Protestant & Catholic Donors Prefer Different Solicitation Methods

Recent studies of donors who give to Protestant and Catholic ministries indicate a marked difference in the methods to which these groups prefer to respond. Direct mail letters were fairly consistent between the groups, with 30% of Protestants and 27% of Catholics indicating that they had responded to such an appeal in the last 12 months.

Marked differences, however, exist in responsiveness to events and telephone solicitations. Protestant donors were nearly five times more likely than Catholic donors to have responded to an appeal at an event sponsored by the charity (28% v. 6%). Protestant donors were also more likely to have given in response to a telephone request; nine percent of Protestants and only one percent of Catholics reported giving in response to a request over the telephone during the most recent year.

In response to an option not offered to Protestants, fully half of Catholic donors indicated that they had given in response to an ongoing giving commitment.

These figures came from Campbell Rinker’s DonorPulse studies of donors by nonprofit sector. Each study polled a sample of likely donors who were screened for recent giving behavior. The sampling error for each study is +/- 3.9% or lower.

Four Ways to make Nonprofit Surveys more Economical

In these cloudy economic times, organizations naturally tend to search for ways to make their research dollar go farther. Here are some tips to help you gather information without gathering criticism for spending too much:

1. You may realize your research objectives even if you limit the scope of your research project. Consider asking fewer questions or asking fewer people. Giving up a little in this area can make a big difference in the cost of your research.

2. There can be plenty of good reasons for conducting a survey via telephone. However, if you do not need immediate results you might want to consider a mail survey, which can be somewhat less expensive and provides similar results. Be careful though, mail surveys piggybacked with other unrelated communications tend to garner low response rates. It is better to send a stand-alone research package to a random sample if you are looking to achieve results you can really trust.

3. Consider collaborating with other nonprofits to reduce your research costs. Often, your information needs parallel the needs of similar organizations. Research firms like Campbell Rinker offer programs that enable smaller organizations to share the costs of developing the research and reporting the results.

4. Think of how you might build your knowledge base over time. Perhaps you don’t need all the answers right now; in that case, it may be worthwhile to do a smaller survey every one, two or three years. Some questions should be used every time for tracking purposes. Then, you can devise a rotating panel of questions to insert in each subsequent edition so your research needs are met over time, but with a smaller annual impact on your budget.

We at Campbell Rinker believe that organizations which use research to maintain an intimate understanding of their donors, members and alumni during stormy economic times are better able to navigate such storms and recover their course once the weather has passed.

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DonorSpeakT is a free publication of Campbell Rinker, a market research firm dedicated to helping organizations obtain accurate feedback from their constituents through surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, donor file analysis and advanced statistical modeling.