Using iWave, Fundraising Accuracy Increased From 4% to 70%

Background:

A world-renowned Canadian zoo, and a leader in endangered species protection, has been having remarkable success using iWave. The Zoo is a research leader, and one of the few in the industry to have their own medical hospital. Their top fundraising priority is supporting a new state-of-the-art research laboratory.

Challenge:

As a flourishing and world-renowned facility, the Zoo had a need for a new fundraising strategy that would help increase major gift donations. Three years ago, the Campaign Director and their development team implemented a new strategy which included researching potential donors in order to better know them and how much they have to donate. Initially, they used Google for this research, and though it increased the accuracy rate of their gift ask from 0% to 4%, it was taking roughly 10 hours to research each prospect, which was far too long.

Solution:

One year into the new research effort, the Campaign Director and their team turned to fundraising intelligence to help increase efficiency. One of the primary tools added was iWave, and the results they saw were astounding. “Over a 3 year period, we went from 0% to 4% to 70% accuracy in our gift ask. And our fundraising dollars have gone way up because we’re talking to the right people, we know they’ve got some interest, and we know how much they’ve given to organizations like ours.” Although they’ve tried a few tools, the Campaign Director says iWave is the go-to tool of choice. “It has the most powerful search and filter capabilities of all of the services I’ve tried, and has the most user-friendly and intuitive interface.”

Now when the development team comes across a potential prospect they immediately turn to iWave to determine: if the person has donated before, if they’ve donated to organizations similar to the Zoo, and how much they’ve donated to those organizations. Being able to learn this much about a prospect so quickly has resulted in increased efficiency and ask accuracy. A quick prospect identification profile that used to take over an hour, now takes one minute. A full profile went from 10 hours to 4 hours. For the Development Team, the future of the Zoo is promising.

Using iWave, they are now focusing on the right prospects at the right time. “We have 60 times the number of pre-qualified prospects, and talking to pre-qualified prospects means more fundraising success.”