Direct Response Fundraising
Masterworks is the industry leader in applying advanced analytics to fundraising in ways that are proven to increase results.
With two of our principals cutting their teeth at World Vision alongside brilliant people — an aerospace engineer, a chemical engineer, an electrical engineer from Bell Labs — we learned the power of analysis and testing. We have proved that the most significant fundraising breakthroughs have come through disciplined testing. If you don’t test — and test carefully — you’ll only be guessing whether your differing results are due to the changes you’ve made or other factors.
We’ve seen some dramatic, counter-intuitive results in our days. A thank-you call that dramatically reduced donor retention and long-term value. A telemarketing program that produces a strong ROI among people who have been contacted three times and said no every time.
Results like this humble us. But they make us smarter. Comparing the thank-you call with several other test results, we developed a new hypothesis: new donors are very sensitive to anything that happens in the first 60 days. They’re more likely to be turned off than turned on by any additional contact they didn’t expect.
With more than two decades of experience and 1,500 tests under our belt, we’ve learned a thing or two. And with the cost of processing power and data storage continuing to plummet, our learning is accelerating.
We house databases for and advise such industry leaders as World Vision and Focus on the Family. But our advanced analytics have proven just as important to clients with only 10,000 donors.
Save money
We’ve saved millions of dollars for our clients, most of which would have been wasted on printing and postage. We’ve done this through very advanced segmentation — far more sophisticated than the traditional recency-frequency-monetary (RFM) approach. In fact, we have developed so many proven strategies for subgroups of donors that some clients mail 20% to 40% less volume than they did before working with us. We also manage the complexity for many of our clients by doing their list selects for them.
Our analysis of long-term return of donor acquisition programs has also proven that some clients should be suppressing certain zip code ranges from their acquisition mailings, even after paying to rent those names.
Increase response
Most agencies can do good bread-and-butter creative. But while they do this month in and month out, are they innovating? Are they testing to improve results? Can they prove that their recommendations are working, or do you just have to take their word for it?
Masterworks has perfected dozens of proprietary strategies that have boosted response. One client saw a 30% increase in response by variable messaging that referred to donors’ past giving behavior in significant detail. A dozen clients have seen their best December income ever the first time they used our year-end targeted messaging strategy to major donors. Another client found their planned giving results increased dramatically when we began a special elderly donor strategy developed in cooperation with a leading planned giving consulting firm.
Fundraise better
Do you allocate donor acquisition dollars between various programs based on the first gift response? Do you choose lists that way?
Masterworks has proven that everything you do to acquire donors needs to be evaluated based not on first gift but long-term return. We have found strategies that appeared to be complete failures later prove to be stunning successes because they produce such high-value donors. We’ve stopped renting some direct mail lists that initially looked strong, because they produced donors who never give a second gift.
Often, the true results aren’t clear for 2 to 3 years. So it’s absolutely essential that you conduct an annual long-term value analysis by strategy, by direct mail kit, by list and even by zip code range. (With some organizations, for example, certain zip codes consistently produce low-value donors, while others produce high-value donors over the long term. The solution is to rent some entire carrier routes, then suppress certain zips, even after you’ve paid to rent the names.)
Some donor analytic systems promise the moon. We’ve never seen them deliver beyond very basic information. Some leading organizations have tried to build these internally but have decided they can save money and get better results by letting experienced pros like Masterworks do it for them. What about you?
