Early this year, I was asked by Wasila Basset and Kelly Ellis of UNICEF Canada to critique their Global Parent Welcome Kit. Global Parent is the name for one of their monthly donor programs.
I was delighted to have this opportunity to do some research into the Canadian marketplace to see what other charities were doing, as well as to just use my creative brain to analyze the current design.
Currently, it is safe to say that Canada is not awash with welcome kits. There are a number of reasons for that. The first is cost, I think that some charities think that it is wasteful spending to produce a welcome kit for their donor. Welcome kits = $$$$$$$$$…. It doesn’t have to be that way.
The second is value. I can hear the board now… “We don’t see the point in spending so much time and effort for a donor who may never give again.” How can you quantify the results of having a welcome kit for your donors?
There are many more resources out there to tell you about the importance of developing donor relationships. But I believe in my heart of hearts that if you can reach a potential donor in a way that moves them and makes them care about what you do, they will support you. But you need to do it in a way that is appropriate and honest.
Back to Welcome Kits. The role of the welcome kit is very simple. First, it is to welcome your new donor to your charity. But second, and more important, this is your opportunity to thank them, over and over and remind them they have made an incredibly good decision by joining you in your mission.
And it doesn’t need to be fancy and it doesn’t need to cost a small fortune. But it needs to be representative of your charity and it needs to be appropriate to your donor.
In the coming weeks I will show you how we are developing the Global Parents welcome kit but I would like to hear about your thoughts about Welcome Kits. Good idea or wasteful spending?
Hi
A good point, and when it comes to $$$$$ many charities shy away, putting ROI over net income as their priority – which is usually the wrong thing to do. However, welcome packs should not be produced and mailed to be nice, or because it seems the right thing to do. Charities must be responsible for their expenditure.
So they should test. It is really rather easy to test the value of welcome backs (which are nearly always useless unless the donor is followed up properly afterwards).
Mail 50% of new donors the welcome pack. And then look at second gift rates – does the welcome pack lift them? If you are recruiting monthly givers, measure retention.
You really need to do this for a whole year.
When it comes to the design of the pack, it does not have to be complex and expensive. It needs to make the donor feel good, encourage them to support again (we tend not to make another ask in the welcome pack, but are challenging that paradigm) and inspire them. You need to tell them how you have used their money.
Of course, we should not look at a welcome pack in isolation. It needs to be part of a donor journey – or what we call supporter relationship management. Donor care letters, email updates, surveys, feedback and mail appeals all can contribute to good supporter relationship management.
Sean, http://www.paretofundraising.com, seantriner.blogspot.com
We’ll look into it.
Hi I was doing some quick research on Welcome Kits and came across this posting. I was trying to find the subsequent posts to this topic, are there anymore as this post suggests? Thanks for your help. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kathryn Couch