GIVING & GROWING

Increasing gifts through personalized communications

The Diocese of Cheyenne encompasses the entire state of Wyoming with 36 parishes and 20,000 Catholics spanning the state’s nearly 100,000 square-miles. The Diocese’s biggest challenge was getting a range of communications to engage its geographically diverse parishioners. The Diocese entrusted us with overcoming this obstacle and increasing engagement and gifts during their operationally vital annual appeal.

After reviewing past appeals and conducting extensive interviews with key Diocesan staff, we identified several opportunities for appeal improvement. Instead of only sending communications during appeals and using impersonal messaging, our campaign would create a deeper relationship with parishioners by providing additional stewardship communications and personalized messaging.

ANNUAL APPEAL CAMPAIGN

The Diocese increased its gifts

Our fundraising program strategy added stewardship communications that showed parishioners the impact of past gifts. We then used a segmentation strategy to personalize the appeal, which doubled its response rate, increased the average gift by 9% and brought in gifts from lapsed donors.

  • Fundraising Program Strategy
  • Data Strategy
  • Appeal Letter & Brochure
  • Direct Mail Marketing & Fundraising
  • Custom Landing Page
  • Content Seeding
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Spanish Language Versioning

Audience Segmentation

We developed a variable data strategy for the appeal letter, reply card and brochure that let us message uniquely to past donors.

Spanish Versioning

All of our tactics were developed in English and Spanish to ensure every parishioner was reached.

Campaign Optimization

We used content-seeding prior to launching the appeal to learn what platforms and messaging would resonate best with our target market on social media.

Digital Fundraising

Social media engagements drove to a custom landing page where parishioners could donate to the annual appeal.

At the same time we were deploying stewardship messaging to parishioners on Diocesan social channels, we were also using content-seeding best practices. These helped us explore the most effective social platforms and messaging to activate donors. Using what we learned, we executed a targeted social media campaign in tandem with our direct mail appeal tactics. These social media messages drove parishioners to a custom landing page where they could donate to the annual appeal. This social effort alone brought in nearly half the entire previous year’s donations in just five weeks.

Despite economic downturn in the area, our two-pronged approach to the Diocese’s appeal doubled their response rate and increased the average gift value by 9%. By deepening The Diocese of Cheyenne’s connection with its parishioners, we were also able to help the Diocese increase its gifts. The campaign doubled the appeal’s response rate, increased the average gift by 9%, brought in gifts from lapsed donors and generated a 20% year-over-year increase for the appeal.