A canvasser for Rocky Mountain PBS updates data while making the rounds in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. Rocky Mountain and other public broadcasters carefully analyze data to decide where to send solicitors, focusing on densely populated middle- and upper-middle-class communities.
Public broadcasting has figured out a way to net one of fundraising’s most elusive quarries: new, relatively young donors.
Borrowing an idea from politics, stations in 14 cities are sending canvassers door-to-door in carefully chosen neighborhoods. Instead of trolling for votes, the paid solicitors ask residents to become monthly donors.
In seven years, the stations have brought in 320,000 new donors. More than 60 percent of the revenue comes from recurring gifts, and the organizations are retaining those donors at an annual rate of more than 80 percent. The average age of those signing up is 45 to 55, roughly 10 years younger than the broadcasters’ typical supporters.
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Theo Stroomer, for The Chronicle
A canvasser for Rocky Mountain PBS updates data while making the rounds in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. Rocky Mountain and other public broadcasters carefully analyze data to decide where to send solicitors, focusing on densely populated middle- and upper-middle-class communities.
Public broadcasting has figured out a way to net one of fundraising’s most elusive quarries: new, relatively young donors.
Borrowing an idea from politics, stations in 14 cities are sending canvassers door-to-door in carefully chosen neighborhoods. Instead of trolling for votes, the paid solicitors ask residents to become monthly donors.
In seven years, the stations have brought in 320,000 new donors. More than 60 percent of the revenue comes from recurring gifts, and the organizations are retaining those donors at an annual rate of more than 80 percent. The average age of those signing up is 45 to 55, roughly 10 years younger than the broadcasters’ typical supporters.
“It’s a program that has really changed our membership approach here at Rocky Mountain PBS and has brought donors into the fold who probably would not have been interested in giving to the station had we not chosen to go to them,” says Dan Stencel, vice president for membership at the Colorado organization that pioneered the technique.
‘Dartboard Approach’
Door-to-door fundraising is expensive, especially the investment required the first year. What makes it successful is the laserlike focus on monthly donations and the high retention rate of those donors, says Michal Heiplik, executive director of the Contributor Development Partnership, a group of public broadcasters that share fundraising data and ideas.
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The canvassing has grown more sophisticated over time. “When we started doing this, it was more a dartboard approach,” Heiplik says. “Let’s just pick a neighborhood and see how it works.”
Now the stations, working in conjunction with the Contributor Development Partnership, analyze data to determine which neighborhoods are the best hunting grounds. Broadcasters aim for middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods. Density is also important. Stations often send teams of four or five canvassers to areas with roughly 400 homes within walking distance. Each day, canvassers get maps that show which doors to knock on. Homes of existing donors are also marked. Fundraisers leave a thank-you flyer on those doorknobs.
The partnership is exploring ways advanced number-crunching could improve each canvassing pitch by informing decisions about suggested gift amounts, the conversational approach, and images to show prospects.
“I’m not ready to claim victory or defeat” on that early work, Heiplik says. But he’s excited about the data that canvassers can collect themselves. Meeting donors in person, they can record their approximate ages, whether they have children or grandchildren, the model car they drive, and other demographic clues.
Such firsthand observations might well trump sophisticated analysis of commercial data, Heiplik says. “If they walk up and they see an NPR bumper sticker on that car, you know what that conversation will be about.”
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In-Person Persuasion
Rocky Mountain PBS says the conversations are key to the higher retention rates for monthly donors who come in through canvassing because the solicitors are so good at persuading donors to give from bank accounts rather than credit cards. That means the station pays less in fees, spends less time chasing new credit-card information, and loses fewer supporters it can’t track down when they get new cards.
THEO STROOMER, FOR THE CHRONICLE
Door-to-door canvassers, such as Jessie Johnnes, have won large numbers of monthly donors for Rocky Mountain PBS and other public broadcasters across the country.
Explaining those benefits is more effectively done in person than in a written appeal, Stencel says. Canvassers can easily make clear the savings for the station.
When Rocky Mountain first started canvassing, the group feared the results might falter over time. But last year’s results were the best yet. Canvassers brought in 9,670 new donors, 35 percent of whom made recurring contributions.
The group does not solicit current donors, but it is considering canvassing visits to supporters who haven’t given in more than a year.
“If these fundraisers are so great at pitching sustaining members,” he muses, “then why not have them go to a warm prospect to join on as a monthly donor?”
