Harnessing AI for Enhanced Fundraising at East Cheshire Hospice

East Cheshire Hospice provides crucial care for adults with life-limiting illnesses and support for their carers and families. 

While the charity relies on the generosity of the local community to fund its essential services, recent years have seen a decline in returns from their direct mail appeal program.

East Cheshire Hospice partnered with Dataro in 2023 to explore how machine learning (AI) could help them identify the best donors for their appeals, reduce wasted outreach and ultimately boost fundraising returns. The charity also sought to simplify their data selection process and save time in the process.

In their first campaign using Dataro’s AI donor predictions to make their appeal selections, the hospice sent 58% fewer letters than ‘normal’ and raised 20% more revenue than targeted. 

By reducing mailing volumes and focusing on donors most likely to give at that time the charity saved  £5,477 saved in mail pack costs and achieved a impressive campaign ROI of 477%.

Key results

Using AI to pinpoint donors most likely to give, East Cheshire Hospice achieved:

• 20% increase in gross revenue versus target (£16,868k vs. £14k)
• £13,946k in net revenue
• 4.96% response rate
• 477% ROI
• Cost savings of £5,477

How we did it

The fundraising team from East Cheshire Hospice were eager to use Dataro’s AI donor predictions to improve their campaign targeting and raise more funds, more efficiently.

Before adopting Dataro, the charity relied on traditional segmentation methods like RFV for appeal targeting, which was time-consuming and often resulted in wasted outreach to unlikely donors. Additionally, the shrinking database of mailable donors led to a “send to all” approach to meet revenue targets, which negatively impacted net revenue and campaign ROI.

Dataro’s software integrated directly with the hospice’s CRM – Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT. By applying machine learning, Dataro generated weekly propensity scores for all active cash donors, predicting their likelihood to contribute to an appeal. These insights enabled the hospice to focus on donors most likely to give at that time while excluding those with a low likelihood, helping to reduce mailing volume and costs.

For the Christmas 2023 Appeal, the charity decided to manage its mailing in-house and set a threshold of 500 donors to solicit. This was an 86% reduction from the previous year’s mail file.

Using Dataro’s AI donor scores and ranks, the charity identified the Top 500 donors to solicit, sending only to those predicted most likely to give at that time. 

Analyzing the results

East Cheshire Hospice’s Spring Appeal centered on their Child Bereavement services, bringing a deeply personal and urgent cause to the attention of their donors.

Using Dataro’s AI donor predictions, the hospice was able to target a smaller audience for this appeal, reducing mailing volume by 58% and saving £5,477 in mail pack costs. 

Despite sending significantly fewer letters, the hospice raised 20% more gross revenue than targeted (£16,868k v £14,00k). By targeting the right donors, at the right time, with the right message and personalized AI recommended ask amounts, the charity saw an increase in response rates to 4.96%, alongside substantial net revenue of of £13,946k.

The hospices hyper-targeted approach to the spring appeal translated to a 477% ROI, far surpassing previous campaigns. Additionally, the charity saved hours in preparing the appeal mail file.