digital marketing Archives | Chapman Cubine Allen + Hussey

LET ME GIVE IT TO YOU STRAIGHT…

February 10, 2023

by Jenny Allen with No Comment Advice fundraising Nonprofit

My Dad was born in the early 20^th century, and my kids were born in the early 21^st century, and here I sit in the middle.

Dad is 98 years old and needing more help these days (which my brother so often accommodates), and just like when my kids were little, there’s no way to predict what each day will bring. Meanwhile, those kids are flying out of the nest and we’re getting texted requests, questions, and check-ins at all hours … parenting young adults long-distance is fun.

In the midst of all of this, plus COVID, plus our democracy in peril, our planet in crisis, and our bodily autonomy destroyed, plus clients and colleagues who count on me to log on every day (and be washed and fully dressed, one hopes) … I’m wasting no time these days. That means that even more than ever, I’m cutting to the chase, telling it like it is, putting it all out there.

Sometimes I think I’ve lost my filter. Or maybe I don’t need one, or never had one, because the reality is, things are tough, time is short, and I’ve run out of sugar-coating.

And maybe that’s what our donors need right now, too. They’re busy with their work and home lives, they’re bombarded with asks from nonprofits and politicians, volunteering and keeping up with the political news and/or lies (and consequently, popping blood pressure meds), they’re in the same generational squeeze that I am … so maybe they’re looking for us to meet them where they are, with some straight talk.

Let’s not beat around the bush. Tell your donors why you need the money, what you’ll spend it on, why their help is important right now, exactly how it will make a difference—DONE.

Cut through the BS and get down to it. I don’t have time for more and neither do they.

My Sage Advice for Fundraising in 2023

December 20, 2022

by Jenny Allen with No Comment Advice fundraising Nonprofit

Looking for a mantra to guide your fundraising program in 2023?

Here you go:

Stop freaking out.

Yes, fundraising is down virtually across the board. Yes, we’re coming off a very charged political year when progressive donors were pushed as never before online, in the mail, and on the phones. Yes, nonprofits had to compete with the deluge of political ads. The result? Exhausted donors.

Supporters did what they could, but times are tough, family budgets are pinched, and philanthropy sometimes must take a back seat. But I’m here to remind you that we’ve been here before. Many times. And you know this, but probably don’t want to think about it right now: Fundraising’s ups and downs are just part of fundraising.

And now is not the time to cut and run—if you ditch your donor acquisition program because times are tough now, you will only extend the pain later. Instead, invest in prospecting like a financial planner invests in a down market. Invest in prospecting like a Christmas tree farmer planting seedlings every single year. Invest in prospecting because if you don’t … you’re giving up on your future. Now is the time to be strategic and smart.

And look, there’s hope for 2023: Gas prices are falling. The Fed chair says the interest rate craziness might slow down soon. Americans continued to give millions on Giving Tuesday this year. All signs that fundraising will turn around, as it always does.

In the meantime, just stop freaking out. And remember that investments in prospecting today will reap rewards in the future when other organizations’ donor counts are down, and yours are holding strong. True, they may not be giving as much, but that’s yet another reason to keep incrementally upping your donor counts.

Budget for as much prospecting as you can reasonably afford—knowing that you’ll lose money now and make up for it later. Lose the freak-out attitude, make your best case for support, and just stay out there.

Dems Defy Midterms Conventional Wisdom

November 10, 2022

by Kim Cubine with No Comment Campaigns Politics

With the polls all over the place these last weeks, it was hard to know which end was up. But when everything shook out, one thing was clear: Democrats defied expectations and there was no “red wave” or Trump-dominated victories. As Stephen Colbert said, it was more of a “pink trickle.”

House Republicans are still trying to figure out how they can govern, given their caucus of conspiracy-theorists, election deniers, and the Trump gold standard – Marjorie Taylor Greene. Meanwhile, Democrats have big plans for the Lame Duck session and our Senate majority in the new year. Not to mention the key Georgia Senate run-off coming up on December 6.

So, while the dust is settling, I want to highlight some big wins that we are celebrating. First, two Democratic women were elected governor for the first time in New York and Massachusetts, and Democrat Wes Moore is the first Black person to be elected governor of Maryland.

CCAH congratulates our partners for their hard work in these races:

EMILY’s List, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Governors Association, NAACP LDF, and LCV Give Green.

We congratulate Senator Michael Bennet on his reelection. And a huge thank you to Rep. Val Demings for her hard-fought race in Florida and also to Cheri Beasley and Marcus Flowers for their dogged pursuit of democracy against Trump-endorsed candidates.

A big shout-out to my CCAH colleagues across all departments who, through it all, dealt with impossible deadlines and last-minute edits due to political winds changing, as our political clients fought for the soul of our nation. No pressure!

These midterm elections will echo for generations to come, as we literally rewrote the political status quo. I’m so proud to work with our clients and colleagues to keep fighting for progress, equality, and a strengthened democracy for this country that we love.

Navigating the Online Ad Space in a Crowded Year End

October 12, 2022

by Mike Crump with No Comment digital fundraising marketing

As if the year-end online advertising/fundraising season isn’t busy enough with holiday shopping, Giving Tuesday, and nonprofits’ year-end pushes, this year is extra busy with the midterm elections and candidates Hoovering up much of the available ad buys. On top of that, the online advertising ecosystem is changing fast, so let’s review the potential impacts on fundraising efforts through year end.

This means we get:

Less precise targeting on social and display advertising.
Higher impression costs across platforms.
Reduced efficacy of advertising, particularly on social platforms.

Yes, we’re paying more and getting less—we know returns won’t be the same, so we must be more strategic.

CPM is inversely proportional to audience size, so when targeting custom lists of constituents (active donors, lapsed donors, on-file nondonors, etc.), advertisers continue to see even more elevated costs. Within the nonprofit sector, Meta’s CPMs are ranging from the high teens to $30, and in some cases even higher.

Prospecting costs have also increased, due to less-precise algorithmic targeting, which requires a greater number of signals to optimize. Following the release of Apple’s iOS 14.5, Meta projects that it lost approximately 60%, if not more, of available signals and data points. Meta’s algorithm, which historically could optimize based off signals of audiences of 5,000 or more, now requires audiences in the hundreds of thousands to achieve similar results. Additionally, Meta’s decision to remove social issue targeting from the platform has adversely and disproportionately impacted the nonprofit sector.

CCAH is working closely with our clients and can help your team in the lead-up to, and during, year-end fundraising to ensure an appropriate media mix and targeting strategy, to balance revenue with new donor acquisition.

While search still remains one of the stronger paid sources for revenue generation, return on ad spend (ROAS) has dropped year over year due to rising impression costs and, subsequently, costs per click. Within the nonprofit sector, CCAH has seen ROAS drop over the last 12 months from 200-300% on average (varying by a number of factors, including nonprofit vertical, name recognition, and competition from peer organizations) to 100-150%. While paid search remains breakeven to revenue positive, we do anticipate a softer calendar year-end 2022 compared to 2021, so be prepared!

CPMs in the programmatic space have also increased approximately 75% year over year, which means fewer impressions delivered with available budgets. So we’re focused on efficiently using available dollars to maximize display ad performance—actively testing a number of new data solutions in the programmatic space to refine ad targeting and optimize for the likeliest prospective donors, while also testing new creative and ad types including native, streaming audio and video, and interactive ad units.

The Bottom Line:

To really know the full impact on year-end fundraising, we need more data on performance trends closer to year-end. And so we’re continuing to gather data and closely monitor these signals and more, but we can now project that advertising budgets will not stretch as far as they did last year.

With increased impression and click costs, fewer constituents will see your ads, which will likely result in a reduction of direct gifts from ad channels. Additional competition from political fundraising in the lead-up to the midterm elections, as well as evolving economic issues, will further impact results.

Average gift value during the last major recession (2008) dropped about 7%. Although gas prices are moving down and consumer confidence is rising, we’re monitoring across channels and tactics to see whether the perception of a recession remains, which could affect average gifts.

And if you find some extra money in your budget leading up to year-end, we recommend reallocating some of it to ad budgets to help mitigate the general reduction of ad efficiencies as we move through EOY, past the busy holiday shopping season and Election Day and into the new year!

Online advertising remains a key component of any multichannel fundraising program, despite the crowded space, changing regulations, and rising costs.

We are dedicated to monitoring, testing, and advising our clients on how to navigate these situations as they arise, and helping to determine the best strategies for ads success.

We’d be happy to help you, too! Please reach out if you’re interested in talking to our incredible Ads Team to help you maximize your ads buy!

September is Hunger Action Month

September 29, 2022

by Alyssa Runckel with No Comment fundraising Nonprofit volunteering

A month where people all across America came together to stand against hunger, share concern and awareness, volunteer, donate goods or pledge financial support to food banks. All of us at CCAH are proud to stand with the San Francisco – Marin Food Bank. The Food Bank is one of our newest clients, and we can’t think of a better organization to recognize and share the amazing work they are doing to end hunger and address food insecurity in San Francisco and Marin. For over 30 years the Food Bank has been distributing food, transforming lives and advocating for policies that address the root cause of hunger and strengthen the social safety net.

In honor of Hunger Action Month, members of our team recently volunteered at a pop-up food pantry in North Beach. To meet increased demand during the pandemic, the Food Bank opened 20 temporary pop-up pantries across San Francisco and Marin to serve ten times more people than their 240+ regular food pantries. Like the regular food pantries, with their partners, the Food Bank brings fresh groceries directly into the neighborhoods where they are needed the most and caters to populations ranging from families to seniors.

In addition to the 20 pop up pantries and 240+ regular food pantries, the Food Bank provides weekly groceries to over 55,000 households, distributes 1,300,000 meals every week and delivers groceries to over 10,000 households. The Food Bank also advocates for policies and programs that make transformative change.

You can visit sfmfoodbank.org to learn more today.

Connecting people. Social network concept. Bright background

Look for us Here: Nonprofit Fundraising and Marketing Conferences to Mark on your Calendar

September 16, 2022

by CCAH Staff with No Comment fundraising Nonprofit

CCAH is excited to be able to attend, sponsor (and present at!) several conferences during the remainder of the year.

We hope these are on your list as well!

Tech Forward Conference

CCAH is proud to sponsor TechImpact’s conference in Denver, Colorado taking place next week, September 18 – 20. VP Digital Services Dave Onate and Principal & SVP Brenna Holmes will be there, so if you are in or near Denver, join us & register! And while it’s last minute, CCAH has one last free pass available for a nonprofit attendee, so if you’re interested, email Brenna today!

Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit (NIO)

Principal and SVP Brenna Holmes is excited to attend this for the second year! This multi-day summit is a premier online fundraising conference for those looking to grow their programs and embrace innovation.

She hopes to see you in Kansas City, MO, next week, September 20 – 23. but if you can’t make it, they offer a FREE virtual livestream option too!

DMAW Sustainer Day

Back in person for the first time since 2019, we hope you’ll join us in Washington, D.C. on September 29 to learn everything you need to know about building (or leveling up!) a robust recurring giving program! Including a special panel discussion on Mastercard’s new regulations. Register today and save the date.

Engaging Networks Community Conference

As an accredited partner, CCAH is proud to be a Gold Sponsor for this year’s community conference on October 6 – 7 in Washington, D.C. So, if you are an Engaging Networks client, or thinking about exploring a new eCRM platform, please join us! In addition to sponsoring the conference, two CCAHers will be presenting! Check out the full agenda and register to attend.

DMAW Data Strategy Forum

On October 18 DMAW is hosting the DSF in downtown DC. This one-day workshop is one of DMAW’s fastest growing event and given how critical data strategy is and how it affects all channels of fundraising and marketing it’s no wonder! CCAH is proud to sponsor, and we hope you’ll join us and Brenna Holmes for her presentation on payment strategies and their role in the overall digital fundraising landscape. Register Now and mark your calendars to attend!

Whether we see you in Denver, Kansas City, here in DC, or virtually from the comfort of your own desk, we hope you’ll take advantage of all the fantastic educational opportunities available to our industry!

Any conferences we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Implementing Mastercard’s New Sustainer Rules

September 12, 2022

by Brenna Holmes with No Comment fundraising Nonprofit

You’ve probably heard that Mastercard is changing its standards for Subscription/Recurring Payments—monthly sustainers in our world, and the lifeblood of so many organizations.

These new standards have caused much confusion among nonprofits and their processing platforms—especially Mastercard’s definition of a “subscription,” so Mastercard recently informed The Nonprofit Alliance (TNPA) that the standards won’t take effect until March 21, 2023. This extension gives nonprofits the chance to make the necessary changes in our programs to reach compliance, without having to focus on this at our busiest time of the year.

Mastercard also backed off on its most costly and time-consuming new rule for nonprofits—that each monthly gift must be acknowledged, even for donors who haven’t shared their email addresses. Now the acknowledgments are only required for sustainers with an email address on file.

While implementing these new standards will take some time and diligence, we see this as a terrific opportunity to ramp up sustainer stewardship, and more fully engage with our monthly donors through the increased mandatory contacts and transparency.

a terrific opportunity to ramp up sustainer stewardship, and more fully engage with our monthly donors

Some of the key requirements are probably already part of our stewardship, and the rest represent best practices that will enhance the sustainer’s experience, which can only be a good thing. Let’s review some of Mastercard’s “must do” directives. Going forward, we must:

Send a confirmation email at the time of enrollment that outlines how the sustaining giving will work—e.g., when the donor’s credit card will be charged every month, how much will be charged, as well as instructions on how the donor can cancel at any time.
Email a receipt after every sustainer gift is charged, that also includes instructions for how to cancel the sustaining membership.
Provide an easy cancellation method (similar to unsubscribing from emails), but this can also be a donor services number if your systems don’t have DYI giving management capabilities (or they aren’t setup yet).
Collect email addresses from anyone making a recurring gift. This should already be a required field online, but if you are actively recruiting sustainers offline, think about creative ways to drive email address collection—and make sure these emails get recorded with this gift!
- You can even encourage prospective sustainers to scan a QR code and make their gift online instead!
For sustainers who are charged less frequently than every six months, send a notification at least seven days before the credit card is charged, reiterating the terms of the sustaining membership and how to cancel.

Mastercard’s goal with these requirements is to reduce the number of chargebacks and disputed charges that the company has been seeing. While chargebacks and disputes aren’t rampant throughout the nonprofit industry, some bad actor organizations have taken advantage of sustaining donors and misled them about the terms of their recurring gifts.

The most egregious and unethical example was the Trump campaign’s fine-print, pre-checked opt-in for WEEKLY sustaining gifts. Of course, outraged donors cried fraud and credit card companies had a real mess on their hands issuing $122 million in refunds, while the campaign used the money for its last-ditch media blitz pre-Election Day in 2020. Made us all look bad.

Writing in Non-Profit Pro, Erica Waasdorp sees these new requirements as undue burdens on nonprofits, and encourages us to support a letter to Mastercard asking for nonprofits to be exempted from these new rules.

She believes that the requirements might make sustaining gifts less about a philanthropic relationship with a nonprofit, and more about the transaction. While recognizing that some of Waasdorp’s points have merit, we can definitely see the benefits of these kinds of donor contact becoming industry standards.

Some guidelines for implementing Mastercard’s changes:

No matter how our sustainers make their recurring gifts (e.g., offline, ACH, Visa, Discover, Mastercard, etc.), put these changes into practice across the board, since they truly are best practices in terms of sustainer stewardship. And increased contact is a win-win.
Review all recurring gift confirmation language to ensure that we are aligned with the information necessary to be in compliance with these rules.
Make sure that there is a clear and easy way for sustainers to cancel their commitment. Provide a direct line to donor services and a simple form linked in all sustainer related emails—that active sustainers can fill out to cancel. Of course, both require staff time to speak to donors, and to reconcile form submissions with active/canceled sustaining gifts in a timely manner, but both are a good interim step while a more robust donor portal is being deployed.
Create a recurring monthly gift receipt—ideally an automatic one—for all sustainers by setting up an autoresponder that will contact the sustainer every time their recurring gift is processed. Staff or your agency-partner (like us) will have to audit active donation forms and enable this setting on each form, as well as setup standards for all new forms.
For sustainers without an email address, try to collect email addresses whenever possible. Review your assets. Are you asking for email on your reply? How about on the acknowledgment for the initial gift? You are also do special outreach to active sustainers to collect emails, and/or conduct an eAppend, which is a data append specifically designed to add emails to postal records.
- SMS is another great way to send receipts! And collect emails, so if you have cell phones on file, this is another great touchpoint to add into your sustainer stewardship program!

Remember, Mastercard’s deadline to get this all implemented is March 21, 2023, and as much as we all love a good deadline in fundraising, don’t let it sneak up on you, spring will be here before we know it, LOL.

At CCAH, we’re looking on this as a great opportunity to really button up our sustainer programs with improved systems to keep these loyal donors informed, and allow them to opt out—but still think positively of our clients’ organizations—by making it easy—and we’d be happy to help you too! So, reach out, if you are interested in talking to our digital and systems specialists about how you can come into compliance before the deadline.

Mastercard’s deadline to get this all implemented is March 21, 2023

Rookie of the Quarter: Matthew B

August 31, 2022

by CCAH Staff with No Comment CCAH Celebration client services

At CCAH, we know that progress is what keeps us relevant and keeps us moving toward our mission — advancing change and committing to activism that makes a difference. That’s why each quarter we like to recognize one our newest employees who is helping move us toward our goals and continuing our push for progress. Our Rookie of the Quarter award is given to an employee who has started their CCAH journey in the past year and has shown their willingness to go above and beyond. They are nominated by the CCAH management committee (our partners, VPs, and president, Kim Cubine), and they exemplify CCAH’s commitment to progress.

Matthew has an extensive history working in the service industry. Last year he made his transition into marketing by interning at a small technology company in Virginia. After building up experience there he wanted to move into a role where he was able to grow and learn about something new. His goal was to learn more about non-profits and what goes on behind the scenes of these organizations, while being in a role that would allow him to learn from the ground up, and CCAH looked like the perfect place for him to do that! So far, Matthew has found his work as an Account Representative in the digital department very rewarding, and finds it satisfying to know that his efforts everyday ultimately go towards helping others.

After work Matthew enjoys going to the gym most days of the week, meeting up with friends to go eat at their favorite restaurants (they are huge kbbq lovers), or practicing retail therapy online (and of course always hunting for discount codes). He also occasionally enjoys reading a good book! One he read this past year that he would recommend is 1Q84.

We are proud to have Matthew as part of our CCAH family and cannot wait to see what comes next. Congratulations on being our Rookie of the Quarter!

“I can honestly say I’ve learned so much in my time here so far and I am only excited to learn more as I progress in my career. My teammates were super helpful at getting me up to speed with our day-to-day activities and always continue to provide a helping hand when needed, truly making me feel welcome and appreciated.”

Rookie of the Quarter: Alexandria S.

April 20, 2022

by Rebecca Barton with No Comment awards CCAH Celebration Chapman Cubine Adams Hussey client services creative creative ideas inspiration

At CCAH, we know that progress is what keeps us relevant and keeps us moving toward our mission — advancing change and committing to activism that makes a difference. That’s why each quarter we like to recognize one of our newest employees who is helping move us toward our goals and continuing our push for progress. Our Rookie of the Quarter award is given to an employee who has started their CCAH journey in the past year and has shown their willingness to go above and beyond. They are nominated by the CCAH management committee (our partners, VPs, and president, Kim Cubine), and they exemplify CCAH’s commitment to progress.

This quarter, we are recognizing Alexandria S.

Alexandria started her career at FRIDA – The Young Feminist Fund, where she led website communications for one of the world’s largest grant-funding feminist organizations. The experience inspired her to launch her own website and initiative, YoungBlackFeminist, dedicated to discussing the latest pressing issues in racial justice and women’s rights activism. Alexandria then broadened her writing career into brand communications work for a wide range of start-ups, which honed her writing skills as she pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance. After graduating university, Alexandria returned to activism-themed writing and dived into the world of fundraising copywriting at CCAH!

After work, you can find her singing any song she can get her hands on (from opera to Beyonce), reading a good book, enjoying nature, and hanging out with friends and family.

We are proud to have Alexandria as part of our CCAH family and cannot wait to see what comes next. Congratulations on being our Rookie of the Quarter!

“We’re Changing Everything”: Navigating Social Ads in the 20s

March 25, 2022

by Steven Yenzer with No Comment digital digital ads digital fundraising digital marketing NTC online fundraising online giving

Last year the social advertising industry was turned upside down.

With the release of iOS 14.5 for iPhone, Apple gave users the ability to opt-out of tracking for targeted advertising. The New York Times has reported that more than 80 percent of users have done so—a huge shift that has meant more than a few sleepless nights for CCAH’s Digital Advertising Team.

“The ad landscape has changed dramatically over the past year,” says Senior Digital Advertising Manager Mike Crump. “It’s been a time of rapid learning for everyone in the industry.”

Earlier this week, Mike and Senior Advertising Specialist Linsey Park led a session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference exploring both the challenges and unexpected opportunities presented by last year’s dramatic shift.

The numbers tell the story: impression costs on Facebook are double or even triple what they were last year. Donation rates are dropping, there’s less individual engagement on Facebook, and changes to interest-based targeting—particularly important for nonprofits—have thrown many marketers for a loop.

Not CCAH’s Digital Advertising team, however.

“It’s been a challenge, but an exciting one,” says Mike. “It has given us the opportunity to reassess some longstanding assumptions within the fundraising and advertising space—and try new things.”

One example is the team’s push for more creative advertising approaches, incorporating video and animation—as well as static ads—to grab and hold users’ attention. Mike, Linsey and the rest of the Digital Advertising department have also been exploring a variety of lead generation strategies like quizzes, surveys, petitions and more. Investing in these strategies will drive traffic and create a “well” of users for later retargeting.

But no matter how creative you get, there’s no getting around it: Facebook and other social media platforms simply can’t provide the audience or the data that they used to. That’s why CCAH’s Digital Advertising team remains committed to following the data.

In this new era of digital advertising, it’s more important than ever to monitor costs, track conversions, and adjust accordingly.

In addition, bringing digital advertising out of its traditional silo has become absolutely essential. Ads should compliment what is happening across other channels, contributing to overall brand awareness and increasing the number of touchpoints.

Linsey sees CCAH’s Digital Advertising team as uniquely ready to meet this challenge. “In our department, we have seasoned nonprofit fundraising professionals as well as for-profit experts.” She believes that industry-wide changes will lead to more of an overlap between for-profit and non-profit advertising—and knows that CCAH is more prepared than most for this shift.

If you’d like to know more about how CCAH and our Digital Advertising team can help your organization during this period of transition, feel free to reach out to Mike at mcrump@ccah.com or Linsey at lpark@ccah.com. We’d love to work with you!

Chapman Cubine Allen + Hussey

Posts tagged: digital marketing