The call time lessons from 2020 you need for 2021

We analyzed over 150,000 donors from the 2020 cycle to uncover any lessons that campaigns could put into practice in 2021 — here is what we learned.

The four levels of donor outreach

A cluster analysis of one-to-one calls, emails, and text messages to donors revealed four distinct approaches to donor outreach, and the level of giving that may have caused:

• Low Touch: this group of donors received an average of just 1.9 calls each, as well as 10.5 individual emails, and 0.43 text messages. Their average contribution was $315
• Medium Touch: the average donation from this group jumps up to $550, and they received an average of 6.5 phone calls, 12.5 emails, and 0.67 texts.
• High Touch: this group received nearly twice as many phone calls on average as the Medium Touch group (12.3), slightly fewer emails (10.5), and 0.79 text messages. Their average donation was $675.
• Very High Touch: this group received a whopping 22 calls, on average, but the smallest number of emails (9.5), and more than double the average number of text messages as the next highest group (1.7). Their average donation was $825.

Importantly, donors in the Very High Touch cluster were those most likely to be called by multiple campaigns, whereas that was quite rare in the other groups. Donors in this Very High Touch group represent just 2% of all donors in our sample, which suggests that there is a lot of competition for the attention of a tiny fraction of the donor universe. That’s not terribly surprising. However, when combined with the data from the other clusters, it appears as if campaigns might get more mileage increasing the amount of outreach they’re doing to contacts a bit closer to them, rather than chasing some of these more “usual suspects.”

Try again before trying someone else

While the Very High Touch group make up just 2% of our donors, the Low Touch group represents a stunning 69% of all donors! That means the overwhelming majority of donors are receiving only the lowest level of outreach from campaigns.

This suggests there may be room for improvement in the average donation of a campaign’s existing donors, if they continue to invest in outreach to those donors. While the data does not prove causality, it is worthwhile to note that donors in the Medium Touch group received an average of 4.6 calls more than those in the Low Touch group, and also contributed an average of 75% more.

In some ways this, too, is unsurprising. Many campaigns take a “volume” approach to fundraising. They want to call through as large a universe of prospects as quickly as possible, for example, presuming that only a small percentage will ever answer and become donors. What this misses is the relational aspect of fundraising. The most financially successful campaigns are ones that know how to nurture and grow their relationships with prospects and donors. This means staying in touch over the course of the campaign, providing updates, and re-soliciting them.

It could be that this is what we are seeing in the data here, and suggests that campaigns should prioritize taking another pass at their existing list before too quickly hunting for a new one.

Text message is an under-utilized tool in call time fundraising

While one-to-one individual emailing was fairly consistent across all outreach groups, text message sending per donor nearly doubles between the Low Touch and High Touch groups. However, the overall level of text message sending is still very low across all groups.

Campaigns in 2021 should further explore how to utilize this mode of communication as part of their call time fundraising operation. While a text is probably too impersonal to serve as the main outreach to anyone but a small-dollar donor, text messages can be great tools for increasing connect rates of calls, and decreasing outstanding pledge balances.

To increase call connect rates, campaigns should consider sending text messages immediately after leaving a voicemail, from the same number used to place the phone call. Campaigns using this strategy in 2020 reported a significant increase in the rate of call backs, and a higher degree of success in connecting subsequent calls. The text message indicates to the donor that you are not just a telemarketer racing through a list — you are a candidate really trying to reach them to have a meaningful conversation.

To decrease outstanding pledges, send a text message with the link to complete a donation before even ending the call on which the pledge was made. Campaigns that employed this model in 2020 saw 80% of their pledges fulfilled within an hour of being made — this means far less time spent chasing these pledges later, and lets you start putting those dollars to work now.

2020 was a historic election year with record breaking engagement from voters and donors alike. It is possible that in the aftermath of that fever pitch, there will be some desire from donors for distance from the political sphere, if only temporarily. It will be incumbent upon campaigns, then, to be especially thoughtful about how they break through to donors about the importance of their work and the critical role they can play in it. The data reviewed in this article provides one potential approach: invest in your network. Make many and diverse attempts to get in touch, and then take the time to stay in touch. This may be prove especially critical in the year ahead.