HOW TO USE RESEARCH EFFECTIVLY

You can use research to win the war, but conducting good research is only half the battle. To fully succeed you'll need to effectively make use of the knowledge you've gained.

Here are some time-tested tips for using research results effectively…

• Recruit Fans – No matter how strong the research, the results have much more impact when management supports the efforts, regardless of the results. Research typically needs a strong advocate to make it onto the radar of relevant employees. The more influential this advocate is, the better.

• Plan Ahead – To avoid a situation where different staff members disagree about how to follow through with research recommendations, establish a plan for reviewing the results before conducting the study. Agree in advance about who will review the results and make final decisions about them. Determine how you will resolve conflict ahead of time, get it in writing, and hold people to their word after the research is completed. In any event, the study itself must not be devalued.

• Brainstorm – Recommendations made by a researcher are rarely the only possible course of action. Your organization has allies and staff who can help you determine how to implement the results of a research project. Furthermore, if research results don't provide obvious solutions, often a closer look at the data will provide what you need. This is especially true with complex issues such as donor motivations and attitudes.

• Be Tenacious – If the the research results challenge the status quo, don't be quick to dismiss it. The purpose of research is often to test previously held beliefs. Understanding why a certain outcome was obtained can minimize skepticism. Look to your research provider to explain why your results turned out the way they did.

• Pace Yourself – After receiving the report, schedule a time when the individuals responsible for reviewing the research results can get together for discussion. It's human nature to be more thoughtful about something when we know we will have to talk intelligently about it. Have your group create an action plan based on research results. Place items into one of three groups: 1) items to implement immediately, 2) items that have merit but need further thought, and 3) items that are long-term in nature. Meet again in a month or so to discuss the progress of items in the the first group and to further discuss and plan the work on items in groups two and three.

• Take the Long View – Research is typically relevant for several years after the study is conducted. Be sure to have a system in place so that the company's employees know such a resource is available when questions arise.

DONOR DELIGHT, PART III:
Measuring the Touchpoints

In my experience, nonprofits rarely measure attitudes such as satisfaction, loyalty and delight among their donors.

Recent DonorSpeak issues have concluded that donor attitudes are the foundation of donor behavior and are essential to understanding donor giving decisions. We've outlined the donor attitudes that define donor satisfaction and demonstrated that measuring these attitudes can help organizations identify which donors will give again.

Past articles have outlined some of the key elements in measuring donor attitudes, such as asking the right questions and knowing how to interpret the responses. Another equally vital element of this process is asking at the right time.

Why is asking at the right time important? Every relationship has its notable touchpoints. In donor relationships, the point in time at which a nonprofit connects with the donor and asks for their opinions is significant – we might call these times “opinion touchpoints.” Asking at one point can obtain answers that are biased by emotion. Asking at some other time might get responses that lack relevance because they also lack the appropriate context.

Good opinion touchpoints have several things in common. First, they happen when the donor is thinking about the nonprofit. This makes the questions relevant to the donor's state of mind, and also provides a natural occasion for giving opinions.

Furthermore, a good touchpoint doesn't require too much from the donor. It is best to ask donors to do only one thing at a time – that is, don't ask for anything more than their opinions. Ask for opinions at the same time you ask for a gift and you run the risk of the donor forgetting to give, or thinking too much about the process of giving and allowing subconscious barriers to arise. On the flip side, if their mind is focused on the emotional content of the appeal you sent them, their frame of mind might provide you with a false positive response to your satisfaction survey. (The same can be said for surveys conducted during member renewal or annual campaigns, or outbound phone appeals).

Finally, a good touchpoint makes it easy for the donor to respond. More people share when it's easy to do, and the value of the data increases with higher response rates. It makes sense to offer several channels – mail, Internet, phone, fax – for donors to give you the answers you need. For this reason, we also recommend a short survey that only requires a minute or so to complete.

Taking all these factors into consideration, we believe there are a few “best” touchpoints at which to ask donors for their attitudes about your nonprofit:

1. When acknowledging or thanking donors for their gift (as long as the thank you receipt does not contain a gift ask),
2. Within a newsletter or magazine,
3. When fulfilling on a premium (with no secondary ask), and
4. As part of a donor welcome mailing or contact sequence.

Now that we've recommended when to ask the donor, it also makes sense to discuss how to ask the donor. The possibilities include a web survey, self mailer, an automated dial-in phone survey or a traditional phone survey. It is even possible to arrange for all of these options, simply to make it easier for the donor to respond. Let's consider the costs and benefits of these options.

The Internet is a natural option for a short donor satisfaction survey. Invitations can be programmed to automatically follow a gift by the donor or an e-mail acknowledgment you send by a certain number of days or weeks. This allows for consistent timing across all donors. You may also program your website to invite any web visitors to take the survey if their computer contains a cookie you have planted to identify them as a donor.

A self-mailer is another natural choice. The questions may be printed on a bangtail envelope flap, or on a simple fold-over card. The envelope or mailer should be a pre-addressed and carry either your business reply mail permit or that of your survey vendor. This invitation may go as a stand-alone mailing, or ride along with a thank-you receipt. You may also insert it into your newsletter or magazine. Survey methods like the e-mail and self-mailer described here typically generate about 5% response.

Another option is an inbound, or automated, phone survey. In this method, your organization simply prints a special 800-number with an invitation in its newsletter, magazine, thank-you receipts or on your website. Respondents may call in and respond either by speaking their answers or selecting a number on their touch-tone phone. The response rate for this type of survey is a very low half percent. However, when you publish the invitation consistently, that half a percent can add up to a lot of donor responses.

A traditional outbound phone survey is best for achieving a random, representative sample of donors. However, in the case of this survey where modeling each donor's response is a key deliverable, quantity is the goal. That's why it is probably best to use a traditional phone survey only for validating response or for measuring the impact of having a lower percentage of the sample group respond to other survey channels.

The technology needed to combine response from all these sources into one dataset for sorting, analysis, scoring and segmentation already exists. Your nonprofit should be able to access your results via a secure Internet server anytime, from anywhere in the world.

Some might ask “Why not simply ask the donor whether or not they plan to give again? Wouldn't that take all the guesswork out of trying to understand donor intentions?” Well, we do recommend asking donors about their intentions, but don't leave it at that. By asking service satisfaction questions, you add depth and context to the responses about intent that can't be measured any other way, and which donors are ill-equipped to consider when asked about their intentions in a vacuum. Furthermore, your service satisfaction ratings tell you how to improve contact with all donors, not just respondents.

In summary, we see that the rationale, the science and the methods for measuring donor delight are all available to nonprofits. Organizations that choose to measure these donor attitudes – alongside standard donor behavior metrics like percent response and average gift – will add a valuable new dimension to their development process and earn dividends in stronger donor loyalty and higher donor value.