2Non-Profit Marketing Week # 4 – Harvard Case StudyYou.docx

2
Non-Profit Marketing
Week # 4 – Harvard Case Study
Your Name Here
Date
Introduction
Start your paper here. An introduction paragraph is a good idea.
It should state the TOPIC of your paper and provide a roadmap
for the reader. Indent five spaces the first sentence in each
paragraph.
Bisbee Decision Considerations
Indent first sentence in each paragraph five spaces. Answer
question assigned. Make sure to use a reference for this
section.
Industry Change
section.
Donor’s Choice Key Stakeholders & Priorites
section.
Promotional Mix Effectiveness
section.
Donor’s Choice Changes / Evolution
section.

Insights from Agency Data
section.
Recommendations for Bisbee
section.
Conclusion
Your final paragraph should provide a summary of your paper.
This reminds the reader of where you took them on your road
trip. It is similar to reviewing your photographs after a
vacation. There should be no new information included in the
conclusion.
References
APA format please – second & subsequent lines must be
indented five spaces
DONORSCHOOSE.ORG: REFINING A SUCCESSFUL BRAND
Emily Chen-Bendle wrote this case under the supervision of
Professor Allison Johnson solely to provide material for class
discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either
effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The
authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying
information to protect confidentiality.
This publication may not be transmitted, photocopied, digitized
or otherwise reproduced in any form or by any means without

the permission of the copyright holder. Reproduction of this
material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction
rights organization. To order copies or request permission to
reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Business
School, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G
0N1; (t) 519.661.3208; (e) [email protected];
www.iveycases.com.
Copyright © 2015, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation
Version: 2015-10-14
On May 24, 2012, Katie Bisbee, chief marketing officer of
DonorsChoose.org (DonorsChoose), a charity based in New
York City, walked back to her office after a meeting with
Siegel+Gale, the organization’s branding agency. The agency
representatives had presented their findings on consumer
reception to taglines they had been developing for
DonorsChoose. The findings were not quite what Bisbee had
expected. Since its inception in 2000, DonorsChoose had
achieved a remarkable amount of success and media coverage.
Yet, as the organization had grown and the charity landscape
had shifted, it had become apparent that its name no longer
clearly communicated the nature of the organization. Since the
summer of 2011, DonorsChoose had been investigating how to
present with more clarity that it was an education- focused
charity. Bisbee now needed to consider what the agency’s
findings meant for her organization’s latest rebranding efforts.
DONORSCHOOSE.ORG
DonorsChoose was a U.S. non-governmental organization
(NGO) formed to support U.S. public schools. The cornerstone
of the organization was its website, DonorsChoose. The site

allowed teachers to post projects that they needed to fund,
ranging from classroom supplies to field trips. Once the project
was posted, any donor could fund it by making a donation
online. DonorsChoose coordinated shipping the supplies
directly to the classroom. The teacher then wrote thank you
notes and uploaded photos of the project. Over the course of its
life, the website had remained fundamentally constant, with
some minor adjustments, such as an update making it easier for
donors to enter their credit-card numbers.
History
Charles Best was a social studies teacher at a charter school in
the Bronx, New York City. In 2000, he found himself spending
a lot of time in the teachers’ lunch room, talking with other
teachers about the ideas they had for their students. They
wanted to do more art projects, science experiments and field
trips but simply did not have the funds to make their ideas come
to fruition. In response to this need, Best created the website
that would become DonorsChoose. Initially, Best persuaded
other teachers at his
school to post projects on the site by “bribing” them with his
mom’s desserts. Best himself anonymously funded these initial
projects so that he could ensure that the process worked
properly.
The site’s scope quickly expanded across the Bronx and all of
New York City. Best also reached out to media outlets,
resulting in significant media coverage, including, in the
program’s first year, articles in Newsweek magazine and the
New York Times. This coverage was a large factor in the rapid

growth of the organization.
For the next seven years, DonorsChoose focused on serving
teachers in eight states in the United States. In September 2007,
the organization’s scope grew to include teachers across the
United States.
The organization continued to pick up steam. Celebrities such
as Stephen Colbert, Zac Efron and Michelle Obama became
vocal supporters of DonorsChoose. Best was named one of
Fortune magazine’s
40 under 40 in 2009. In 2010, Oprah Winfrey listed as one of
her Ultimate Favorite Things the DonorsChoose gift cards,
which enabled the recipient to pick projects to receive the
donated funds.
The growth in funds raised was dramatic. In 2003,
DonorsChoose had raised just over $1 million.1By 2011, the
annual funds raised were nearly $30 million (see Exhibit 1).
Despite receiving inquiries from people who wanted to expand
the DonorsChoose model internationally or into other areas of
impact, the DonorsChoose team made the strategic decision in
early 2010 to focus on public education until they had served
every high-need classroom in the United States.
DONORSCHOOSE MARKETING AND FUNDRAISING
ORGANIZATION
Marketing at DonorsChoose was split into two groups:
Corporate Gifts/Sponsorships and Individual Donors. The
Individual Donors team worked on acquiring and retaining those
people that accessed the website to donate money.

Corporate Gifts/Sponsorships Team
The Corporate Gifts/Sponsorships team focused on generating
financial support for DonorsChoose through partnering with
corporations. The team developed partnerships with
corporations by helping those companies understand the proven
positive business results for past partners. For example, Crate
and Barrel, a home goods and furniture retailer, gave
DonorsChoose gift cards to its customers. These gift cards
allowed those customers to return to DonorsChoose and donate
to a project of their choice. Crate and Barrel found that
customers who redeemed those gift cards spent 16 per cent more
in store than those who did not. The team published a series of
case studies on the impact of past corporate partnerships with
DonorsChoose on the organization’s website.
Individual Donors Team
The Individual Donors team was led by Katie Bisbee. Bisbee
had joined DonorsChoose in August 2006, after finishing her
MBA at the Darden School at The University of Virginia in
2004 and then spent several years working in the for-profit
sector. She was originally hired to manage DonorsChoose
1 All currency amounts are shown in U.S. dollars unless
otherwise indicated.
Page 2
marketing and fundraising in North Carolina and South
Carolina, including corporate, foundation, individual giving and
media relations, but her role quickly grew to include several

states across the eastern United States. The DonorsChoose team
was at that time divided up to serve one of six different
geographic regions, but this arrangement had led to some
logistical difficulties. For example, M&T Bank’s headquarters
was in Buffalo, which was in one of the DonorsChoose regions,
but it also had a significant presence in Baltimore, which was a
different DonorsChoose region. In 2009, DonorsChoose
reorganized to divide up the country into three rather than six
geographic regions, and Bisbee was selected to manage the
Northeast region.
Around this time, Bisbee had people on her team managing
marketing campaigns — essentially grassroots campaigns that
attracted potential donors to the DonorsChoose website.
Campaigns included a Blogger Challenge and Moustaches for
Kids. Between these two campaigns, DonorsChoose was able to
significantly increase its donor base. For example, in the
2008/09 school year, the donor base increased from 25,000 to
40,000 donors; this growth was largely attributed to these
grassroots campaigns. For example, Mustaches for Kids drove
5,000 new donors a year. These campaigns — called
mobilization campaigns internally at DonorsChoose — were
added to Bisbee’s sphere of responsibility. Over the course of
the following year, the organization increasingly realized the
value of these campaigns. The fit between these campaigns, and
marketing in general, with Bisbee’s professional background
became more apparent.
In February 2010, the Individual Donors team was formed with
the objective of acquiring and retaining donors. Bisbee, as the
organization’s senior vice-president of marketing at that time,
was selected as the leader of this group. While DonorsChoose
had engaged in numerous marketing-related activities over the
years, including media outreach, website improvement and
email marketing to the donor base, the organization had never
before had a team dedicated to acquiring and marketing to

individual donors. The formation of the Individual Donors team
could not be traced to one specific catalyst, but it had become
increasingly clear that if DonorsChoose was to continue to grow
its donor base, it would need a dedicated team focused on
driving this growth. Additionally, the team focused on corporate
and foundation giving that was growing stronger and stronger,
and organizationally DonorsChoose wanted to ensure that the
percentage of funding from individuals did not decrease too
much. The DonorsChoose team felt that the strongest and most
sustainable funding structure blended large corporate
partnerships with many small donations from individuals.
The desired funding structure was demonstrated in the 2011
annual rReport presentation, in which the DonorsChoose team
noted that in FY2011 the charity had 370,037 donors, with many
of those donors coming from California (53,426), Florida
(45,417), Tennessee (25,804), New York (21,642) and Illinois
(14,336). The presentation also include a list of 20 FY11
$100,000-$499,999 partners, that ranged from education related
firms, such as LeapFrog Enterprises, to tech companies like
Facebook and Yahoo!, to banks, including Golman Sachs and
Wachovia. Thirteen FY11 $500,000+ Partners were listed:
Omidyar Network, American Express Members Project, Bill &
Melinda Gates foundation, bing, Chevron, Claire Giannini Fund,
Horace Mann, hp, Pershing Square Foundation, Sonic,
Townsend Press, U.S. Cellular and Yellow Chair Foundation.
The presentation noted that they raised $32, 664, 680 in FY11.2
The team had re-organized several times since its inception.
One of the more significant changes was the introduction, in
February 2010, of a team member dedicated to digital
marketing. He spent 18 months at DonorsChoose, experimenting
with the impact digital marketing could have on the
organization, using such tactics as paid search, affiliate
marketing and display advertising, and including retargeting
and Facebook ads. His goal was to drive donor acquisitions

online. Ultimately Bisbee and her team realized it
2 DonorsChoose.org 2011 Annual Report,
http://prezi.com/6vkffcihisht/donorschooseorg-fy11-annual-
report/, accessed July 27, 2014.
did not make sense to use these channels to acquire new donors,
as the costs and resources required to do so did not generate a
sufficient return. In August 2011, the digital marketing role was
eliminated.
In November 2011, the team was reorganized to better support
the organization’s revenue drivers (see Exhibit 2). Several years
prior to this reorganization, DonorsChoose had launched a
function on the website that allowed donors to comment on their
reasons for donating. One of the biggest discoveries to spring
from the comments was that teachers were in fact driving much
of the organization’s fundraising
— essentially, teachers were asking people to donate to projects
for their classrooms. Further examination showed that teachers
were the largest drivers of donations on the website (see Exhibit
2).
Bisbee, having been promoted to the position of chief marketing
officer at DonorsChoose, had assumed a role that included
responsibility for branding and awareness, in addition to
managing the Individual Donors team. She had three direct
reports. The first, the marketing communications manager, was
responsible for donor retention through email marketing. This
work included optimizing the emails that existed in the database
— for example automated emails were sent out, such as those
emails to teachers alerting them that their thank you notes or
photos had been sent. The second direct report, the marketing
manager, communities, was responsible for acquiring new
donors through mobilization campaigns (whether they were

donor-facing or teacher campaigns). This manager needed to be
ready to act on any number of campaign opportunities that
might arise. The final staff member on the marketing team was
the senior marketing manager, engagement. This person played
several key roles: identifying influential people in the database
and finding ways to cultivate them, and determining which
segments were important and how to pursue them. Critically,
this person was focused on finding influencers, promoters and
advocates, rather than top donors. Also reporting to Bisbee was
a full-time intern who was responsible for social media. Despite
spending very little on marketing and investing limited
resources in media outreach, the team was able to maintain its
strong public profile due to the quality of the team’s work and
the results the organization was able to show.
The Individual Donors team collaborated heavily with the
technology team. The website and user experience on the site
fell within the domain of the chief technology officer. The
Individual Donors team was responsible for driving potential
donors to the website — or the top of the donation funnel —
while the technology team was focused on converting people
who visited the website. Retention was a responsibility shared
between these two groups.
REFINING THE BRAND
When Best founded DonorsChoose, it was the first
“philanthropic market place” — meaning that donors could
choose specifically where their money went. Because of this,
the name “DonorsChoose” had made a lot of sense — it
described a unique type of organization in the philanthropic
community. Since its founding, however, numerous
organizations with similar designs had been founded, including
Kiva in 2007, and Kickstarter in 2011. As more of these
organizations launched, what had been unique to DonorsChoose

— allowing donors to pick where their money went — became
increasingly prevalent. It became apparent that the public
assumed “DonorsChoose” enabled donations to any number of
charities. A clarification was needed that the donations were
specific to education.
Several additional factors drove the realization that the brand’s
presentation needed to be revisited. Bisbee and her team found
that people had trouble remembering the name. For example,
DonorsChoose was often misremembered as Donors Choice. The
name was also very difficult for people to understand over the
telephone — was it DonorsChoose or Donors’ Shoes? In fact,
Best noted that his one regret was
creating a name people had trouble remembering. Within the
organization, some people believed that these issues were
hurting ability of the brand to leverage word-of-mouth and viral
marketing.
Finally, Bisbee and her team were very aware that the
corporations donating to their organization cared about the
brand recognition of the charity they were donating to. The
assumption was that their affiliation with a charity would
become more valuable if that charity was well known among
their consumers. They realized they needed to do a better job
conveying what the organization did.
Although DonorsChoose had considered addressing this issue
for several years, in the summer of 2011, the organization was
in a financial position to hire an agency to take on this work.
Bisbee and her team began reaching out to branding agencies. In
the early phases of this process, they were not even sure what
the scope of the project should be: would they change their
name, logo, tag line?

The team began by considering whether the organization should
change its name. Bisbee and her team spoke with various
marketing and branding experts and also contacted several non-
profits that had decided to change their names. (Second Harvest,
for example, a charity focused on addressing hunger in the
United States, had recently changed its name to Feeding
America.) Bisbee knew there was a major risk in changing the
DonorsChoose name. Doing so would create difficulties for a
variety of constituents, as DonorsChoose had already gained
significant exposure with its existing name, including extensive
media coverage, such as two appearances on The Oprah Winfrey
Show. Additionally, Bisbee felt that the organization’s core
expertise was not in branding, and that it would not necessarily
be willing to commit the significant resources necessary to
accomplish a complete re-work of the brand.
In December 2011, the DonorsChoose team made the difficult
decision to keep the name DonorsChoose. The board in
particular unanimously felt it was too late to change the name of
the organization. Bisbee’s hope was that the organization could
develop a tagline and logo that, combined with the name, would
be better able to convey the mission of the organization.
In late winter 2011, Bisbee engaged Siegel+Gale, a global
branding agency, to generate taglines and test them out with
DonorsChoose’s existing and prospective donors. They were
tasked with creating a memorable tagline that included a focus
on education.
Bisbee and her team provided Siegel+Gale with some context
for the assignment. To begin with, the tagline at that moment in
time was “An online charity connecting you to classrooms in
need.” Previously, until June 2007, it had been, “Teachers Ask.
You Choose. Students Learn.” (see Exhibit 3). Additionally,
Bisbee and her team shared with Siegel+Gale a logo/tagline
combination they admired, for an organization called Share Our

Strength. Share Our Strength had gone through a branding
exercise similar to what Bisbee and her team were engaged in,
and had ended up with the tagline, “No Kid Hungry,” and a logo
featuring an apple core with two kids’ faces outlined in the
negative space around either side of the core. The organization
occasionally even flipped the tagline and name, allowing the
tagline to take the leading role in the overall presentation of the
brand. Bisbee felt the combination was powerful, short and
punchy, and was looking for something equally as strong for
DonorsChoose.
Siegel+Gale took the challenge and generated a collection of
taglines that were well received by Bisbee and her team. The
following taglines were on Bisbee’s short list:
· Build a better classroom.
· Kids. Teachers. You.
· The gift of learning.
· Help a classroom in need.
The real test though was from the qualitative study conducted
from April 23 to May 14, 2012 and the informal comments
received from highly engaged donors, teachers, vendors, and
corporate and foundation partners during a similar timeframe.
On May 24, DonorsChoose received the results of the
qualitative study (see Exhibit 4). The survey was conducted
online, and the participants included 217 DonorsChoose donors
and 412 individuals who had donated to any non-profit in the
past two years. Participants were asked a series of questions to
provide information about their reception to the taglines and to
two colour treatments of the logo and the name (DonorsChoose
was being considered instead of DonorsChoose.org). The results
reinforced the casual comments they had received from key
constituents. Their assumption had been that the “Choose” part

of name would reinforce the concept that donors could select
which projects they wanted to fund, and the tagline would serve
to bring out the “education” part of their mission. They found,
however, that the study participants seemed to forget the name,
DonorsChoose, once they heard the tagline, while the
“education” portion of the message was received clearly, they
did not have a sense of the model or what they were supposed to
do — volunteer, adopt a kid, fund a project? The integration of
“choice” and “education” was core to what Bisbee and her team
needed to communicate to their stakeholders. The taglines
seemed to accomplish one at the expense of the other.
Siegel+Gale left Bisbee and her team with an 82-page
presentation of the detailed findings of their study and a lot to
think about. Were they ready to select a tagline and move
forward? If so, which one best accomplished their objectives?
Was the tagline really the solution to DonorsChoose’s current
predicament? Could it be accomplished with something subtler,
or was there a need for a more dramatic effort? Were there other
considerations or stakeholders involved in the mix that should
be considered? While it was clear that the organization risked
losing the ground it had gained with its existing branding, the
potential of an ideally executed brand refinement could be game
changing. It struck Bisbee that this issue was a remarkably
simple problem, but solving it was proving to be tricky and
intricate.
EXHIBIT 1: FUNDS RAISED BY DONORSCHOOSE.ORG,
2003 TO 2012
Source: DonorsChoose.org, “Impact,” October 3, 2012,
www.donorschoose.org/about/impact.html, accessed October 3,
2012.

EXHIBIT 2: DONORSCHOOSE.ORG’S MAIN REVENUE
DRIVERS
New Donors
Return Donors
1
Teacher Pages
1
Direct
2
Giving Pages
2
Organic
3
Gift Codes
3
Facebook
4
Direct
4
System Emails
5
Referral
5
Campaign Emails
6
Organic
6
Digital Marketing
7
Refer a Friend
8
Digital Marketing

Note: Gift codes are DonorsChoose gift cards, which allow
recipients to select their own projects for donations. Source:
Company files.
EXHIBIT 3: EXCERPT FROM CREATIVE BRIEF FOR
DONORSCHOOSE.ORG TAGLINE DEVELOPMENT, APRIL
12, 2012
Source: Company files.
EXHIBIT 4: EXCERPTS FROM TAGLINE RESEARCH
PRESENTATION BY SIEGEL+GALE TO DONORSCHOOSE
MAY 24, 2012
EXHIBIT 4 (CONTINUED)
All “Potential” responses are captured on the left and all
“Current” on the right.
Source: Company files.

2Non-Profit Marketing Week # 4 – Harvard Case StudyYou.docx

2Non-Profit Marketing Week # 4 – Harvard Case StudyYou.docx

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