Fundraising Ireland Conference 2013: Raising Colon Our Game

Here are the slides from my 'The Best Donor In Ireland' session at the Fundraising Ireland Conference 2013, as well what I think are the key points below:

Open Your Direct Debit Date
I still strongly believe - and I believe the data shows - that opening your choices of direct debit date (i.e. allowing donors to give on any day of the month) will decrease unpaids and improve attrition. If you do not have the resources to do this I believe it is worth shifting some of your spend from recruitment/retention in to this processing change. I'm going to do a dedicated blog post on this soon.

Reactivate & Upgrade
Telephone reactivations are working. Telephone upgrades are working. If you're not doing them then you should be. More than that, on-line upgrades are working too: Sponsor.ie donors are prompted to increase their donation to cover credit card fees and 17% of people are saying yes. With some tweaking I believe we can get this figure even higher.

Changes In Tax Relief
This appears to be having an impact on how much self-assessed are giving: last year self-assessed individuals donated 9% more than PAYE. This year it's only 6% so far.

Consider The Spikes
You will see a spike in cancellations in January. You will see a spike in cancellations in the summer. You will see a spike in cancellations if there is negative media coverage. You will see a spike in cancellations if your CEO does something stupid. How are you going to pre-empt this?

Be Mobile Friendly
The number of donors who are using (and trying to donate through) mobile devices is increasing massively, with nearly half of visitors now on mobile devices. Your website (and mine!) need to be mobile-friendly. Please prioritise this over making 'an app' - nobody wants your app.

Share Data
We all learn and we all benefit when we share data.