Alberta Fires Appeal

1. Alberta Wildfires Appeal
A Canadian Moment...

2. Oh, Canada...
My home and adoptive land

3. This is our team
Spread out across the country

4. Our Story Begins
In Kingston, Ontario...

5. Why were we in Kingston?
THE PLAN
• Discuss our Philanthropy structure
• Talk about our giving channels (Major, Corporate, Community,
Direct Marketing, Planned...)
• Talk about our supporting hubs (Analytics, Stewardship,
Digital, Data)
• Bring everyone together both within their teams and within
the wider team

6. Why were we in Kingston?
THE STRATEGY- FROM REGIONAL TO ONE TEAM

7. Why were we in Kingston?
THE STRATEGY – CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE & LOCAL
DELIVERY OF OUR FUNDRAISING APPROACH

8. What really happened?
THE REALITY
Tuesday, May 3rd
19:30-a call from Alberta – our head of operations in the province
20:03 – Decision is made: we are going on appeal
20:48 – A second call from Alberta – she is about to go on CTV
20:51 – We are live with our appeal

9. So, what happened?
Fort McMurray, Alberta
https://youtu.be/kSPFt6O1FLI

10. A community was devastated
FORT MAC – COMMUNITY
• A small city in the northern
reaches of the province of
Alberta
• 30,000 families
• 90,000 residents
FORT MAC – NATIONAL REACH
• The hub of energy
production in Canada
• A place that has drawn
workers from across the
country
• A small community that
resonates with the rest of
the country

11. Fort Mac was on fire
A snapshot

12. Meanwhile, a major appeal launches...
In Kingston, we responded

13. All channels at the ready
Using every tactic in our plan – speed maximized our fundraising
 Appeal launches
 Website updated
 Emails deployed to our house list
 Autoblasts deployed to lapsed donors
 Telemarketing cash calling begins
 Community engagement donation portals created
 Corporate partner and major gift outreach
 Corporate portals created for employee giving
 Text donations begin accumulating
 Unaddressed mail packs dropped
 Planned Giving team becomes Donor Services

14. Giving Goes Viral
Part 1: Major Sporting Events

15. Giving Goes Viral
Part 2: Match
 Prime Minister Trudeau announces that the Government of
Canada will match donations made to Alberta Wildfires
Appeal:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWrPNhZqOjA

16. Giving Goes Viral
Part 3: Text Donations
 Text donations in Canada were not a large channel, topping
out at around $500K per year

17. Giving Goes Viral
Part 3: Text Donations
 The Mobile Giving Foundation in Canada faces the largest
stress on its systems to handle donations
 $5 and $10 at a time the text donations start rolling in
 Not our marketing, but rather it went viral, posted and re-
posted on social media
 In the end --$1.8MM was raised from over 220K donors

18. Giving Goes Viral
Part 3: Text Donations

19. Results
Canadians shock us with their
generosity

20. Fundraising Results
Online donations pour in

21. Fundraising Results
Corporate partners make their mark

22. Fundraising Results
Corporate Canada stands up for Fort Mac

23. Fundraising Results
Community Events – Attawapiskat and Syrian Refugees reach out

24. Meanwhile in Fort Mac...
After several weeks, the fire was contained and the damage assessed

25. And now for something
completely different
Fundraising isn’t the whole story...

26. Alberta Wildfires Response
Emergency Management: Evacuation

27. Alberta Wildfires Response
Emergency Management: Registration opens!

28. Alberta Wildfires 2016
An idea crystalises – deliver aid via email money transfer

29. Alberta Wildfires 2016
Announcement Made
$50MM in direct aid is announced on May 11th as the
Red Cross commits to providing email money transfers
to those evacuated from Fort Mac

30. Alberta Wildfires Response
The fundraising team supports digital operations for response

31. Alberta Wildfires 2016
Evacuees responded to their email money transfers
I want to personally thank all the Canadians and the Canadian Red Cross for
their overwhelming show of support, care, love and compassion. I always
knew this was a Great Country but I have say I am very proud to be
Canadian at this moment more so than ever. Truly amazing generosity
shown during this challenging time.
Thank you so much. The work you do is incredible.
Thank you so much. This help is really appreciated. God bless all of those
who donated and those volunteering their time. Fort McMurray will not
forget this generosity.
I just thought I'd reply by saying thank you so very much. Your assistance is
greatly appreciated!!

32. Alberta Wildfires 2016
Evacuees responded to their email money transfers
Thank you, thank you, thank you. So very, very kind. Humbling but I accept.
Thank you so so much!!
Thank you so much for your help and support. Have a great day!
I wanted just to say thank you to Canada and all Canadians. I came to
Canada almost seven years ago and the way you guys supported us is
unbelievable. Thank you again for all your support Canada is in my
heart
Thank you so very, very much! As you can imagine, This money is badly
needed right now!
Thank you so much. The work you do is incredible.

33. Alberta Wildfires 2016
Money transferred as quickly as it is raised

34. The Stewardship Challenge
How to engage, protect, convert

35. Stewarding donors – early and often
Opportunity and Responsibility

36. Stewarding donors – early and often
Opportunity and Responsibility

37. Stewarding donors – 1 month - Engagement
Opportunity and Responsibility
• Donors were invited to share a message with beneficiaries
to connect them with the benefit the work their support
was funding
• Also included a link to the one month update in the PS line
• Received over 4,500 messages in 5 days
Welcome home! I will never forget what I saw and felt for you
all, 1000s of kms away, but close to my heart. Be Strong, and
know you are not alone!
All of Canada is here for you!!
Welcome Home Fort Mac Friends!!

38. Stewarding donors – 1 month - Engagement
Opportunity and Responsibility
• We then sent a campaign to donors to show the impact that
their messages had on beneficiaries, on volunteers and on
staff
• In a situation where so many people had been moved, we
removed the obstacles between the donor and the end
result – and brought the three groups together
• This served as the second piece in an ongoing strategy to
bring donors closer to the people they have helped, to
cement the bond between donors, beneficiaries,
volunteers, staff and the organization
• The feedback and secondary messages have been
overwhelmingly positive

39. Stewarding donors – 3 months
Opportunity and Responsibility

40. Stewarding donors – 3 months
Opportunity and Responsibility

41. Alberta Wildfires 2016
Six Month Report

42. Back to Fundraising
Creating ongoing relationships

43. Converting these donors
Direct Marketing
• Telemarketing
online/phone donors to
monthly giving conversion
• Telemarketing text donors
with monthly giving
conversion + opt-in for
future contact
• Mission-based mail pack to
convert to undesignated
donations
Relationship Management
• Donor Journey & Donor
Experience path building
• Core Corporate
• Community Fundraisers
• Small & Medium
Enterprises
• Appeal Partners
From appeal to ongoing support

44. Lessons Learned
Text Donors, Data and an Online Test

45. Calling Campaign
Ramping Up
225K text donors and we don’t know anything about them
So we called them – from Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and
London. We targeted talking to 90K donors to learn as much
as possible about this new audience
Target volume of
contacts for each
individual calling
location
Data requirements
to meet target
volume
Data volumes to be
supressed once the
two week calling
limit per record was
reached
Projected data
counts available for
calling

46. Calling Campaign
Mobile Giving Foundation Call Back Regulations
Because of the overwhelming response to this emergency, the
Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF) relaxed the limitations in
regards to how and when the CRC and FD could contact these
donors. The MGF granted the CRC an extension and calling
was allowed for up to 16 weeks after the donation date.
INITIAL CALL
TIME FRAME
RELAXED MGF
REGULATIONS
REVISED CALL
TIME FRAME

47. Calling Campaign
A viral moment
Notably, 85% of all text donations were made during the first
5 days of the text appeal (highlighted in blue on the graph
below).
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
45000
50000
May
1st
May
2nd
May
3rd
May
4th
May
5th
May
6th
May
7th
May
8th
May
9th
May
10th
May
11th
May
12th
May
13th
May
14th
May
15th
May
16th
CRC Database Multi Optin Single

48. Calling Campaign
What did we learn
• Opt in
• Monthly giving
• Monthly giving objections
• 92,037 contacts
• Average value $13
• New monthly gifts
• Still getting gifts up to the 10th attempt
to reach donor
 91% through 5 attempts to reach
• Vast majority came on board on 3rd ask
QUANTITY
Accepted 240,197
Auto-cancel 1
Cancel 2,228
Capped 650
Do Not Call 76
Failed 2,184
Incomplete 238,416
Opt-In 6,168
Pending 12,754
Pre-renew 124
Price Select 124
Refund 2
Unsupported 4,918
GRAND TOTAL 507,842

49. Calling Campaign
What we suggest
$10 text donors performed better on conversion than $5
donors
Timing is everything: move quickly to talk to donors in the
first few weeks after they have made their text donation
Quebec residents over-performed the rest of the country;
there is an opportunity in the province
Ask structures didn’t reveal enough to us – plan on creating
two distinct asks to compare/contrast results

50. Lessons Learned
The website was stable; the payment gateway performed

51. Lessons Learned
The Data
CRC experienced
an unprecedented
traffic increase of
over 2,000%
within 3 days and
5600% over the
previous month.

52. Lessons Learned
The Data
• Getting the data into our database
• To allow us to do segment analysis to build content
journeys that appeal to demographics and donor
preferences
• Drive Thank You campaigns for direct marketing and
relationship management fundraisers
• Report back early and often about how we were using
the funds raised (by email, mail, phone)

53. Lessons Learned
The Data
• Have canned data pulls at the ready
 Online
 Emergency direct mail
 Telemarketing
• Build contingency Coding and capturing gift information
• Tribute information is a must for 3rd party events
• Data entry and turnaround times are critical
• Finding workarounds to steward and re-market

54. Lessons Learned
Online Test Results
• Our first attempt at a “top up test” – asking for $10
undesignated dollars during appeal
• Initial results show some cannibalization of appeal to
undesignated: average gift is effectively the same: $183 vs $185
for test and control
• However, there is an impact to just having the question there in
the first place: There was a 31% increase in average gift for both
groups by including the ask vs. not
• $141 with no additional ask
• $185 weighted average gift with the ask
Opt-in was 10% - out of tens of millions of dollars of donations

55. Alberta Strong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L65Twcyxu4

56. Alberta Strong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XDCOJ6QaeQ&list=PLh2KDU8ZxgnN5
v1fFbfKnTRh3oUUg28fX

57. Alberta Strong
Notes from across the country

58. Alberta Wildfires 2016
The “Complaint Box” – filled with gratitude

59. $319 MM Raised
Tens of thousands helped...