Tales from the Secret Giver is a semi-regular column sharing insights, ideas, statistics, feedback and anecdotes from JGA’s Secret Giver scheme – a comprehensive mystery shopping and benchmarking programme for the voluntary sector, tracking and analysing every communication from nearly fifty charities across a wide range of causes. And still it rains. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a glimmer of summer on its way. While watching the raindrops race down the window pane, it seemed an opportune time to review three
It has now been two years since we started the Secret Giver. At the beginning, we set ourselves the lofty ambition of being able to genuinely track and understand the supporter’s true perspective on their ongoing relationships with the charities they support. Each of our Givers supports and tracks just one charity each – ensuring they get exposed to every single element of the Supporter Journey as it develops and can give us regular, consistent feedback on their experience. So far, our
Much of the feedback we’ve seen since launching our Secret Giver Scheme nearly two years ago, has reinforced just how important some of the absolute basics of building good relationships still are. Very high on the list has been how we address our valued supporters in an appropriate and time-honoured fashion. And while this seems to be almost de rigueur for postal comms, surprisingly it seems that digital is currently lagging (somewhat) behind. Often, we’ve seen emails that are Dear Jo
Secret Giver scheme – a comprehensive mystery shopping and benchmarking programme for the voluntary sector, tracking and analysing every communication from nearly fifty charities across a wide range of causes. Now that the dust (or perhaps more accurately, drizzle) has settled on another festive period, we have been reflecting on some of the best of the Christmas campaigns and engagements as reported by our Secret Givers. Clearly, Christmas remains a key time in the fundraising calendar. Our data shows that November and December
With Easter almost upon us, the end of the first 12 months of Secret Giver also beckons. The colossus of comms received – both paper and electronic – gave rise the topical discussion (in our office anyway) of quantity versus quality. It’s obvious, I hear you cry, surely it’s the quality that matters; less is more, don’t overload donors, blah blah blah. Well, not exactly. Many charities worry about bombarding donors with too much information too often, but at JGA, we have discovered