1. Blackbaud Denver Summit
September 10, 2013
By Rick Gabrielson, Kristin Snow, & Jenny Herron

2. Introductions
• Rick Gabrielson, Vice President of
Development & Communications
• Kristin Snow, Director of Communications
• Jenny Herren, Marketing Technology Manager

3. About the Dumb Friends League
• 103 years of service to animals
and people in the metro Denver
area
• Private organization, reliant on
donations
• Two shelters for homeless pets
and pet-related programs; one
equine center for abused and
neglected horses and other
equine
• 4-star rating on Charity Navigator

4. Our Mission & Our Website
OUR MISSION
The Dumb Friends League is
committed to the welfare of animals:
• We shall provide shelter and
care for animals
• We shall provide programs and
services that enhance the bond
between animals and people
• We shall be advocates for
animals – speaking for those
who cannot speak for
themselves
OUR WEBSITE
The role of the Dumb Friends League
website is to:
• Promote adoptions of the
animals in our care
• Enable donations so that we can
provide programs and services for
pets and people
• Encourage involvement as a
volunteer, fundraiser and
advocate for animals

5. Our Current Website

6. Audiences & Engagement: Adopters
35 options
under Adopt

7. Audiences & Engagement: Donors
13 options
under Ways to
Give, plus two
Donate buttons
and a slide to
donate through
an event

8. Audiences & Engagement:
Volunteers/Activists
9 options
under
Volunteer

9. Audiences & Engagement: Programs &
Services

10. Goals & Reasons for Redesign
Increase adoptions,
donations and
engaged community
members through:
– Overall usability
– Clearer calls to action
– Less and better content
– Modern look/functionality
– Responsive design

11. Clearer Calls to Action by Audience

12. Measuring Functional Success
• Functional Success
through growth
–Increase in online
donations
–Housefile growth
–Traffic to the website:
increase in unique visits

13. Online Fundraising Strategies
• Acquisition
– Appeals - All acquisition fundraising appeals include a custom URL to a donation landing page
– Contest - We run a calendar contest through our website to acquire new donors and grow our housefile
– Welcome series - Constituents signing up for email communications through the website receive a three part
welcome series: welcome, educate, ask
– TeamRaiser - Peer to peer fundraising through personal fundraising and Dumb Friends League events using
TeamRaiser on our website
• Retention
– Stewardship - Thank you and stewardship emails acknowledging their support showing them how it’s
helped our mission and the animals
– Segmentation – Communications based on constituent preference and giving level
– Multichannel opportunities - Ease of giving through multiple channels: mail, website and mobile
– Multiple choices of opportunities - Offering donors multiple ways to give: one-time, monthly giving,
memorial and tributes

14. Online & Offline Fundraising: a
Complementary Relationship
• Direct mail
– Custom URL to a donation landing page
– An email follow-up appeal approximately two weeks after
the mailing drops
– Slide or button on our website homepage
• Events
– Print collateral such as posters, brochures and newsletters
include the URL to the event website to make it easy to
register or donate

15. Online Giving Trends
Planned
Giving
Special Projects
Major Donors
Annual Giving
Direct Mail & Special Events
Moving patrons
up the giving
pyramid
Largest percentage of
online fundraising
• Major donors
becoming more
comfortable with
donating online
• Monthly donors are
increasing

16. Online Revenue History
• Luminate Online
revenue for fiscal
year 2013
– Percentage of overall
revenue 19.3% (includes
events)
– Three-year average
growth of 20%

17. Wag ‘n Trail: Fundraising in Douglas
County
• September event
• Glendale Farm Open
Space north of Castle
Rock
• Benefits the Buddy
Center
• Attracts more than
1,500 animal lovers
• Last year, donations
totaled $138,845

18. Email Strategy
• Integrated with and complementary to all other efforts within
detailed marketing campaigns.
• Combines the following:
– Calendared appeals
– Welcome series, newsletters and other cultivation & stewardship communications
– On-demand (urgent appeal) efforts
– Event-related communications split between potential and committed participants
• Strategic messaging and segmentation based on user preferences
and campaign goals
• Measurement of outcomes
– Open rates
– Clickthrough rate
– Response rate
– New constituents to the housefile

19. Integrated Marketing Strategy
Email and
direct mail
marketing
Free media
coverage (TV
& radio)
Free online &
print
publications &
articles
Paid
advertising
in online &
print
publications,
and on radio
Website
content &
social media
To support our programs,
we use integrated
marketing for all of our
campaigns to combines
free, and in-house efforts
with paid marketing
outreaches.
We use outside expertise
when needed to
complement our
knowledge and staff
talent.