Why Donor Research
Donor Enhancement Research™
Donor and membership file survey research allows for both a better understanding of the changes in thinking and giving patterns of your donors and for a much more focused long-range plan. Our experience in donor/membership survey research has enabled us to monitor the shifting demographic, psychographic and contributory evolution over the last several years. This expertise and historical perspective is brought to every survey that we perform.
WRS uses state of the art methodologies perfected through our vast and comprehensive experience in religious and donor-based research. As such, our developed expertise in this field will give your organization complete confidence in our data collection methodology.
Over the last fifteen years, dramatic economic, cultural and even political shifts have resulted in noticeable changes to donor bases in many areas. Academic institutions, churches, charities and even religious radio stations have struggled to come to terms with emerging new trends among their friends and faithful. In most cases, the resources they seek are still there, but times, being what they are, always change and so must the messages we use to keep our financial bases active and motivated.
Donors today, like yesterday, are most often “enthusiastic and positive,” especially toward smaller, local charities and human service organizations. Relief organizations can find a way to the top of this list with the right message. For these donors, their giving is most frequently based on emotional ties.
Just as determining the appropriate message to stimulate new donors or increase the giving among existing donors, financial participation is the result of effective communications and a desire to support an organization, its mission, its leadership, and its programs (or a combination of these factors).
From a comprehensive understanding of the motivations behind these factors, the right messages can be developed to reach the key audiences in question. Any organization can increase contributions to better fund its programs if it can learn the answers to a number of questions, including, but not limited to, the following:
- What are the demographic profiles of key giving groups?
- What are donor’s perceptions of the communications they receive from your organization?
- What issues are important to your organization’s donors?
- What specific issues or programs have caused single-time contributions in the past?
- What specific issues or programs have caused repeat contributions in the past?
- What are the specific issues that drive the frequency of these contributions?
- What physical and/or spiritual “return on your investment” do donors feel they receive?
WRS provides our clients with objective research and actionable strategies that:
- Strengthen donor involvement levels among current donors.
- Provide actionable branding strategies and communication options to reach new prospective donor bases.
- Provide a statistical model of your typical giver and strategic goals for identifying new niches.
To accomplish this, you must:
- Identify what is important to your donors.
- Identify what factors would increase giving frequency.
- Provide analytical insight into why some donors have ended their involvement.
- Use our tested and proprietary Message Mapping™ system to quantify the best messages to communicate to current, lapsed and perspective donors.
E-mail or call today to learn more about how WRS can help you raise more money for your organization.
