June, 2009
Minority of Christians Involved in Faith-Based Giving
In 2008, Campbell Rinker released the results of a thorough survey among 811 random donors who support Faith-based charities and organizations. We’ve continued to study these donors throughout 2009 polling to measure and track changes in their economic confidence.
Some of the most interesting findings include the following:
- Out of 3,312 DonorPulse surveys completed in 2008, 24.6% of respondents report giving to faith-based charities in the previous year. Within this group of faith-based donors, 2,490 (76%) identify themselves as Christian. Nearly three in ten – 29.1% of Christian donors – support faith-based charities.
- The proportion of faith-based donors who plan to give less in 2009 has increased, though at a somewhat lower rate than donors to other charitable sectors. The chart below displays faith-based donors reported likelihood to give more, less, or the same since October 2008. More than half, 55%, plan to give the same amount; 27% plan to give less, and 14% plan to donate more to faith-based organizations in 2009.
- On average, Christian donors donated $4,180 to charity in 2007, while donors of other religions donated $1,353. The amount donated by Christian donors is nearly double the national average of $2,140 for all charitable households. The amount given by donors of non-Christian religions is somewhat lower.
- Donors to faith-based charities are much more likely to give via postal mail than donors overall (68% vs. 56%).
- The most motivating reasons Christian donors cite for giving to a specific charity are “improves the quality of life for people” and “promotes beliefs I agree with.” Christian donors are also motivated to give to organizations which have “a reputation for effectiveness.”
- In contrast, donors to non-Christian charities are most motivated by improving “the quality of life for people” and benefiting “[their] local community.”
- Compared to overall figures, a slightly elevated proportion of donors to faith-based charities include charitable organizations in their will, trust, or estate plan. The figure is 12% of Christian donors and 15% of donors of other religions. Among faith-based donors age 50 and older, upwards of 15% have a will, trust, or estate plan that includes charitable giving.
- Nearly one half of faith-based donors under the age of 50 (49%) are interested in supporting groups that let them play a more active role in the organization. This is true for only 29% of faith-based donors 50 or older. Active involvement includes designating where their money goes, volunteering their time to help implement initiatives, and meeting with those that the donations have helped.
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Broadcast Ministry Programming that Promotes Giving
Donors Seek New Ways to Give, and Control in What they Receive
By wide margins, donors to broadcast ministries feel more affinity with the ministries they support and are more satisfied with their relationship with these ministries than donors to other faith-based organizations.
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According to a survey recently released by donor research firm Campbell Rinker, broadcast ministry donors give the organizations they’re most familiar with higher satisfaction ratings in each of nine critical areas of donor service quality. In some of these areas, two and even three times the proportion of broadcast ministry donors are satisfied with the organization compared to the proportions among donors to non-broadcast faith-based groups.
“The nature of the broadcast medium is certainly at the core of these results,” said researcher Dirk Rinker, president of Campbell Rinker. “These are the organizations that are out there connecting with listeners, viewers, and supporters in a very personal and tangible way. That connection obviously gives broadcast ministries a distinct advantage over equally worthwhile ministries that are not on the air.”
A very high percentage of donors familiar with broadcast ministries say these organizations clearly tell the donor “why the ministry needs the donors’ support” (82% are satisfied), that they thank donors adequately (81% satisfied), and that they use the right style and tone in their communications (75%).
Campbell Rinker measures donor satisfaction through nine questions that touch on the most vital service qualities donors expect in a nonprofit. High agreement with these particular traits is 80% accurate in predicting repeat giving, enabling nonprofits to reliably measure donor loyalty among mass-acquired donors.
While the satisfaction ratings for broadcast ministries are quite high, there are several areas where the donors who are familiar with these organizations say the ministries could improve. Some of these service quality areas could be addressed through programming, while others could be addressed through donor communications.
Enable Donors to Give More than Money
Just under one in two donors (46%) were satisfied with how broadcast ministries they’re familiar with allow them to partner with the nonprofit in non-financial ways. Wiley Stinnett, Senior Vice President/Senior Media Strategist at fundraising consultancy Douglas Shaw Associates, agrees that donors desire alternative ways of supporting the ministry. “Ask for their advice and opinions on your ministry’s projects,” Stinnett says, and “try to have a way that your ministry can use volunteers. Programs like these are very well received by donors.”
Jack Strong, VP of Development for Back to God Ministries International, notes involvement is an aim of the ministry’s Kids Corner program. “Kids and parents can respond to on-air offers to do Bible studies or give feedback,” says Strong, and “in some cases [they] even help in writing new storylines.” In these ways, the ministry hopes to build involvement, affinity, and loyalty among listeners and donors.
Donors familiar with broadcast ministries are far more willing to recommend the ministry to friends and family (69% recommend ministries occasionally or frequently) compared to donors familiar with faith-based nonprofits (36% recommend occasionally or frequently) according to the Campbell Rinker study. This, says Dale Berkey of the ministry development firm Berkey Brendel Sheline, is a tremendous opportunity for broadcast ministries to enlist donors “as ‘ambassadors’ who will recommend the ministry to one or two friends.” He suggests offering these donors “a simple information pack or online resource to give to a friend or family member.” This offer could be extended either in the mail, via e-mail, or during on-air programming, deepening and strengthening a listener’s affinity for the ministry.
Berkey Brendel Sheline strongly recommends prayer requests. “Provide specific prayer requests,” Berkey says, “not just general praying for the ministry, but appropriate and specific prayer requests involving ministries outreach.” These requests can be delivered on air, via e-mail and through standard letters, postcards or newsletters. However, an on-air appeal for specific prayer needs is likely to be most effective for involving donors and the audience.
According to Stinnett of DSA, another way to involve listeners in praying for the ministry is to promote and “encourage the audience to organize local prayer groups.”
As researchers, Campbell Rinker has been impressed by the ability of short surveys to build affinity for a ministry. As long as the survey is truly a survey and not a lead-in to a fundraising appeal, donors respond well to the opportunity to evaluate ministry programming, newsletters, magazines and web sites, and even to let the ministry know how they’re doing through satisfaction ratings.
Demonstrate that the Ministry Cares for its Donors
A little more than half of donors familiar with a broadcast ministry (55%) say they are satisfied with the caring they feel from the ministry they support. While many ministries say they care about their donors, actually doing something tangible to support this concept among donors goes a long way toward securing their loyalty.
Like many broadcasters, Back to God Ministries offers to pray with its constituents, whether they are donors or non-donors. Berkey cautions ministries to launch prayer calls to donors “with no hint of solicitation. Just simply say that ‘We would like the opportunity to pray for you.’ At that point, callers can pray with the donor over the phone or take requests which the staff can pray for.”
Back to God Ministries sends out a free daily devotional, in part to demonstrate its care for donors. “We still receive response from folks wondering what it will ‘cost’ them,” says Strong. “Giving something for free still has a great bonus effect on people.”
These small gifts, according to Berkey, are best if they minister, encourage, or in some way inspire the donor. If you can’t give away free resources, don’t fret. Of course, thank your donors on-air. Beyond that, you might also send personal note cards to thank donors, possibly even sharing a brief story about the impact the ministry is having – again, with no hint of an ask or reply envelope. This lets donors know that the ministry cares about them.
Offer Donors more Choice in Receiving Communications
Six in ten donors feel that broadcast ministries offer enough choice to donors for receiving communications. But that is not necessarily good enough for ministries to begin congratulating themselves. To put these figures into context, the U.S. financial services sector – even with the mess its in – typically gets customer service satisfaction ratings in the high 70’s. Broadcast ministries should strategically consider how they might be able to implement the very latest in database strategies so that donors can receive the news they want as often as they want it.
“We are constantly looking at ways we can help donors make choices with what and how often they receive information and appeals,” says Strong of Back to God Ministries. “We need to give donors opt-in and opt-out possibilities. Sometimes a better relationship requires losing some of our control. It’s counter-intuitive from what we all used to believe, but it seems donors like the control being in their court.”
Constituents should have the opportunity to opt into ministry updates about upcoming programming or resources that the ministry makes available, says Berkey of Berkey Brendel Sheline. Donors appreciate a chance to indicate the different types of information or resources they’d like to receive and the frequency of such materials. This can be done through surveys, or better yet through response boxes on e-mails and reply cards. However, remember that with the opportunity to opt-in, constituents should also have the opportunity to opt-out. Even if only few of them take advantage of the offer, simply providing a choice gives your donors and constituents a greater sense of control – a factor which has been seen to improve donor loyalty and affinity.
However, “it's important to be clear that there is a difference between giving donors a choice of methods of communications and a choice of methods of requesting funds,” notes Stinnett of DSA. “Alternative ways of communications can be both very effective and also represent a significant cost savings i.e. e-mail newsletter instead of mail newsletter. This assumes that the mail newsletter is not a source of significant net income and is purely a communications device. The e-mail version will communicate but won't generate any significant income.”
Broadcast Donors more Conservative
Is anyone surprised? The Campbell Rinker poll shows a broad conservative tilt among donors most familiar with broadcast ministry. The total proportions – seen in the table below – are very similar to the same categories among US adults nationwide.
As seen here, donors that are most familiar with broadcast ministries are significantly more likely to describe themselves as conservative, compared to those most familiar with non-broadcast ministries (65% compared to 43%). Those most familiar with non-broadcast ministries are almost equally likely to consider themselves conservative as they are moderate. Only one in ten broadcast ministry donors viewed themselves as liberal.
While the Campbell Rinker study does not assess the impact of a nonprofit’s political conservatism or liberalism on donor satisfaction (in fact, this has not been seen to impact repeat giving), the high satisfaction levels measured in the study infer that donors appreciate ministries that share their foundational conservative views. Knowing this, broadcast ministries that allow their conservative light to shine through their programming are sending messages that confirm and uphold the views of a huge majority of their listeners, viewers, and donors.
Broadcast Donors More Loyal
Broadcast ministries should also keep in mind that their donors are more loyal than donors to non-broadcasting ministries.
Based on the study, seven in ten donors most familiar with a broadcast ministry say the organization is either their favorite cause or one of their three favorite causes, compared to just 60% for non-broadcast ministries. Furthermore, 68% of these donors say they are very likely to donate again, compared with just 48% of donors most familiar with non-broadcast ministries. These stats lead to loyalty scores calculated by Campbell Rinker that are several points higher for broadcast ministry donors than they are for donors to non-broadcast ministries and secular nonprofits.
Broadcast ministries can and do adjust their programming with an eye toward stronger viewer and listener loyalty. One of the best techniques is to sincerely thank the audience for their loyalty. In so doing, you validate their choice to watch or listen, and you welcome them to a family of shared values and ideals. Other techniques for building audience loyalty include serializing programming content, providing published resources that build on each successive edition, and membership programs.
Broadcast Donors More Often “Delighted”
Customer satisfaction experts believe the gold standard for measuring satisfaction is the degree to which an organization has exceeded the customer’s expectations. The reasoning is that satisfied customers may return, but customers who have their expectations exceeded are much more likely to want to repeat the experience.
Among ministry donors, one in six (17%) said their experience with a most familiar broadcast ministry exceeded their expectations, compared to just 8% of donors who rated their experience with non-broadcast ministries. Campbell Rinker’s “Donor Delight” score for the broadcast ministry donors in this study is 57, compared with a rating of 50 for other non-broadcast ministries and 54 for all other organizations.
This difference is significant, and tells broadcasters that the more they can do to make their programming exceed the expectations held by viewers, listeners and donors, the better off they will be.
Of course, a key element in this is knowing what donors, listeners, and viewers expect from your ministry. Without that knowledge, your ministry will neither be able to focus on what the audience wants, or measure how far you have gone in meeting or exceeding those expectations. This may seem like a lot of work, but realize that a broadcast ministry achieves multiple goals when it engages its audience to elicit feedback: Not only will your ministry gain valuable data on listener, viewer and donor expectations, but it will also strengthen the ministry relationship with them by showing them that your ministry cares for them, a vital factor in building loyalty and an area where broadcast ministries tend to fall behind.
Broadcast Donors More Generous
The broadcast donor also tends to give more to each organization they support, even after accounting for congregational giving.
Donors most familiar with broadcast ministries tend to give to fewer organizations (a mean of 4.9) compared to donors most familiar with other faith-based organizations (mean 5.5). At the same time, those most familiar with broadcast ministries give nearly twice as much – in total on an annual basis per-household – compared to donors who are most familiar with non-broadcast ministries. After doing the math, we see that broadcast donors report giving up to five times more annually per-organization compared to donors who are most familiar with non-broadcast ministries. Even considering that some of the broadcast ministries cited by a fraction of the donors in the survey are child sponsorship groups, this disparity is eye-opening.
Knowing that donors do more for your ministry than other ministry donors do for theirs confirms that the on-air content broadcasters provide is singularly important, deepening and enhancing the value of your ministry to them. Nurturing these relationships on air is one of the most effective tools that broadcast ministries have to assure that these donors remain loyal and engaged.
Survey methodology
A total of 3,412 donors were surveyed by telephone and Internet during February 2008 during Campbell Rinker’s DonorPulse survey. Of these, 1,218 named an organization with which they were most familiar, and went on to provide specific feedback about that organization’s donor service qualities, their willingness to give again to the organization, the organization’s priority in their giving, and how often they recommended the ministry to their friends and family, among other questions. The overall sample of 1,218 donors who rated a charity delivers a margin of error of ±2.8%.
A total of 124 donors indicated they were most familiar with a broadcast ministry as defined by the list above (±8.8% margin of error). These donors cited the following broadcast ministries as those with which they were most familiar: American Center for Law and Justice, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Campus Crusade for Christ, Christian Broadcasting Network, Compassion International, Family Radio of Family Stations Inc., Focus on the Family, In Touch Ministries, Operation Blessing International Relief, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Samaritan's Purse, Trinity Broadcasting Network and Christian Center, World Vision, World Vision International, Wycliffe Bible Translators and Wycliffe Associates. Some organizations were confirmed as members of the NRB before the donors who rated them were included in this category.
1,031 donors were most familiar with a secular organization (±3.1% margin of error) and 63 were most familiar with a non-broadcasting faith-based ministry (below the minimum of 100 needed to compute statistical significance).
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