Unity in the Ranks
Through a national database appending initiative this spring, the United Jewish Communities/Jewish Federations of North America was able to help local member organizations find thousands of donors who had relocated to other communities.
The organization represents 157 Jewish Federations and 400 affiliated communities that raise and distribute more than $3 billion annually for social welfare, social services and educational needs. Those 157 local federations all know their particular markets very well, notes Adam Smolyar, senior vice president, strategic marketing and communications, United Jewish Communities. But as people moved to different cities or states, keeping track of them as they relocated was a tremendous challenge.
“Donors who moved were often lost, and we wanted to find a way to reverse an overall trend of a declining donor base,” says Smolyar.
A pilot program of the concept — to create a shared information system for the locals to share data that could be appended on the national level — was pitched to eight of the largest federations last fall.
“We found there was a pent-up demand for something like this,” says Smolyar, noting that out of the 120,000 records processed, 48,000 “lost” donors were found to have moved to a total of 142 different federations across the U.S.
The data on the “found” members was offered to all federations, regardless of whether they had participated in the trial. This spring, 69 federations participated as the program rolled out. Over 358,700 records were processed, and 33,000 past donors who had moved were found. UJC worked with Silver Marketing on the program.
Eventually, Smolyar says, the UJC would like to get all 157 federations to voluntarily participate in the database initiative.
Most fundraising for the UJC is done on the local level, with a concentrated effort of telemarketing on “Super Sundays,” typically at the end or beginning of the calendar year. Direct mail and online marketing are also increasingly used.
