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Direct
Marketer of the Year: Margaret Carter,
office, direct response fundraising
unit, American Red Cross
By
Christine Weiser
This fall
marked the anniversary of two major
disasters: Sept. 11 and Hurricane
Katrina. This December, many will
also remember the terrible tsunami
that ripped through the Indonesian
island of Sumatra, killing nearly
300,000 people. The American Red Cross
disaster relief efforts were a vital
part of helping these communities
rebuild, and media coverage of their
work offered the 100-year-old nonprofit
organization plenty of high-profile
publicity. So, as the officer in charge
of the direct response fundraising
unit, Margaret Carter's job should
be pretty easy, right?
Think again.
Yes, funds pour in immediately following
catastrophic events that get mega
media coverage, and many of these
gifts are from new donors. The challenge
has been encouraging these first-time
supporters to become repeat donors,
and reaching them has been difficult.
At the national headquarters for the
American Red Cross, Carter works with
more than 100 people in her development
department to oversee national marketing
campaigns, corporate and individual
major giving, planned giving, and
corporate partnerships. But, there
are another 800 local chapters of
the American Red Cross, each with
its own database of donor names and
marketing personnel. This meant the
national headquarters did not have
access to literally thousands millions
of names of potential donors.
"Before Sept. 11, the majority of
the donations and funding we received
for disaster were through major gifts,"
says Carter. "Now, 20 to 30 percent
of the total funds raised are from
individuals. Katrina alone raised
over $700 million from individual
donations."
To retain those donors, Carter and
her team knew they had to not only
re-tool how the American Red Cross
thought about first-time, individual
donors, but also how it worked with
its 800 local chapters. Carter relied
on her strong direct marketing background
to devise a plan that would keep donations
strong long after support for a major
disaster receded.
The Call to Washington
After graduating with a political
science degree from Hollins College
in southwest Virginia, Carter moved
to the most logical place to utilize
her diploma: Washington, D.C.
"I went
to work for a small think tank called
the Citizens for a Sound Economyics,"
Carter says. "It was a really young
company-everyone there was under 30-and
I got to do a lot of different things
while I was there."
Even as a fledgling recent graduate,
Carter was entrusted with important
responsibilities that included managing
the database, prospecting and researching
for major gifts from individuals and
major donors, organizing special events,
and launching a major direct mail
campaign.
"I loved
it," Carter says. "It really gave
me a good grounding for my work that
I use even today at Red Cross. I got
a chance to see how every facet of
a nonprofit fits together, from the
pPresident's office and the policy
department to fundraising."
She found a special mentor in her
boss, Mary Ann Best. "She took me
under her wing and really promoted
the value of fundraising. She told
me that direct response was a great
career for women, and one you can
do for the rest of your life, whether
it's full-time or part-time. She encouraged
me to work with her in development,
and taught me a lot about direct response."
After three years at Citizens for
Sound Economics, Carter went to work
for an ad agency, Stephen Winchell
and Associates, which is where she
met Tish Mokrzycki, who also was getting
her start in a career in fundraising.
Mokrzycki currently is manager of
online fundraising for the American
Red Cross. Carter and Mokrzycki were
on similar career paths, and they
quickly became friends.
They worked together with the ad agency's
clients doing fundraising for political
and charitable nonprofits, and Carter
continued to strengthen her résumé.
While at the agency, she heard about
an opening in the membership department
of the National Rifle Association,
and decided to take the opportunity.
"
[The NRA] was quite a fundraising
machine, quite impressive," says Carter.
"Their membership program is so mature-the
organization had been created shortly
after the civil war-so there was real
history in their database. They had
donor history dating back to 1970."
Managing this huge membership program
was ideal training, with 17 different
renewals going out, each month, to
segments of the over 3 million active
member file.
After working at the NRA for three
years, Carter got a call from her
friend Mokrzycki about an opening
at the American Red Cross.
From Rifles to Red Cross
Each year, the American Red Cross
responds to more than 70,000 disasters.
Although the American Red Cross is
not a government agency, its authority
to provide disaster relief was formalized
when, in 1905, it was chartered by
Congress to "carry on a system of
national and international relief
in times of peace and apply the same
in mitigating the sufferings caused
by pestilence, famine, fire, floods
and other great national calamities,
and to devise and carry on measures
for preventing the same." When a disaster
threatens or strikes, the Red Cross
provides shelter, food and health
and mental health services. The Red
Cross also feeds emergency workers,
handles inquiries from concerned family
members outside the disaster area
, provides blood and blood products
to disaster victims, and helps those
affected by disaster to access other
available resources.
Carter started at the national headquarters
of the American Red Cross as an associate,
and worked her way around the direct
response unit. She has been promoted
twice in the six years she's been
there, and now manages the Direct
Response Fundraising Unit.
Over those years, the American Red
Cross became a much different organization
than it was when she first started
in 2000.
"During my time at Red Cross, there
have been three major disasters,"
says Carter. "There was Sept. 11,
the tsunami, Katrina. My team and
I have played a big role in making
sure Red Cross is able to respond
with both proactive fundraising efforts
and the fund-catching part of those
disasters."
There
have been some growing pains along
the way in determining the best way
to not only catch those funds, but
keep them. And it started on that
day in September that changed all
of our lives.
Learning From Sept. 11 and Katrina
Most people who hear those two numbers,
9/11, remember the images played over
and over: the planes, the smoke, the
terror. The American Red Cross was
one of the key players in helping
Sept. 11 victims. From supplying food
and water to lesser-known services
like its 9/11 Mental Health and Substance
Abuse Program, the Red Cross organized
an impressive effort to support victims
of the attack. Many Americans reached
for their checkbooks to make donations
to the Red Cross-quite a few for the
first time. Celebrities hosted fundraisers
around the world, raising millions
of dollars from individual donors.
Americans seemed to unify in a way
that was unprecedented.
Unfortunately, the structure of the
national office of the American Red
Cross in 2001 was not designed to
gain long-term benefits from this
unification. Historically, the nonprofit's
donations came from large individual
or corporate gifts. The national Red
Cross relied on its 800 local chapters
to do their own fundraising, and would
step in only when a chapter needed
assistance with a large disaster in
its area. After the national organization
was finished aiding a chapter through
the worst of an emergency, it would
return the donor responsibility back
to the chapter. These donor names
would be kept in a local database;
whether or not the donors were approached
again was up to the chapter. The American
Red Cross maintained this system after
Sept. 11.
Enter another set of media images:
flooding; people waving from the roofs
of their homes; New Orleans schools,
homes and businesses destroyed by
the ominous power of nature. Once
again, the Red Cross was there during
the fallout of Hurricane Katrina to
help, managing communication when
others could not, supporting rescue
efforts, finding shelter, offering
financial assistance to meet victims'
emergency needs. And once again, Americans
responded to the call for funds to
help those injured by the catastrophic
storm. The Red Cross raised nearly
$200 million through mail and phone
campaigns, and an additional $400
million through online efforts.
Each new disaster brought valuable
lessons that the Red Cross used to
improve its efforts. The nonprofit
partnered with Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Amazon
and others to handle the unprecedented
number of donations. It established
contingency plans for large-scale
donations, and upgraded its gift-processing
systems to increase the number of
transactions it could process. And
it tripled its disaster call center
resources using an outside network
of centers that could be utilized
in times of high-volume calls during
emergencies.
Despite all of these improvements,
direct response efforts still were
challenged. "After Katrina, we were
left wondering what to do with the
influx of 4 million new donors. These
new donors could help sustain us or
bankrupt us," Carter notes.
Project RED
"We knew the donors who gave money
after Sept. 11 didn't have the same
motivations to give or respond exactly
like our usual donors," Carter says.
"Our chapters lost money converting
Sept. 11 donors and were gun-shy about
a conversion program," she explains.
"We decided to launch a 20-month initiative
managed by national headquarters.
This is a collective effort, but Direct
Response was the major implementer."
Carter and her team also decided to
rethink the nonprofit's approach to
its low- to high-dollar individual
donors to episodic disasters already
in its databases. To reach out to
these tsunami and hurricane-relief
donors, Carter helped to spearhead
an effort called "Project RED (Retaining
Episodic Donors)." This initiative
started with data overlays to learn
more about the new donors, and then
brought in analytics to rank donors
based on their likelihood to convert.
Armed with this insight, the Red Cross
reached out to this audience through
e-mail, telemarketing and direct mail
efforts.
"On the mail side, we had 2 million
offline donors that fell into [Target
Analysis Group] tag] ranges of one
through eight," says Carter. "We took
the lower half of the file, and treated
them as prequalified donorsprospects.
Usually, only the upper half of the
tagged list is put through a traditional
renewal program."
"We were very conservative at first,"
she explains. "We mailed a million
during the first renewal period. Based
on some responses, we've targeted
the pull even more."
Carter and her team have been test
messaging with this new renewal campaign,
too. The donor receives a white envelope
with the teaser "Decal Enclosed!"
in blue handwriting-style font. Inside
is a CRE, a one-page letter, donation
form and the promised decal that reads:
"American Red Cross Disaster Responder."
"We realize these donors come in through
disaster," says Carter. To further
target the messaging to this donor
segment, other renewal campaigns include
case studies and information about
being prepared.
"Preparedness is not as exciting as
disaster relief," she continues, "but
it is just as important." She believes
that keeping people educated about
their health and safety will sustain
their interest and involvement in
Red Cross efforts.
The structure of the ask uses a "downgrade"
string in which donors are asked to
donate at or just below the same level
as their previous gift. For example,
if a donor gave between $25 and $30
before, she would receive a request
to donate at a level of $20, $25 or
$30. The mail piece tends to use generic
language, for example: "How does the
Red Cross maintain such a critical
and complex network? Through voluntary
contributions from individuals like
you."
Since the campaign started in November
2005, the American Red Cross already
has converted about 60,000 of these
first-time donors and even cultivated
some multidonors.
"We're encouraging donations to the
general fund, and revenue sharing
back out to our chapters," says Carter.
"We're about a year late on following
up with tsunami donors, but working
on tying [our efforts] into the anniversary.
The mail campaign will remind donors
about the last time they gave and
ask that they renew their support
for ongoing programs.
"I'm really trying to take the best
practices from my other jobs and conferences,"
Carter notes.
Reaching Out Online
While direct mail and phone campaign
results have benefited from the integrated
database progress to date, online
contributions have exploded. Carter
credits these efforts to Tish Mokrzycki,
who manages online fundraising initiatives
and related Web site development for
the American Red Cross National Headquarters
(www.redcross.org), where she developed
and executed the organization's first
nationwide e-mail fundraising program.
In 2003, Mokrzycki's fundraising Web
strategy earned her AFP's Internet
Fundraiser of the Year award.
Mokrzycki has been instrumental in
retooling the Red Cross Web site to
make it as easy as possible for visitors
to donate. "The site's been up for
about 10 years," she says. "We had
a lot of designated gift choices."
This broad range allows philanthropists
of all levels to donate funds, blood,
time and goods. Until last January,
people could even donate organs and
body tissues.
"After Katrina, we had a huge, new
pool of donors," says Mokrzycki. "We
put together a systematic conversion
program for the Web site."
This program was designed to maximize
the benefits of the Red Cross' new,
increased Web site traffic. For example,
Mokrzycki and her team categorized
the needs of the Red Cross, with the
most current need at the top of the
list on the online donation form.
When there is not a disaster occurring,
"WHERE OUR NEED IS GREATEST" leads
the gift categories. This donation
option reminds people that the American
Red Cross is ultimately a global-thinking
but local-acting resource "where people
mobilize to help their neighbors-down
the street, across the country, and
around the world-in emergencies,"
according to the Web site.
"We put this designated option up
top," says Mokrzycki. "This revenue
fund is shared between our affiliate
chapters, with three-quarters of the
donations going to affiliates based
on needchapters. We have a strategy
of repositioning the [donation] categories
to reflect where our need is greatest
at the time."
As part of Project RED, Mokrzycki
worked closely with Carter to ensure
maximize disaster donor conversion.
They combined campaigns to reach people
via mail, phone and e-mail.
"We have massive lists of 2 million-plus
e-mail donors," says Mokrzycki. "We
had started an e-communication series
in 2000 to a much smaller group of
a several thousand people." This number
exploded to the 2 million mark after
she and Carter included the tsunami-
and hurricane-relief group of donors.
"We had an existing email track,"
she continues. "We were able to roll
that big file into the existing messaging
series, of course personalized such
as 'your Katrina gift,' or 'your tsunami
gift.'"
Using e-newsletters, "one-minute update"
e-mails and fresh material, the direct
response team found its e-mail communications
well received and garnering a low
attrition rate.
"We used to appeal using messaging
about our history," Mokrzycki says.
"We were sort of beating our chests
about our history, but it wasn't actionable
or engaging. We weren't asking, 'What
did we need from the donor?'"
But without current disasters, how
do you maintain donor interest? To
increase open and clickthrough rates,
Mokrzycki and her team came up with
new ways to appeal to potential donors.
These included providing details on
a specific campaign and leveraging
deadlines.
"The advantage of disaster fundraising
through the Web is that the message
meets the medium," she states. "The
message is urgent, and the ability
to give is instant. We have tested
a challenge grant to our existing
donors via the Web with a deadline
as well, and this increased gifts
over a non-matching gift campaign."
Keeping the newsletter and other e-mail
communications short and focused also
has improved response, as has sharing
stories in the newsletter-such as
how the Red Cross helped rebuild a
church or find a home for a family.
"Stories about people are great because
we can replicate out to other groups,"
says Mokrzycki. "You want to convey
that urgency, that critical need,
but not be too verbose."
Other Successful Techniques
Carter and Mokrzycki and their staffs
run have tied the Project RED in addition
to their other ongoing fundraising
campaigns-converted donor database
to other campaigns, too. "We do it
all," stresses Carter. "We have a
sophisticated national, annual telemarketing
campaign, outbound mail for renewals,
a middle donor program and Web mail
subscribers."
Corporate partnerships are another
important part of fundraising efforts,
especially when a corporation endorses
the Red Cross in its promotions or
to its employees.
"With our branding, we can roll out
some innovative customer donations
programs," says Carter. "We use scannable
coupons . and customer donation cash
buckets.
How does an organization with 800
chapters around the country manage
all of this data while streamlining
an extremely variable workload?
"Scalability is the key," says Carter.
"Our strategies are interesting because
we have contingency plans. We have
contracts and agreements with multiple
providers." Outside call centers,
for example, can be brought into the
network within 24 to 48 hours. The
Red Cross uses an abbreviated script
to expedite the training, and pre-trains
the call centers during hurricane
season when it can anticipate a call-volume
increase.
We've done some innovative things
as far as telethons. We had 20,000
agents for our tsunami telethon, and
got a million calls that day. The
Red Cross is recognized for its great
fundraising, but it's our fund receiving
that we've improved since Sept. 11.
We had to cut our teeth on [that crisis]
to find our capacity."
A Constant State of Preparedness
The direct response efforts also must
be flexible to adapt to changing fundraising
needs, and Carter is always looking
for fresh new ideas from her peers.
"I'm in meetings about six hours a
day," she says. During these meetings,
she and her team review the status
of campaigns-how much money has come
in, how much money has gone out, what
is working and what is not. If there
is a disaster occurring, Carter gets
daily debriefings on what is happening
with the relief efforts. In between,
she works with her staff to manage
new direct response programs and handles
conference calls with the organization's
vendors. She also takes part in a
bi-weekly gathering with the Red Cross'
in-house call center, during which
team members brainstorm initiatives,
and she runs weekly conference calls
with the various creative agencies
that handle direct response programs
for the nonprofit.
In the two workday hours she has left,
Carter squeezes in time for more planning
and tweaking of the Project RED initiative.
"I want to do more sophisticated,
integrated data layering," she explains.
"The modeling is such a great way
to target our audience. We also are
currently doing donor surveys to [gain
insights that will help us] better
target our donors. For example, we
hired a female copywriter and designer
to appeal to female giving."
"We're working on some long-term big
changes," she continues.
"Right now we're still fragmented.
Project RED is helping to pave the
way for a more centralized way to
revenue share. We want to look at
some of our missed opportunities,
and learn from them."
Of course, the nature of the American
Red Cross' work makes any sort of
definitive planning impossible.
"While it may be an advantage to Direct
Response to have a disaster, it can
also be a disadvantage," continues
Carter. "We need to have the systems
in place all the time, and we are
still challenged to get donations
toward our general operating fund.
But through mail, telemarketing and
Web donors, we have seen great success
converting that person to support
our general operation fund. That is
a great achievement."
Her optimism is firmly rooted in a
belief in humanity. "The successful
campaigns have resonated greatly.
It affirms the idea that there are
a lot of folks out there who are compassionate,
generous and willing to give for specific
causes, and they trust the Red Cross
to provide the relief."
Christine Weiser is a Philadelphia-based
freelance writer and publisher of
"Philadelphia Stories," a nonprofit
literary-arts publication.
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