Following on from the absolutely refreshing post last week from Paul de Gregorio from Open Fundraising about mobile - I wanted to add my two pence worth. We've been offering Regular Giving via mobile for just over a year now at Sense via Cymba, so still early days, but I wanted to echo and add a couple of other points from my experience to date. I stress this is just one experience of one charity.
- Yes, Mobile Regular Givers will give more if asked by way of another one off gift - and that response varies quite considerably depending on how they joined your organisation
- Previous Mobile Regular Givers who have 'lapsed' are also quite generous if asked for a one-off gift via their phone - again this varies depending on how they were recruited to your cause in the first place
- Retention rates on mobile recruitment are not a million miles away from what you would expect for direct debit recruitment. So attrition for RG by mobile recruited on the street is much higher than those converted from PSMS via the telephone for example. No surprise really.
- One of the barriers to click through on content is people feeling they are going to see more information that could upset or make them feel guilty - so being clear, and upbeat on what people will see when they click through has helped increase engagement or so it would appear.
- As does not holding the link to content to ransom. When we first started we would send the link to a new update to those that successfully made a payment that month - now we send it anyway, and people can choose to make the payment or not after they have had the chance to view. We are still reviewing the figures but that to me is the better thing to do.
- Regular Gift via your mobile is a great drop ask, there are genuinely people who don't want another direct debit and this does appeal to people who would not have other wise converted. I personally would not advocate a direct to Regular Giving via mobile campaign again for now for Sense - though many charities are having success I am sure. It's just not right for us for now.
This is just a year's worth of experience, and one charity example - so please take from it what you will and however many pinches of salt as well. With anything, the best thing to do is test for yourself obviously - but I thought I would share one experience, albeit a limited one of mobile giving. There's much more to test and much more to learn but so far it is has been a positive experience.
Thanks as ever for stopping by.
I was recently reading some information about Sense's supporter base in the context of attrition and was struck by the the length of support of some of the supporters. Not because it was unexpected. I am sure many charities have cohorts of people who have been giving 5, 10, 20 plus years in the same way that we have people, (not using the word supporter here), who have not given at all or those that have lasted less than a year.
What it did make me realise though, is that as an industry we tend to focus on why people stop giving - not a bad thing - as we now have great insights as to what we can do to meet people's needs to keep them supporting for longer. But still, I feel less focus has been on exploring why people are actually still giving. After all very few people start giving without reason there are various reasons and influences, conscious and subconscious. We measure net promoters scores and have satisfaction surveys but we don't proactively ask what has kept someone giving these past 5 years, the last decade, the last two decades and use this knowledge to inform the next twenty years.
Even from a supporter care perspective, acknowledging and recognising this amazing commitment is a good thing to do but phoning and having a chat and asking some of these kind people what has kept them giving to you despite recessions, changes in there life stages and possibly as a result, their financial circumstances, as well as changes in your organisation's brand for example would be brilliant to know. After all, they are doing what you have asked of them - they have made the choice to act and are continuing to do so - even if this is through inertia. Though interesting article here on why inertia is no bad thing.
Of course some of this will be covered off in your own research - whether it be focus groups or in-depth interviews. But I am not sure the starting point will be framed so positively i.e. 'what keeps you happily supporting xxx?'
So along with lapsed donor research, I will look forward to 'Retained donor research' as well and will start by doing some of my own. After all we all are in pursuit of the state of the happy donor - and though we may be being a little presumptuous that they are - we should at least ask on that basis.
And of course I would love to hear if anyone has been exploring the happiness of their donors and what they found out.
Thanks as ever for stopping by.
