Dars 2011 pfra's 4th annual donor attrition retention survey
1. PFRA Unit 11 Europoint 5-11 Lavington Street London SE1 0NZ June 2011 Dear PFRA member, Thank you for your interest in DARS 2011, the 4thannual PFRA Attrition Survey, the fourth year we have conducted this analysis. We are happy to supply you with a copy of the presentation made at this year’s PFRA AGM in London on 21stJune. However, we would like to make it clear that this presentation includes only the initial analysis of the data and needs to be read bearing the following points in mind: The presentation analysed the responses of 27 PFRA member charities (out of a total membership of 96) who responded to the survey sent to the whole membership. 2. The particular questions asked in the survey required charities to report the number of donors who had made 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc payments.
2. 3. In the interests of consistency, donors who did not make their 1st payment (often known as “no-shows”) have not been included in the calculations, since not every charity knows this information Percentages in all graphs other than ‘Attrition by Charity’ have been calculated by taking the total number of payments reported by all charities and who fell into that particular criterion and calculating the percentage attrition against the total number of payers at 1st month. Cumulative attrition figures for the first year, therefore, should be read at Month 11, since this point represents all donors that cancelled after having made eleven payments; therefore all remaining donors at this point DID go on to make a full 12 payments. This preliminary analysis will be followed up by a full written report at the end of September. Further to points raised during the presentation this year, Morag and Rupert will be conducting some additional analysis, which will feature within this report. In the meantime, while looking at the findings within our presentation, care must be taken not to draw specific conclusions. This is because there are many variables that are at work within the campaigns that have been reported by charities to us.
3. The findings that we have reported are indicative of general trends that we have deduced from the survey results, but can only be proven by an individual charity when running a head-to-head Test internally within their organisation, ideally where only one variable is changed at any one time. We very much hope that this survey continues the development of a process of qualitative research, and testing of factors that beneficially impact retention for charities. The information contained in the presentation and subsequent report are copyright to the PFRA and the authors of the presentation and report (Morag Fleming, Head of Fundraising, Quarriers and Rupert Tappin, Managing Director, Future Fundraising) and we would ask that you do not reproduce or disseminate any of this material (apart from for internal use within your own organisation) without prior permission from the PFRA. If you would like to receive a copy of the full report when published, then please contact Ian MacQuillin of the PFRA, on ian@pfra.org.uk, or call 020 7401 8452. Yours faithfully Mick Aldridge CEO, PFRA
5. Agenda Development of DARS 2011 + External environment DARS 2011 – the findings! door & street campaigns run in 2004, 06, 07, 08, 09 &10 Further analysis from Professor Adrian Sargeant & his team at Indiana University
6. The Development of DARS 10 years+ face-to-face acquisition in UK DARS provided the 1st benchmark in 2008 for charities to match to and better manage their donor retention programmes Developed to look at the different variables affecting donor retention Now in the 4th year
7. External Market & DARS Changing F2F market – 25% increase in door market between 2008 and 2011 Decrease of 4% in Street market between 2008 and 2011 Collapse of the banks 2008 Coalition government implement cuts 2010 /11
8. Developments for 2011 Reports from 6 years of activity Up to 5 years worth of payments More questions on donor communications In-depth analysis by Professor Adrian Sargeant and Jen Shang
9. Attrition is… 19% thought better 52% thought worse 26% thought similar … better? … worse? … similar?
10. DARS 2011 – Campaigns Reported Largest number of donors ever reported to DARS 818,163 individual donors 27 charities submitted data from 155 separate campaigns 74 street campaigns with 342,916 donors 81 door campaigns with 475,247 donors 678,532 donors made at least 1 payment
11. DARS 2011 – THE ‘REVELATION’?! Attrition: where is your charity at? (Reminder: figures are based on all donors making first payment; no-shows are excluded as not all charities know these)
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15. Street Attrition Attrition appears to be coming down after a peak in 2008 campaigns Similar to last year’s survey, 2004, ‘06+ ‘07 campaigns largely clustered closely together But 2008 & 2009 campaigns more broadly spread ?Reflection of growing complexity of campaigns and interaction of all the variables Adrian Sargeant analysed significance of each variable for DARS 2011
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19. Door Attrition Attrition rates on the door seem to be going back down from the high they reached in 2009. Month 3 2007 - 5-32% best year Month 3 2009 - 5-45% worst year Month 3 2010 - 10-35% This pattern is also evident in month 6
20. DARS 2011 – THE ‘REVELATION’?! How does this all fit together to develop our benchmark?
23. Attrition Based on Campaign Averages Door 2004 remains the best performing campaign Street campaigns perform less well that door campaigns for every year until 2010 when street outperforms door Both Street and Door show a marked improvement in 2009 and 2010 shows early signs of being a lower attrition campaign
24. Long Term Attrition Street 5 year attrition between 53% and 88% (04) 4 year attrition between 49% and 87% (06) Door 5 year attrition between 48% and 89% (04) 4 year attrition between 38% and 82% (06)
25. DARS 2011 – THE CORE GROUP How does the Core Group perform?
32. Age of Donors Street Older age band (30-34 years) are performing better in more recent years than the under 29s But only in first year; 4-5 year trend is almost identical Door Oldest profile (45+ years) is the strongest, but must balance with fact that sign-up rates of these individuals are lower…
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35. Average Gift Street In every year the lowest average gift is performing better than the highest but particularly so in 2009 and 2010 Door The same is true for the door campaigns however the 2010 campaign seems to have better attrition in month 1 on the higher gift
36. Initial Findings From Adrian Sargeant’sModelling Cleanest data set ever seen Unique dataset Fascinating findings Analysis taking four times as long as before Following trends are PROVISIONAL subject to further testing of models in US
37. Number of Charities and Campaigns 27 charities 153 campaigns Average number of campaigns submitted by charities is between 5 and 6.
38. Type of Face-to-face Campaigns Street and Door-to-Door Campaigns conducted between year 2004 and 2010
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40. How Valuable Is This Survey? On a scale of 1 to 100: Individual charity internal analysis = 1 Descriptive analysis (graphs, etc) = 5 Modeling (Adrian Sargeant work) = 10 In light of 27 charities taking part IF 90+ charities took part, then Score would leap to 60-70!
41. Retention Rate The interaction effect: Does the effect of Type of Campaigns, Campaign Year, Region and Sector change depending on when the retention rate is measured. For example, is the degree to which door-to-door campaigns are better than street campaigns bigger in the first year after acquisition, five years after acquisition or does it not change? is the degree to which 2010 campaigns are better than 2004 campaigns bigger the first year after acquisition, five years after acquisition or does it not change? is the degree to which children campaigns are better than animal welfare campaigns bigger the first year after acquisition, five years after acquisition or does it not change?
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43. The effect of Door-to-door gets progressively stronger as time passes
44. The effect of campaign year gets progressively smaller as time passes
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48. Conclusions Attrition peaked in 2008, 2009-10 campaigns looking to be better Significant improvement in charities reporting ‘quality’ data, unparalleled in world Fascinating findings, tip of iceberg shown today Further analysis and full report to be delivered by Prof. Adrian Sargeant in Aug/Sept 2011
49. Wrap-up & Questions Morag Fleming, Head of Fundraising, Quarriers, morag.fleming@quarriers.org.uk, 01505 616032 Rupert Tappin, MD, Future Fundraising, rupertt@futurefundraising.co.uk, 0845 644 8026 Adrian Sargeant, Professor of Fundraising, Indiana University, asargean@iupui.edu, +1 812 935 8123
Editor's Notes
The first finding is clear and as stated. National campaigns have a 23% lower retention rate (in month 0) than regional campaigns – all else being equal. So if I’m running a campaign in Scotland I would expect that its retention rate would be 23% higher (on average). If my Scottish campaign is currently sitting on 50% retention, then a national campaign equivalent would be sitting on 27%. The effect is HUGE, but … note the comments on the next slide.What else? Well this slide also tells us that with every passing month the impact of region declines. There is a 23% difference in month zero and this decreases by 0.1% with every passing month.Region of campaign was also more or less significant in each year. In 2006 the impact of being a national campaign was 23% - 4% = 19% worse than a regional equivalent. In 2009, the impact of being a national campaign was 23% - 11% = 12%, so the effect was less pronounced.There are interactions too with categories of cause. Children’s charities have only a 23% - 3% = 20% difference between their national and their regional campaigns.
