Bluefrog gets connected

An organisational case for support might help highlight some of the reasons why people give to you, but it will rarely help you identify why they don't.

The reasons are surprisingly complex, but one is quite simple – it's a hassle. It's rarely a case of simply handing over money. The industry standard that we all use requires people to fill in forms, write cheques or hand over credit card numbers.

It might not be a particularly difficult task, but it's enough of an ordeal for many people to put an appeal aside to respond to later and then forget about it. Why else are reminders so successful?

It was one of the reasons that I came up with a pack back in the mid-nineties that was designed to circumvent the barriers to giving. That meant that I needed to ensure that there were no onerous forms to fill in and no cheques to write.

The result was the pound pack (which you can read more about here) and rather than generating a response rate of one or two per cent, it recruited donors at rates in excess of 20%.

Of course, that first gift of £1 didn't mean a great deal. What was important was the subsequent donor journey and the process that led the supporter to set up a direct debit.

When managed correctly, it generated a ten year ROI that beat those achieved by face to face recruitment. It was one of the reasons why it was copied so widely.

Over the years, Bluefrog has used the same techniques developed for the pound pack in other ways – for prospecting (two-step) street recruitment and, starting back in 2002, for the mobile phone. Both techniques helped reduce the barriers to giving by making sign-up easy – no forms to complete and no searching for a means of payment.

With the growth in mobile giving, it became obvious that we needed a partner to work with in order to offer mobile one-off and regular giving services to our clients – particularly for two-step street recruitment.

As a result, I am very pleased to announce that we have agreed to work with Cymba and can now add their Connected product to the Bluefrog fundraising portfolio. Cymba have a huge amount of practical experience and there was no other player in the market with their level of understanding of the use of mobile devices for fundraising.

Steve Hanna, Cymba's director summed up why we decided to work together…

"Bluefrog had a fantastic appreciation of the donor journey. We've undertaken a great deal of testing and were very impressed with their approach. We can't wait to see it in action."

There seems to have been some confusion in the market with regard to Connected. As Cymba have pointed out, it is not tied to one particular fundraising agency and there is no patent in place.

Anyone can use Connected with any combination of creative, strategic, face to face or telephone agencies they wish. If you would like to speak to Cymba about Connected you can get in touch with them directly by clicking here.

But as mentioned, it's the donor journey what really counts and with having many years of experience with prospecting fundraising techniques, everyone at Bluefrog is very excited about really starting to push the boundaries of what can be achieved through mobile devices.

Mobile regular giving is not just another form of direct debit. With the combination of the control and great feedback it offers, it can generate attrition rates that are far lower than those achieved by many more traditional techniques.

It is also very effective at reactivating lapsed regular givers – even those who were originally recruited by face to face fundraisers.

There's an app for that.

And to provide the best feedback available to supporters, Bluefrog has created a rather exciting new app.

Built on the back of our award winning uSpace feedback engine, we have created a device that can provide your donors with direct insight into what their gifts are achieving and really connect them to your cause.

All this can be achieved both inside and outside your donors' email stream as they can be directly informed of updates via push messages to their home screen.

It's taken Bluefrog many months to build, and we are very pleased with the results. As you'll see from the images using WSPA's platform as an example, it looks rather good too.

You can be set up with your own branded app packed full of great content in a matter of weeks and you'll find the cost structure very, very affordable. If you'd like to see a demonstration version and hear more about bluefrog's 360 degree mobile offering (with or without our app) please get in touch with us by emailing me at [email protected].

And finally, if you are interested in helping us run our new mobile fundraising operation, we are looking to recruit a Head of Mobile. You can find out more by emailing me at [email protected] in strictest confidence.