Group Finds That E-Mail Messages Spur Some Donors to Give More

As charities get better at raising money over the Internet, the results of their efforts are sometimes

unexpected. Many groups have found that their best donors are those who give both online and in response to traditional solicitation techniques, such as mail and telephone. What’s more, they are finding that e-mail communications with donors can increase offline contributions as well.

Defenders of Wildlife found that to be the case when fund raisers at the Washington environmental group analyzed donations of less than $1,000 that it received in 2007. The organization raised $35-million overall, with nearly 10 percent, $3.2-million, obtained through its Web site.

Donors who contributed via mail or over the telephone and did not receive e-mail communications from the group gave an average of $40 for the year. But that figure jumped to $59 for people who gave offline, but did receive the environmental group’s e-mail messages.

People who made all of their gifts to the organization over the Internet contributed an average total of about $65 to $70, but donors who gave both online and offline gifts gave an average of roughly $105 to $110.

The donors who use more than one way to give are the most likely to make repeat donations and make a higher number of donations, says Jeff Regen, the group’s vice president of online marketing and communications.

“These people are great,” he says.

Aiming for Support

People who give charities e-mail addresses are typically good targets for fund raising, in part because they usually have more money than people without e-mail addresses.

But other influences are at work too, says Mr. Regen. “Anyone who is willing to give you an e-mail address likely is more interested in your organization than someone who’s not willing to give you an e-mail address.”

The organization’s research, while not conclusive, suggests that after they do give their e-mail addresses to the group, people tend to become more-generous donors.

The charity has also discovered that people give more if they receive an e-mail message right before or right after they receive a postal appeal that encourages them to read the letter. The tests suggest that the follow-up e-mail message has the bigger effect.

Getting a stronger handle on the interplay between online and offline solicitation efforts has helped to shape the organization’s fund-raising strategy, says Mr. Regen.

“It says to me that we want to get as many e-mails for our offline donors as possible,” he says. “We want to encourage our offline donors to donate online as much as possible.”

Gathering Addresses

While Defenders of Wildlife and other charities know that getting more of their supporters’ e-mail addresses will improve their fund raising, doing so is not always easy.

Defenders of Wildlife is about to hire a company to compare its list of names and mailing addresses of donors against master databases of e-mail addresses.

The charity did that five years ago, when such services were just becoming available, but like other groups, it was disappointed by the high percentage of bad matches it received and questioned the propriety of the companies’ methods of collecting e-mail addresses. But Mr. Regen believes the industry has matured and he is willing to try again.

The organization has also increased the number of e-mail addresses it has obtained for telephone donors by making minor changes in its telemarketing scripts.

Getting these e-mail addresses has traditionally been difficult, says Mr. Regen.

“Everyone tells their telemarketing vendor to ask for an e-mail address at the end, and the number of e-mail addresses that everyone gets is usually pretty piddly or less than piddly,” he says.

But Defenders of Wildlife thinks it has solved that problem with some simple changes to the way it collects telephone gifts.

Operators who answer calls for the group’s Wildlife Adoption Center, which allows donors to sponsor the organization’s work on behalf of gray wolves, snow leopards, and other animals, now enter donor information directly into the database the organization uses for its online fund raising, and ask donors for their e-mail addresses so they can send them an e-mail receipt right after the call.

The organization now collects e-mail addresses from about two-thirds of the people who make adoption gifts. The group plans to put the same changes in place for most of its telephone solicitations.