Like a lot of long-established charities, Catholic Relief Services has a donor database that skews older. Supporters of the international relief charity, begun in 1943 to aid refugees in war-torn Europe, average 70 years of age.
Fundraisers often struggle to find time to cultivate donors who want to leave a legacy. Here’s what a public radio station, an aid charity, and an advocacy group are doing to jump-start their efforts.
The organization’s 95-member fundraising staff is gearing up for a more digital future. And that has helped: The charity’s online donors are younger than overall donors but still typically age 62.
It’s also been using technology to help it make strides in planned giving, taking a hard look at the giving patterns of its older supporters and analyzing the best times to woo them for bequests.
In its 2017 fiscal year, donations to Catholic Relief Services increased 23 percent, up to $436 million. Of the bump, about $11.5 million can be attributed to bequests, says Jean Simmons, vice president for individual giving.
In roughly the past five years, the charity has been marketing bequests to more of its supporters; over the past couple of years, it’s focused on integrating the teams that work on planned giving and on annual giving.
“We have a steady pipeline of bequests coming to the organization,” Simmons says. “It’s been wonderful to see all the hard work pay off.”
Fine-Combing the Data
Both the planned-giving and the online communications operations have benefited from increasing use of donor analytics and predictive modeling, tasks that the charity used to delegate to outside companies. It’s identified just shy of 300,000 planned-giving prospects so far through fine-combing its data, Simmons says.
The organization keeps tabs on one segment of its donors in particular: those who have been contributing small amounts for many years, even decades, who have suddenly stopped giving. This, Simmons says, is often a sign that they might be “moving into that planned-giving phase of their lives.”
In those cases, the donors are moved to what Simmons calls the “personal-correspondence track.” They’re sent handwritten notes commemorating their years of support, their birthdays, or other life events. They are asked if they would like to receive a kit to help them make estate plans. “The publications that we send are our traditional annual-giving publications — but without an ask,” Simmons says.
Feedback derived from phone conversations with donors and a short survey have shaped how Catholic Relief Services has undertaken a complete refresh of its planned-giving communications, she says. Now the charity reaches out to donors with simpler text, more photos, and more stories from the field.
Such donor surveys are likely to drive future decisions on the best ways to solicit donors, Simmons says: “We’re discovering the boomers and what they’re all about, and they’re very different from their parents. We’re learning and adjusting.”
