I love face-to-face fundraising. For me, it’s one of the purest forms of fundraising. Talking to someone you’ve never met, asking them to support something incredibly worthwhile.

I particularly love Canadian face-to-face fundraisers. They are some of the most resilient, passionate and determined people I’ve ever met. Here in Australia we’d be calling it quits if temperatures got even remotely close to zero. Canadian fundraisers brave ridiculous conditions, all in the name of finding new monthly supporters. Bravo.

I digress. This isn’t really about face-to-face fundraising except to remind ourselves that when it comes to finding regular supporters you can’t beat it. Certainly not on volume.

And therein lies the problem; face-to-face fundraising has been long dominant, in most developed fundraising nations delivering 70 to 90 per cent of all new monthly supporters.

But what else?

Direct response TV marketing is expensive and only for the ‘big boys.’ Direct mail is risky, becoming more difficult and delivers small volumes of monthly supporters from cold prospects.

Telephone, same as above.

Digital?

The elephant in the room. How on earth do you recruit monthly supporters online? Does the level of difficulty make it worthwhile?

The answer is yes. We’ve spent a lot of time over the past couple of years trying to weave a path for digital recruitment. There has been blood, a lot of sweat and even a few tears. No really, it is hard work, but we’re starting to see reward for this effort.

When we started this my goal was twofold:

1. To provide another serious monthly giving avenue. Not to replace, but rather to adequately support face-to-face fundraising. Wouldn’t it be great to have 10 per cent of your acquisition budget invested in online recruitment of regular givers?
2. Deliver a cost per acquisition (CPA) model that provides some certainty to fundraisers about how they were getting involved. Again, in the same attractive manner in which face-to-face fundraising is packaged. We’d love fundraisers to know that their $50,000 spend would likely reap 200 monthly supporters (rather than having to shut their eyes and hope for the best).

We’re not there just yet, but we’re edging closer and gathering data along the way.

Here are some snippets of what we’ve learned at this point:

• The mechanics of the campaign can be just as/more important than the ask itself. A recent campaign netted over 300 new monthly supporters, despite the ask being diluted at a very late stage (the online ask turned from a petition request to a pledge for support). That aside, the process was solid; the media spend was correctly allocated and the follow up happened accordingly. In spite of a weakened call to action, our expectations were blown out of the water.
• Two-step wins. Find prospects and ask them to take some sort of action. This doesn’t necessarily mean give financially, but encourage them to show they care as a first step. Advocate, campaign, and even fill in a survey.
• Timing is key. The quicker you follow up with someone who signs an online advocacy/pledge/campaigning ask, the better the outcome. Three to five days after sign up is the sweet spot.
• Spread the load. Don’t place all of your media spend in one spot.
• Maximize your opportunities to follow up. Tip: phone wins hands down, but support using email and mail.
• Ideally, focus on tepid prospects. That is, people who have some affinity with you. They may have campaigned for you previously. They may be perennial advocates for other organizations. Their friends may like you on Facebook. Think through why they may have an inclination to do something for you.
• The cost per acquisition (CPA) can be comparable to other channels, but more importantly the long-term net value is excellent. For the campaign above, we’ve seen a CPA of around $250 per regular giver. In this instance, better than face to face fundraising (though that’s not the point), but with a conservative five-year net return of around $1,000-$1,200 per recruit. Driven by low first year attrition (between 6-10 per cent) and additional gifts in the form of upgrades and cash.

So, the title of this post was a little provocative. Quite clearly digital is not better than face to face fundraising when it comes to monthly giving. It’s also not worse. It’s about finding a place for both.

But the digital piece of the pie is growing. And yes, it is worth it. Just be prepared for some bloody hard work.  

Jonathon Grapsas is the founder and director at flat earth direct, an agency dedicated to fundraising and campaigning for good causes. Jonathon spends his time working with charities around the world focused on digital, direct response and campaign tactics. For more information, email him, follow him on Twitter or check out www.flatearthdirect.com