Reliable data, tailored messaging and immediate donor capture? In the second part of our focus on telephone fundraising, Jenny Ramage explores how smartphones are making the dream a reality

Immediacy is a very valuable thing. With the technology and connectivity that smartphones offer comes the ability for quicker and more interactive communication than ever before. Today’s mobile technology is so integrated, charities can use a variety of techniques to communicate with prospects and donors, tailored according to their preferences – whether SMS, phone calls, email or web content.

It’s giving organisations today the ability to deliver rich content to supporters, and to reach them immediately. In a world where people have messages being fired at them all the time and are easily distracted, grabbing and holding a prospect’s attention for long enough to secure money is crucial.

WWF is among several organisations testing various kinds of mobile and digital technology for gathering prospect data. It’s also looking at ways in which the information can be transferred more quickly to its telephone agency, so the follow-up phone call can be made while the prospect is still ‘warm’.

In particular, the charity is exploring variations on the theme of online lead generation. On partner websites it has placed a simple ‘click here to save the tiger’ banner. “Interested prospects can click on the banner, and rather than asking for donation, we ask for a telephone number and say we’ll call you back”, explains Tobin Aldrich, WWF’s director of fundraising. “It’s the same as asking people to sign a petition on the street.”

Being smart

WWF has also developed mobile-specific content so supporters can receive monthly messages, updates and pictures on their smartphones. Just before Christmas last year, the charity launched a smartphone-friendly version of its website, with mobile-optimised donation pages. It’s proven to be a sound investment: “In 2010, 2 per cent of donations over the Christmas period were coming from mobile devices. After we introduced the mobile-optimised pages in November 2011, donations over the same period went up to 9 per cent”, says Aldrich.

He thinks most charities could develop a mobile version of their donation process. In fact, he reckons it will soon become crucial for all charities. “It doesn’t cost very much, and would almost certainly produce income immediately, provided you are getting a good amount of online traffic. People are using smartphones more and more every day to access the web, and in a few years’ time most transactions will be done through smart devices.”

So why haven’t more charities invested in mobile technology? “People in the sector aren’t that well informed”, says Aldrich. “The technology can be quite frightening, and some people might think it’s harder and more complicated than it actually is. But adding mobile-friendly donation pages to your website is a lot easier than it sounds. Virtually everyone can do that. Of course, whether they should be doing it depends on what else they are doing, and charities need to look at it in the context of their overall strategy, particular for recruiting new supporters. But they should definitely be thinking about it, at least.”

Holding back?

Helen Bath, managing director of specialist telephone fundraising agency The Phone Room, agrees there is hesitancy within some parts of the sector to embrace new fundraising techniques. She says that many clients are a bit dubious about venturing into even the most basic of ‘new’ areas. “Some small organisations are only just beginning to cotton on to picking up the phone to call donors”, says Bath. “Even the telephone is new for some of them.”

Considering the limited resources most charities have, it’s probably not surprising that it’s more often left to the better-resourced charities to break new ground. But, says Bath, it’s important for the smaller charities to at least keep up to date with what they are doing. “By tracking what is happening, smaller charities can have an understanding of the context as well as the technology, so that they can see, later down the line when it becomes cheaper or more widely usable, whether it might be appropriate for them or not.”

New ground

There is still no end in sight for the possibilities that mobile and digital technology offer. Some organisations today are achieving remarkable things, which only a few years ago would have seemed like pipe dreams. To raise awareness of its Because I am a Girl campaign, Plan UK recently launched a groundbreaking ‘interactive’ advert, on the side of a bus stop shelter in Oxford Street. Using facial recognition software to determine whether a man or woman is standing in front of the screen, the advert shows different content according to the viewer’s sex. Males are denied access to the full content, in order to highlight the fact that women and girls across the world are denied choices and discriminated against.

Imogen Wilson, head of communications at Plan UK says: “The technology was the ideal medium to bring this campaign to life. It was a UK first, which helped us secure a lot of media coverage, and we were able to amplify our message in a really engaging way.” A telephone campaign will follow, using the leads generated by the advert.

“If you choose new, innovative activities, you will be more likely to leverage media coverage”, says Wilson. She is not suggesting that every small charity should go out and invest in an interactive bus stop advert, but, “because it’s a crowded market out there, it’s very important for organisations to be innovative and find new ways of communicating with people”.

And, she says, “it’s very much a case of where there’s a will, there’s a way. Sometimes the smaller the budget, the more creative you have to be. It’s about pulling on all the support you have, and the connections your board members or staff have, and seeing what you can do in terms of getting your charity out there.”

Moving forward

Until a couple of years ago, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home had engaged in very little fundraising activity, but the changing market has forced a shift in its strategy. Telephone fundraising campaigns have been implemented, and according to the charity’s director of fundraising Liz Tait, they’re working well. “So far we have found them to be successful across the board, whether in thanking donors, converting them, recruiting, reactivating, upgrading or asking for Gift Aid.”

This year, Battersea aims to raise more than £400,000 from telephone fundraising. “It’s going to be an essential method for us”, says Tait. “It’s measurable and immediate. And it’s flexible – you can adapt your approach and re-write your scripts as needed.”

For a charity that only recently started out on its fundraising journey, it’s being remarkably bold: not only is it investing in direct mail, face-to-face and telephone fundraising, it is also trialling a pioneering technique – using iPads to gather better prospect data.

The concept was developed by specialist fundraising services company, Fundraising Initiatives, which has been exploring ways to overcome the difficulties that many organisations have with consistently collecting data from donors and prospects. “When you’ve got face-to-face fundraisers filling out forms, asking donors some additional questions has been impractical”, says chief operating officer Martin Jervis. “You engage and inspire them, get their direct debit details, agree the amount, take them through all the legal things, and then if you’ve got a list of extra questions – might they like to re-home a puppy, for example – not all the forms will come back with that information.

“It can be so challenging just to get the essential stuff, face-to-face fundraisers tend to secure the donation, and move on.”

So how does the iPad address this problem? “iPads mean that for the first time, you can enforce a process”, Jervis explains. “I can make steps appear, and the workflow cannot continue until it a response is entered. Adding in those extra steps means you are potentially opening up donors to other areas and capturing valuable information for the charity.”

The more information you gather, the more targeted you can be in your follow-up campaign. “We know another animal charity which increased lifetime value by 16 per cent, by finding out if the supporter has a pet and referring to that animal in their communications. And if you use the name of that pet the upgrades can increase by 43 per cent. With the iPad, you can now systematically collect that data on sign-up.”

It’s all relationship fundraising

For Liz Tait, the most impressive thing about the iPad is the ability to integrate it into a face-to-face fundraising pitch. “It’s enabled us to show a lovely, short video all about the home to potential donors. A picture paints a thousand words, and through this people can really understand Battersea, and its warmth.”

So, what we have at our fingertips today is technology that serves to enhance the way human beings connect with each other intellectually and emotionally. It can truly enable those fundamental principles of fundraising to shine: you can use it to create a touching, personal two-way experience for supporters, and make it all about relationships. Just like a good old-fashioned telephone conversation.

This article first appeared in The Fundraiser magazine, Issue 16, April 2012