations
There’s an old saying in sales that “people buy from people.” Even in the digital age, where more and more interactions happen with the click of a button from behind a screen, the majority of transactions - especially large, luxury transactions - still happen between a customer and a representative of the company or organization that they’re buying from; in fact, the larger the purchase, the more human interaction is typically involved to make the prospective buyer feel at-ease and well-taken care of.
This is just as true in the nonprofit sector. As much as people want to support organizations and causes that they care about, they also want to feel that the people that make up the organization care about them in return. Such sentiments make them feel a part of the mission, and therefore more invested in its success.
The idea is that making donors feel included, appreciated, and considered - often called “donor stewardship” - leads to those donors feeling more invested in the organization’s success, and donating more in turn, and it’s not just a gut feeling shared by fundraisers from organizations large and small across the board; it’s backed up by data.
We wanted to show that these human interactions could be scaled effectively by using handwritten letters in stewardship communications. To that end, we undertook a two-phased A/B test with Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP)
The Customer
CJP is a nearly 130-year old umbrella organization providing for the many programs and organizations serving the Jewish community of Greater Boston. They are one of the country’s largest nonprofit organizations, and have a robust fundraising effort.
Their campaigns are managed by an immensely professional cadre of fundraisers, and other Postalgia clients have reported that they take a lot of their cues for what to try next from CJP, because the tactics that they test out are so innovative and creative.
In that innovative spirit, CJP and their agency - the truly amazing and cutting-edge Jigsaw Analytics Group - approached us to run a stewardship test during Thanksgiving.
The Challenge
Working off of the theory that donors to their annual campaign were lapsing instead of donating to the End-of-Year appeal, CJP and Jigsaw sought to address the possibility that a little bit of extra donor stewardship in the lead up to the annual campaign would encourage those who give to give more, and those who sometimes lapse in their annual giving to give towards the end-of-year appeal.
Thanks to the involvement of Jigsaw Analytics Group, we were able to run a test and collect robust data on the results.
The Test
The first step was to randomly split the list into two groups - one group receiving our handwritten mail, and one control group. Of the total population of 17,053 (all of whom would get the end of year appeal approximately 5 weeks later), 8,480 received a handwritten thanksgiving postcard from Postalgia, and 8,573 did not).
The mailer was a simple 5” x 7” cardstock postcard, it included a printed design and a handwritten message of gratitude from a real person at CJP, as well as the recipient’s handwritten address, and a nonprofit postage stamp (not a printed indicia, but a real stamp).
Importantly, there was no ask - monetary or otherwise - and relatively little branding; no events advertised, no websites that the donor was directed to in order to learn more. It was important that the donor understand that this was a message of gratitude for their past support, and best wishes for the holiday, and that the purpose was unmistakably to thank them, and not to ask anything from them at that juncture. It was important that the piece not include anything to undermine the feelings of goodwill and reciprocity that it was supposed to convey.
The Results
The total population received identical end of year appeals 5 weeks later, and the results slowly began to trickle in. We measured all donations received from the total population within one month of the mailers arriving, and compared the two groups - one who had received the Thanksgiving postcard, and one which had not.
We expected to see a marked difference between the two groups, but the results surprised us and far exceeded our expectations.
Despite the two groups being randomly selected and having received identical treatment except for this one intervention, donors were 9% more likely to give in response to the end of year appeal if they received the Thanksgiving handwritten postcard.
The campaign’s ROI - measured by comparing the total spent on mailing the group that did receive the postcard to the difference in total donations between that group and the control group - was 816%!
Donors who received the handwritten postcard gave 29.55% more in total than donors who did not.
The average gift size was 20.2% larger amongst the group that received the handwritten card than it was amongst the control group, with the former group being 37.9% more likely to give above the amount they were asked to give, and more than 50% more likely to give above $5,000.
These stunning results just go to prove, yet again, that a little bit of stewardship goes a long way!