National Deaf Children’s Society donor recruitment profitability project
An important source of income for the NDCS is their regular direct debit donors, many of whom are recruited annually through door-to-door campaigns. However, due to the high cost of this type of acquisition, payback is not achieved for a considerable time, and high attrition rates at the beginning of the donor relationship meant that payback was often not achieved at all.
NDCS needed a solution to improve the selection of areas for their campaigns.
We looked at historical donor data and postcode demographics to score all UK postal sectors and predict donor profitability by finding look-a-likes for the areas where donors tend to be more loyal. Our model also enabled NDCS to get information on areas where they are not currently strong. We also eliminated areas where there is not enough population density for door-to-door campaigns.
The scoring model now drives the acquisition strategy, and the recruitment agency is encouraged to select more top-scoring areas for their door-to-door campaigns.
During a three-month evaluation period, donors recruited from the highest scoring post areas gave 43% more revenue than donors from the lower scoring areas.
Model rules applied to a 12 month period show that, had the two lowest scoring areas been replaced with the rest of the 8 higher-scored areas, the increase in revenue would have been £40,000