Salisbury School had a goal – to increase annual giving by young alumni. “Our young alumni participation rate was very low, well below industry standard”, said Susan Auchincloss, Director of Annual Giving, “and we wanted to find a way to increase it without sacrificing the amount of money we raise.” She knew this would be no easy task in a world where people (especially recent graduates) are “hard to reach, attention spans are limited, and competition for charitable donations is fierce. “
Susan and her team decided to partner with BCG Connect, the direct marketing group at Boston Color Graphics,specializing in annual fund strategy, to design and execute a month-long campaign targeted at young alumni. They named it “The February Faceoff Challenge” and it included three critical ingredients: competition, integration, and personalization.
- Competition – During the month of February, gifts from the classes of 2000-2012 to Salisbury’s Annual Fund were recorded and displayed along with the comparable class results from six of Salisbury’s peer schools. Using “Us vs. Them” as a slogan, the challenge tapped into the school’s competitive spirit. Each class also designated a “captain” to ignite some internal competition between classes and build a strong network of volunteers to spearhead the challenge.
- Integration – Over the course of one month, every recent graduate received a carefully orchestrated wave of appeals using new (email, social media) and traditional (direct mail, phone) media. The goal was to make it easy for alumni to contribute in a way that was convenient for them.
- Personalization – Starting with a postcard (which contained a QR code) and followed by four weekly email appeals, alumni were driven to a personalized online giving page (i.e., a PURL) which contained specific pre-determined ask amounts based on giving history, class year, and estimated giving potential.
The February Faceoff Challenge proved to be a huge success as Salisbury’s young alumni participation rate doubled from 8% (in the previous year) to 17%. The amount of money donated to the Annual Fund by young alumni doubled too with nearly 43% of donors contributing $100 or more. And, if that’s not impressive enough, the campaign inspired an anonymous donor to make a $10,000 gift in honor of the challenge.
Click here to view the challenge website. For more information contact:
Susan Auchincloss at sauchincloss@salisburyschool.org
or
Hannah Zimmerman at hzimmerman@bostoncolorgraphics.com
* above artwork by Julie Hammill www.hammilldesign.com














