Common Knowledge's Rapid Donor Cultivation (RDC) program attempts to wed these two strategies by focusing on both the long-term ROI and the elapsed time to the first gift.
Inspired by the best practices of the online retail industry, the RDC program attempts to maximize the ROI of a nonprofit's email subscriber acquisition efforts. The program automatically runs for the first 45 days immediately following a subscriber's opt-in and cultivates him or her with high-quality, pertinent content. So far, Common Knowledge says the RDC program has demonstrated a 15% increase in average gift size and an 83% increase in donor conversion.
Overall, Jenny reports the program also reduces the time to the first gift, increases the number of subscribers who give, and - in initial estimates - increases the lifetime value of new subscribers. With RDC, Common Knowledge says the rate of conversion of subscribers to donors increased by 83% for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) compared to the previous year.