You control success.
What does it mean to you?
We all desire success in one form or another, it means different things to different people. Can you define what it means to you?
When creating a fundraising campaign or producing a new or refreshed fundraising product the number one question going through your mind should be ‘What does success look like?’, followed by ‘How do we measure this and what defines it?’.
Success is not a fixed goal. Success is something you and your team can define yourself. Because if you do not control what success is up front, you risk setting yourself up for failure from the outside looking in.
Success is a uniquely personal experience so it’s important to define your own terms. Success could be building a new campaign or product over a 3-year period, it may be breaking even financially in year 1, it could be that you want to create something for your audience to be engaged in, or a product to unite and galvanise internal teams. It could be greater brand awareness, income generation, big-time sign-up numbers or a higher remittance rate than last year. It may be about changing the world or just doing something you love.
We’re all accountable and answerable for our actions through the chain of command, especially when we’re ‘spending other people’s money’. It’s also important to help create an environment without failure or subjectivity; everything is a learning experience and you’ll learn as much from failures as successes.
Success is not a ‘ta-da’ moment at the end. It’s a work in progress, so build this into your plan and vision. You have the power to control what success looks like, embrace it, write it down, blueprint it, stick it in your plan, agree it with all stakeholders and keep measuring it. Success doesn’t have to have a deadline and must not be subjective, success means moving closer to your goals and eliminating failure. Define your success.
Do you know success when you see it?
We’re in fundraising. So it’s pretty clear that to succeed, our campaigns and products need to raise funds. But that’s a deceptively simple statement. Our fundraising goals are made up of many interlocking levers that together drive value now and in the long term.
And this is never truer than in the first year or pilot of a product, where a clear, aligned vision of what success looks like means not only can we have a clear, commercial view of the products it is worth investing in but, more importantly, understand the elements that are working and where we need to pivot or focus energy to achieve our goals.
Here we look at the different ways to define success.
Income
Okay, we’ll start with the biggy. For a fundraising campaign, the most important objective is income, right? Not necessarily true. We’ve been involved with new products in the past where the brief from the charity is all about acquiring a totally new audience, and in one project we worked on, we acquired 30,000 of them, and the income was a big bonus.
The products that raise millions in their first year are few and far between unless there is a huge media budget supporting the campaign. For a new product, the financial emphasis should be on the potential for income, so set yourself a 3-year plan. Do the variables stack up to give us confidence that in future years the big bucks will follow? Be realistic in your target setting – there may be times when ‘washing its face’ is good enough, with good engagement and exposure as a first step, giving the evidence you need to convince the team and trustees that there is long-term potential.
Appeal
The next on our hit list is appeal. Did you reach the right audience? Did they engage? Did they take action off the back of this? Understanding who your audience is and what they are looking for is priceless for long-term value.
Measures can include click-through, CPA, registration and repeat participation. You don’t need thousands of participants to be a ‘success’ – what you need is a cohort of the right supporters that can be scaled up as you roll out. This will keep you on the path of creating the right product for the right audience.
Average Value + Active Participation Rate
Income does not need to be an absolute figure. The average value per participant and the percentage of sign-ups that go on to fundraise are our income building blocks. And having evidence of this is success gold dust.
Understanding which of these is working and which needs an allocation of resources is one of the most important ways to achieve goals. If you know that your average participant generates £200 or that the average donation is £20, you’ve got a clear business model for projecting income in the future.
Engagement
Another factor of success is the engagement that you get and the buzz that you generate.
If people know about you, are choosing to actively engage with your comms, and emotionally connect with you, then you have the foundations for long-term support and ambassadorship.
These are people you can convert to direct supporters and potentially lifetime value supporters – and also an audience who will be more likely to support others on their fundraising journey.
Measures for this might include engagement with stewardship emails, Facebook groups, Strava, competition entries, likes, # mentions and PR.
Investment
Of course, the flip side of income is the cost of investment for running your campaign.
It is a fact that any new campaign or product is going to cost more in year 1 – you’ll have your sunk set-up costs such as creating a razor-sharp proposition, research into the product and audience, the creative campaign itself, supporter journey plan, communication and media plan, asset production and potentially TV and radio that have a real impact on results.
But success can be defined as potential for future years. What is the cost per acquisition? How well does your warm database respond? What internal resources are required? Understanding these and seeing the potential is what success is all about.
Love + Pride
Finally, we have to remember that it’s not just about external supporters.
To give any product or campaign the best chance of long-term success, it needs support from all corners of your organisation. And there is no better pay-off to the hours and sleepless nights you spend getting it to market than the pride in a beautiful new campaign that is hitting your specific success criteria and getting excited name checks from your colleagues and networks. Give them something to love, give them something you’re proud of, give them something they can have pride in.
YOU CONTROL SUCCESS, NOW GO DEFINE IT!
Drop us a line and we can help you define success over a coffee and a chat, we’re a good sounding board.
Penny Telford penny.telford@killercreative.co.uk