Our Place Society - The $2.79 change

In 2011, Our Place Society’s fundraising was in a state of flux. Leadership at the senior levels was experiencing unprecedented turnover and revenue had remained constant for three years. Nearly five years before, Our Place organized a successful capital campaign to build a top-class facility. Unfortunately, the operating revenue did not grow to match the increased need. For the past three years Our Place was in a deficit and community support was stagnant.

Frontier was brought in by the interim Director of Development to bring game-changing results that would help Our Place out of the deficit and onto a path for sustained growth.

Rethinking Our Place

If you asked the leadership of Our Place about their services in early 2011, they would gravitate towards their drop-in centre or 45 transitional housing units. They would describe in depth the areas of their building that serviced the city’s poor, from the nutrition bar and computer room on the first floor, to the showers and recreation room in the basement. Clearly their facility was top of mind. Donors however, were quite overwhelmed and confused about Our Place and didn’t know how much to give and why to give.

So, in Spring 2011 we mailed tens of thousands of homes, in addition to Our Place’s current donors, with a simple message. For $2.79, you will provide a complete Easter meal to a neighbour in need. Later, we refreshed the brand, rebuilt the website, and continued to execute the direct mail program for another two years.

The Result

An organization that relied on 3,000 donors per year now had over 6,000, and the number of gifts each year went from less than 6,000 to over 13,000. In the first year alone, monthly donors increase 21% and donor retention rate jumped from 62 to 72%. Nearly $60,000 was being raised from a single direct mail appeal.

The website, that raised $17k in December 2010, processed nearly $50,000 December 2012.

An organization formerly struggling with a big building and small budget no longer had a deficit. What replaced it was a simple and effective system for communicating their message, building loyalty, and raising revenue.