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  • 1.  Coding DAF gifts to direct mail or email appeals? Implied attribution

    Posted 03-26-2024 09:53 AM

    Colleagues, 

    I'm curious how many of your orgs attribute DAF gifts to recent email or mail appeals, and then code them as such? If so, what time frame do you use for attribution?

    Our org has a historic practice of looking up every DAF gift, and if the donor has a "recent" direct mail or email appeal (usually within 30 days), we'll code the DAF gift to the DM appeal.

    I have reservations about this practice for 3 reasons:

    1. DAF gifts can't be linked to a specific DM appeal unless the donor informs you; this practice can mis-represent gift attribution.
    2. Scale: as our org has grown, we don't have staffing to look up every DAF gift to assess appeal attribution
    3. Fund assignment: DAFs come with the purpose statement; our GOs often state the the donor intended the gift to go to the fund on the direct mail appeal, not the purpose statement on the DAF. We go by the DAF purpose, as that's the legally binding statement of gift designation from the donor.

    My past experience suggests that it's more effective to create an appeal of "DAF" and ask the direct mail/email teams to treat DAF donors as a segment, with custom messaging asking them to renew their DAF gifts, rather than trying to attribute a DAF gift to a prior direct mail appeal.

    I'd love to hear the variety of practices on this question that are out there! Thank you.



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    Faith Danforth
    The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health
    faith.danforth@lpfch.org
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  • 2.  RE: Coding DAF gifts to direct mail or email appeals? Implied attribution

    Posted 03-26-2024 10:00 AM

    We only would attribute a DAF gift to a DM or email appeal if we received direct communication from the donor either by the communication in the collateral or by a direct communication from the donor to us.

     

    Karry Morton | Director, Gift Services
    Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation
    13123 East 16th Avenue, Box 045 | Aurora, CO 80045
    Phone: 720-777-1742 | Cell: 720-323-3305


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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Coding DAF gifts to direct mail or email appeals? Implied attribution

    Posted 03-26-2024 11:01 AM
    Attribution is always imperfect, so it really is a matter of picking an approach and being consistent about it, so at least you can do historical comparisons.  I think that for many orgs it's preferable to assume that a gift was driven by email or DM than to have no attribution at all. Both are inaccurate - the donor gave for a reason - but attribution to DM and email is always a leaky bucket. Knowing that direct tracking falls short of the true totals for those channels, it's reasonable to loosen the attribution rules and count some of these unsourced gifts in those totals. You can develop even more complex attribution models too, but it may not be worth the trouble in most cases. 

    We want every gift to be traceable, but there is a tension between making it easy to give and making every gift traceable to an appeal. It's inconsistent of us to center the donor experience and try to make giving as easy as possible, but then deny credit for the funds raised because we can't be certain of their attribution. This is especially true if we're measuring the performance of the team using these numbers, but it's true even if we're really restricting ourselves to evaluating the channel itself.


    Thank you,
    Isaac Shalev
    Data Strategy Expert
    Sage70, Inc.
    (917) 859-0151
    isaac@sage70.com

    Schedule a 30-minute consultation now:




    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Coding DAF gifts to direct mail or email appeals? Implied attribution

    Posted 03-27-2024 08:48 AM

    We use RE NXT. When receiving a DAF gift, we soft credit the advisor and add whichever appeal the advisor was likely responding to that is on their record.  The appeal goes on the gift record, but we do not add it to the DAF constituent record. If they are responding to a Gift Officer's Proposal/Opportunity, we do not assign an appeal.  We allocate the gift to whichever fund is stated in the DAF paperwork. Our direct mail pieces give the donor the opportunity to select 'Other' and write in an area of support. 

    Michael     



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    Michael Manning
    University of New England
    Mmanning6@une.edu
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Coding DAF gifts to direct mail or email appeals? Implied attribution

    Posted 03-27-2024 02:43 PM

    Unless you are explicitly soliciting donors to donate from a DAF because they can, I cannot see the merits of creating a DAF appeal. 

    It's fairly common for people to give via DAF in response to a direct mail appeal or an email. We can see on the soft credit recipient's record if they have recently received an appeal or an email. And often enough they will email us to say that they got the appeal and that they're sending a check. 



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    Cameron Alzubi
    Director, Gift Administration
    Illinois Institute of Technology
    calzubi@iit.edu
    giftadmin@iit.edu
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Coding DAF gifts to direct mail or email appeals? Implied attribution

    Posted 03-27-2024 02:52 PM

    Thank you everyone for your replies! It is helpful to hear about the range of practices, where some orgs would never attribute a DAF gift to a DM/email appeal, and others do so regularly under established criteria. Very helpful for this org as we evaluate a path forward. And yes, one option is to create a DAF segment/audience and directly solicit them for that type of gift, since it's so hard to do attribution, and because the path to making a DAF gift is very different from just giving online or dropping a check in the mail. Thanks all!



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    Faith Danforth
    The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health
    faith.danforth@lpfch.org
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    Original Message


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