March/April 2004

Developing an Integrated Approach to Building Constituent Relationships Online

by Vinay Bhagat, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Convio

Although most nonprofits today use the Internet in a passive and piecemeal manner, a small but growing group of organizations is realizing the benefits of taking a holistic, integrated approach.  These organizations provide a roadmap for others when it comes to optimizing use of the online medium.

The case for taking full advantage of the Internet is simple and compelling when one considers basic realities and needs of nonprofits, and then looks at what today's advanced online tools enable. Nonprofit organizations are heavily reliant on constituent relationships for virtually all aspects of their operations. Donors are the funding lifeblood of most nonprofits. Many nonprofits also rely on a stable base of fee-paying clients. Additionally, many groups need volunteers and advocates to help fulfill their missions. 

But reaching new constituents can be difficult and expensive. Outreach methods traditionally have been limited to word of mouth, advertising and direct mail. In direct mail fundraising, for example, the cost to recruit a new donor invariably exceeds the value of the first gift. Sustaining relationships also is challenging. In fundraising, most nonprofits struggle to retain more than 60 percent of their donors from one year to the next. The retention challenge equally applies to advocates, clients and volunteers.

The overwhelming majority of nonprofits are not yet leveraging the Internet to address these issues. Although many nonprofits accept online donations, few actively engage in online fundraising. Fewer still have an integrated online approach to building constituent relationships across functions including fundraising, services, advocacy and more. However, progressive nonprofit leaders are starting to realize that the Internet should be used as a strategic marketing tool to support all outreach and constituent development aspects of their operations. 

Mercy Home for Boys & Girls in Chicago, a long-term residential home for troubled children, recognizes that every online constituent could possibly donate, volunteer, help market the organization's cause (e.g., by wearing a Shamrock pin), and refer children, volunteers and/or other donors.  Mercy Home fully embraces the Internet as a strategic marketing and constituent relationship management tool.

Fig. 1: Illustration of the multiple ways Mercy Home asks supporters to help

To more effectively build relationships with constituents, Mercy Home implemented an integrated, online constituent relationship management (eCRM) system, including the following elements:

• A Web site content management system, which allows staff members to make easy updates and changes to the group's Web site, share the content production workload across departments, accept and publish personal stories from constituents, and personalize content based on constituents' profiles and interests
  
• An email marketing system, for sending email newsletters and solicitations, targeting messages to specific audiences and personalizing content within the body of the email based on the recipient's profile (e.g. donor vs. non-donor), and tracking responses on an aggregate and individual level
  
• Online fundraising campaign management tools, which make it easy to create and market theme-based campaigns (e.g., Shamrock for Kids, see fig. 2), accept donations online and acknowledge donors
  
• Online survey and form building tools to learn about constituent interests, engage people before asking them to donate, and sign up volunteers
  
• An online marketing database that synchronizes with the donor database -- allowing staff members to track constituent interactions and interests in one place, and making it easy to use data about a constituent across different areas of communication and functions
  
  
  

Fig. 2: Mercy Home online fundraising campaign

Nonprofit organizations wishing to embrace the Internet as a strategic marketing and constituent relationship management channel should turn to integrated online solutions to help them drive results across all functions.  Integrated solutions allow nonprofits to realize synergies among mission-critical functions so, for example, they can more easily convert a donor to an advocate and vice versa. Not only does this enable a better experience -- more integrated and seamless -- for constituents, it also is more cost-effective for a nonprofit than a patchwork of disparate solutions.