Case History #1
How a small religious charity increases revenue annually with a well-targeted Monthly Donation Program.

Challenge:
Two years ago at the National Catholic Development Conference (NCDC) annual conference we met Father Paul, Director of Development for the Capuchin Franciscan Friars in Union, New Jersey. Father Paul told us, “I’ve always wanted to do a monthly donation program but didn’t know where to start.”

Solution:
With 15 years of experience, CHI knew exactly where to start. Starting with just a modest donor base, we segmented donors into the most likely monthly target: those who had contributed in the past 18 months overlaid with those who had given $50 or more. This yielded 2,300 target names. We also worked directly with Fr. Paul to design the direct mail appeal and sign-up forms. Knowing that their donor base was older, we recommended a clear Q&A section that made monthly donations easy to understand and simple to use. The cover letter stressed the benefits of monthly giving for the good work of the Capuchins: lower overhead costs, more money for worthy programs and the ability to plan better.

The first monthly donation solicitation generated a 2.6% response with real legs. Half the responses came in right away and the other half came in over the following three months. Based on this success another solicitation was made the next year.

Results:
The Capuchins monthly donation program automatically generates $2,100 per month and over $25,000 per year. Some of the monthly donors had previously given only once or twice a year. Many of the monthly contributions represented substantial upgrades. Virtually all of their monthly donors renew and grow over time.

Find Out How A Monthly Donation Program Smoothes Out Cash Flow – and Increases Pledge Completion

Case History #2
How a large established religious organization increases pledges and evens out cash flow.

Marble Collegiate Church, New York City
The famous Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City began working with CHI eight years ago. At the time Marble’s challenge was to even out their cash flow, increase the completion rate of pledges and make pledge payments more convenient for parishioners. Like many churches, income pledged at the beginning of the year often lags over the summer and it can take until year-end to bring in only part of the pledged revenue. Also, with just an annual donation program it was difficult to upgrade contributors who stayed with the same pledge amount year after year.

CHI worked closely with the Marble Collegiate development team to launch and manage a monthly donation program. They have seen significant year-to-year growth in the number of monthly givers and the size of donations. Interestingly, while monthly programs often work best for the $50 to $500 a year donor ($500 a year is a major donor in many programs), the Marble program crosses both ends of the spectrum. They have been able to attract many low-end donors (who can be processed quickly and efficiently) and many high-end donors of $5,000+ who appreciate the convenience and choice of a monthly program.

Case History #3
How a public broadcasting station gets faster credit card deposits - and improves member services.

KUHT Public Broadcasting in Houston
KUHT has been working successfully with CHI for six years. They use CHI services to offer a number of attractive membership options: open-ended sustaining memberships, installment memberships and pledge fulfillment.

Particularly important for KUHT is CHI’s rapid credit card processing capability for their on-air pledge drives. Often public broadcasting stations will take credit card pledges over the telephone, manually key the data into their donor management system, process the cards manually, then key the results back into the system.

With the CHI system, KUHT sends CHI a file or hard copy report and we process credit cards that day. Results are availably the next morning. That way the station knows exactly what pledge totals it has deposited and can track the pledge drive on a day-to-day basis.

Members also know how important they are to the station. Their pledge is processed quickly by the station and they receive their premium while the drive is still on the air.

Case History #4
How an international relief organization doubled the size of its average donation - and reduced solicitation costs at the same time.

Catholic International Relief Organization
A prominent Catholic relief organization had three common fund raising challenges: high costs of producing and mailing monthly statements, small average donation size combined with low donor retention rates requiring constant re-solicitation – and high processing costs if a contribution was received.

They came to CHI because of a major donor. The donor already participated in a monthly program with another CHI client but received a monthly statement from this group. He thought the statements were wasteful and time consuming. He asked the group to investigate monthly giving or he would stop contributing.

CHI began to work with this organization seven years ago. At the time they were sending out 250,000 statements every month and received 120,000 donations. The average monthly donation was $6 with production and processing costs as high as $1.95 per donation.

Within a year of working with CHI the client had 1,183 active monthly donors. Over the next five years the program grew to 15,000 monthly donors. Today, they have retained 79% of the original monthly donors.

The group successfully addressed all three problems with a monthly program:

The average monthly contribution has increased to $11.83 from an average of $6.00.
Processing costs have been cut from $1.95 to $.40 per donation.
Fulfillment has increased from an average of 8 donations per year to 13.

Overall the organization has increased its revenue, reduced fundraising costs and been able to dedicate more resources to its important mission of international relief.

And the major donor who started the process continues to give each month.

Data Security and Donor Privacy

Donor Privacy - CHI will never give, sell or reveal any donor’s personal information to any person, business or organization, and we do not store personal information at our site. A donor’s personal information belongs only to the organization to which he or she has made a donation.