Segmentation and targeting drive larger donations and better ROI for The Humane Society
Project
Donor strategy
Services
Strategic consulting
Abacus Cooperative data
Segmentation
Modeling
Targeting
Industry
Nonprofit
THE STORY
Historically, The Humane Society relied on high-response, low-dollar donations to support their mission. To improve ROI, they decided to shift their strategy to target a smaller audience for larger donations. They asked Epsilon to help them identify who to ask for donations and how much to ask for.
THE SOLUTION
Using Abacus® Cooperative data, we built a donation range model and a new mail piece was sent to the segments that showed a predisposition to give higher donations. The letter featured higher suggested donation amounts. Simultaneously, we performed a merge optimization to suppress lower-performing names that showed little or no donor activity.
The Results
Focusing on donors and donation ranges identified by Epsilon, The Humane Society saw the average size of individual gifts double. While their response rate decreased, the larger donations drove an increase in ROI.
In addition to better ROI, they also met their goal of bringing in more engaged, higher-value donors. And retention has improved, with continuing commitment from more donors.
2X
higher gift size The size of donations from new target donors was 2X higher than the previous average.
“The results definitely exceeded my expectations … We plan to use this method for the foreseeable future.”
— Emily Courville, Director, Data Analysis, The Humane Society of the United States
