Royal Flying Doctor Service Victoria increased major gift revenue by 15% while mailing fewer donors

Royal Flying Doctors Service Victoria keeps the Flying Doctor in the air and on the road for rural Australians. That mission depends on appeals, recurring givers and major donors. By 2020, the fundraising team needed to raise more from appeals while mailing to fewer donors, and they had no reliable way to decide who to cut.

They wanted precision, not volume.

The challenge

RFDS Vic's team is small and time-poor. Picking appeal lists by hand took days. Cutting donors felt risky without evidence. Across appeals, recurring giving and major gifts, the team kept hitting the same three questions every week: who should we focus on, who should we engage now and what should we do next?

Guessing was no longer good enough.

Bringing ranked decisions into the workflow

RFDS Vic partnered with Dataro in 2020 to put donor-level decisions inside the system the team already used. Dataro's propensity scores were written directly into Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT against each donor record as a percentage and a rank, refreshed weekly. The team kept working in their CRM. The decisions got sharper.

Over time, RFDS Vic added Dataro's Recurring Giving Conversion, Recurring Giving Churn and Stewardship modules to support the same three decisions across appeals, monthly giving and major gifts.

What changed for the team

Appeals that raise more from fewer sends

For Tax 2020, RFDS Vic used Dataro's rankings to remove the donors least likely to give and keep the donors most likely to respond.

• Net revenue lift of $34,491

• About $9,000 in mail cost reduction by cutting unlikely givers

• 14 extra gifts over $500

• One extra major gift of $5,000

• 113.8x ROI on the Dataro investment

Data selection for major appeals was reduced by more than a day, freeing the team for donor work instead of list building.

Growing recurring giving with fewer, better calls

Once or twice a year, RFDS Vic uses Dataro's Recurring Giving Conversion Scores to focus calling campaigns on the donors most likely to upgrade or reactivate. In 2020:

• Upgrade conversion lifted from 27.87% to 32.18%

• Reactivation conversion lifted from 9.84% to 23.85%

Recurring Giving Churn Scores now drive targeted intervention calls before monthly donors lapse. In 2022, recurring giving retention improved by 3%.

"We use Dataro's rankings to better select regular givers who are most likely to upgrade their gift or reactivate their gift with us. We have also used the rankings to do thank-you calling, which has improved our donor care and seen our retention rates improve." — Rylee Elfert, Fundraising Coordinator, Regular Giving Programme

Finding the right major gift prospects every month

Using Dataro's Stewardship module, RFDS Vic surfaces new major donor prospects, reconfirms known prospects and prioritises who deserves further research and stewardship. In 2022, major gift revenue grew by 15% year on year, with the team's time spent on donors most likely to give.

Why it works

RFDS Vic didn't replace their CRM. They replaced the guesswork on top of it. Ranked decisions land where the team already works, refresh every week and tell the team who to focus on, who to engage now and what to do next. Precision shrinks audiences without shrinking revenue. Capacity goes to donors, not spreadsheets.

Fewer decisions. Better decisions. Made with confidence.