Fundraising Software Helps Increase Mailing Response to as High as 8% Using Targeted Appeals
Taking full advantage of its fundraising software has helped Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh, Inc. see increases of up to 8% in response to their mailings. They've accomplished this by generating special targeted appeals that achieve much higher response levels, compared with only 1 to 1.5% responses to general campaigns.
When Tom Wiese, Development Director, joined the organization he found that it was using powerful fundraising software but not taking full advantage of its capabilities. "One of the first things I did was delve into the history of previous appeals in an effort to see what worked well and what didn't," he said. "I came to the conclusion that performance could be increased by developing specialized appeals and addressing them to a carefully selected but narrow segment of our database. It was soon apparent that these targeted appeals were generating a lot more response than the broader ones that were used in the past. We have developed a whole series of these appeals and the results have been a major improvement over what was achieved in the past. A key factor in our success has been the software we use, ResultsPlus from Metafile, which allows us to quickly generate finely targeted lists based on any combination of criteria we select and also tracks the response of our campaigns to a high level of accuracy."
Matching more than 8,000 boys and girls with mentors
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh, Inc. has been recognized as the region's premier mentoring organization. Since 1965, the organization has matched more than 8,000 boys and girls with responsible, caring adult mentors. Preventative in nature, its program unites agency case managers, volunteer mentors, and parents/guardians who work together to deter the occurrence of problematic behaviors before they are able to take root. Big Brothers Big Sisters is a private, nonprofit agency with absolutely no fees or dues for its services. The organization is supported financially by the generosity of individuals, corporations and foundations throughout the community who share the value of putting a friend in the life of a child in need.
When Wiese joined the organization, one of his top priorities was to ensure that the software it used fully supported its mission. "In my previous job," he explained, "I used a package that was powerful but also expensive and difficult to use. When I got to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh, I found that their software, ResultsPlus, was equally powerful, even though it is offered at a much lower price and has a friendlier and more intuitive user interface. But it was clear that in many cases we weren't taking full advantage of its capabilities. For example, the cast majority of appeals were targeted to the entire database and little use was made of the extensive capability for tracking information the software program provides. I closely examined which appeals had done the best and who the major donors were. Then I began developing a series of appeals that are each finely targeted to the interests of a specific subgroup of our database. This process was greatly aided by the capabilities of our software that makes it possible to generate even the most complicated queries with a couple of keystrokes."
