Simple reminders

I have spent much of the last week working on the ongoing communications that make up much of the donor communication for the 2013-14 fiscal/academic year.  This includes monthly renewals for both LYBUNT and leadership donors, quarterly asks for SYBUNT's and the reminder process supporting the phone program.

We have tried any number of different approaches from religious to secular, academic to administrative value added.  Have had a volunteer (it was a trustee) sign the reminders, a VP, and where we are now with me signing them.  I follow a 0, 30, 60, 90, 120 schedule.  The 0 day reminder or pledge acknowledgement garners 60% of the responses and "comes" directly from the caller thanking the donor for their time and asking them to complete the commitment by making a payment.  If we have an email for that prospect, at the close of the shift they also get an email with the same message and a link to a dedicated pledge payment page within our giving site (www.stjohns.edu/paymypledge). Every Friday an email goes out from my office to anyone who pledged that week providing them with similar information as well.

15 days after the pledge a third email is sent, providing little more than a thank you and a link - this email actually generates the highest response rate from the electronic side of the program and was intentionally designed to be simple and direct with no images and says: "Thank you very much for your commitment to supporting St. John's University students this year.  Paying your pledge at www.stjohns.edu/paymypledge today ensures that your commitment is realized. Thank you." and is signed by me.

At the 30 day point you get a letter, this time from me as opposed to the 0 day letter from the caller, this letter is very generic, calling out the best parts of the university and the impact on them donor support can have.  While this letter provides 30% of the responses, it is the area that I feel has the most potential for improvement and am working to center the text around the funds supported rather than the general university.  This is a huge undertaking with reminders as this whole process runs on form letters and general merges so getting fund specific content into them is challenging.

The week that includes day 45 from the point of the pledge also includes an email reminder - similar to the 15 day reminder in content, this produces little in terms of payments but does generate feedback.  For some reason, this piece often generates the "I didn't do that" response.  While not what we want, this does at least limit our further work and the level of aggravation that this process can generate for those who don't plan to pay.

At the 60 day point we produce a statement - having sent 2 letters and up to 4 emails we change look from fundraising to collections.  This provides the final 10% of the responses to the mail stream and that is up from less than 5% when it was a letter.  This is a form with a clear image from campus in the background and a simple table layout summary of the commitment.

At the 90 day point we make a phonecall requesting a credit card.  This does get us some card numbers while also getting a renewed commitment from a small portion of the remaining pool.  Interestingly, almost 60% of these recommitted pledges are paid so it does work to generate support.

120 days after the pledge is made, we send a write off letter out that thanks the constituent for their commitment but lets them know quite clearly that we are no longer expecting payment on that commitment and telling them that the next things that they see from my office are asking for a new commitment.  We get a .025% response to that letter as well so it has value to the fundraising process in addition to the close out of the commitment.

Areas of improvement that we are well aware of are the previously mentioned need to make it more specific to the commitment, a need to make it more personal and a need to make it more specific to that prospects history and methods of giving.