Calgary Dream Centre: One Year with Frontier

History

As the Calgary Dream Centre faced the end of 2014, they had high hopes for the upcoming year—the year signifying their 10th anniversary of influencing transformations in their community. They were working tirelessly. With their efforts focused on helping those most vulnerable in the city, their fundraising had taken the shape of an event-based fundraising program with only rare mailings to donors.

As soon as we began to study their fundraising practices, we saw numerous ways that we could help. So we set about to make their 10th anniversary a critical juncture—a year of unprecedented and sustainable growth.

Introducing Frontier

In the autumn of 2014, the Calgary Dream Centre was seeking to partner with a fundraising agency to help them grow beyond their current fundraising standard and double if not triple their revenue over the course of several years. After deliberating with peers in the mission world, they chose Frontier.

In establishing a partnership, we focused on building trust and relationship—getting to know the members of the Dream Centre personally. Because they view us as an extension of their fundraising team—not simply an external service provider—we are able to soak in the knowledge and culture of the Dream Centre as an organization and develop a deeper understanding of their needs.

We immediately started building a new website and hustled to launch it in December 2014. We also created an annual print and email calendar, and began acquisition campaigns right away.

Because of our personal approach, and getting to know the Calgary Dream Centre even before our official contract, we were able to get to work within weeks of our initial contact, seeking new strategies and improvement right away.

Game Plan

The first improvement we made to the Calgary Dream Centre’s fundraising strategy was a total overhaul of their website. We redesigned every attribute to clarify the focus, creating the entire website around a single call to action: Donate. We also streamlined the online donation experience using our best practices, as explained on our blog. By de-emphasizing third party events, we highlighted the importance of one-time gifts. Instead of being overwhelmed by options, donors were simply being asked to do one thing, so many of them did it!

Over the next 12 months, we grew the Dream Centre’s direct mail campaign to include 7 appeals, 5 acquisition campaigns and 4 newsletters. This increased communication resulted in the addition of 194 new donors since October 2014, which is 150% growth over the previous year.  

The Newsletter itself—which we named “Transformations”—was our own creation. Through the release of quarterly issues, a signature piece has emerged with a focus on sharing information and cultivating relationships with the donors. It provides organizational accountability to these supporters—showing them where their dollars are going—and keeps them informed and engaged. Did you know that donors are known to give up to three times more to charities that show the problem being solved and where their dollars will go?  

Lastly, we gave some time to brand unification. By equipping the Dream Centre with important tools such as a professional, unique and recognizable brand that maintains consistency across all of their “products,” we enabled them to compete in the big leagues and grow their donor base.

Results

Site redesign alone grew online revenue by 66%. We helped them rustle up $161,891 through their website, which is currently 13% of their gross revenue total. Further, the introduction of Transformations and its emphasis on donor care and communications provoked a 17.4% reduction of donor attrition. In fact, 322 donors have returned after not giving for more than two years. That’s roughly equal to their total acquisition of the last three years combined!

Since December 2014, we’ve seen ongoing, visible growth. In fact, the Dream Centre has seen the largest gross donation revenue increase in their history: $1,220,137, an increase of $344,000. In total, they received gifts from 1605 donors, which is a 105% increase.

The Calgary Dream Centre is a charity whose heart for the community eclipsed their capacity to focus on strategic fundraising. Now, with enhanced donor care tools, they’ve been able to build a stronger foundation of trust and loyalty with their donors and raise more revenue. And there’s more in store!

We look forward to a continued partnership with the Calgary Dream Centre in 2016. We plan to establish a branded monthly donor program to further steward existing donors, as well as develop an Easter Direct Mail and Acquisition campaign. On the digital frontier, we’ll be exploring third party event fundraising together. We fully expect good to become better—than best—as we apply more of our fundraising best practices, moving forward!