The Return on a GiftWorks Investment: The Center for Arts in Natick

Have you seen the quote, photo and story from The Center for Arts in Natick  (TCAN) on our home page (www.missionresearch.com/giftworks)?  David Lavalley, Executive Director, wrote a great story about how GiftWorks has impacted their Natick, Massachusetts-based organization.  I interviewed David today and would like to share a bit more about how TCAN has fared this year and how their GiftWorks investment has made an important difference.

Let's start with the numbers.  Like many arts (and other) organizations, TCAN experienced a drop in corporate giving this year.  At this date in 2008, they had received $39,000 from corporations. As of today in 2009, they have received $35,000 in corporate donations, a 10% decrease.  Sound familiar?  But wait. While their corporate giving decreased, their individual giving has increased significantly.  Overall, they have raised $224,000 this year-to-date vs. $183,000 at this point in 2008.  This is a 22% increase despite the corporate giving decrease!

When 2009 started, David and his colleagues at TCAN made a very conscious decision to "hunker down" and watch expenses.  They also decided to focus intensely on their individual giving program.  They had invested about $1000 in GiftWorks in 2008 and were up and running with the software.  

The TCAN team employed two main tactics in growing individual gifts.  First, they made a concerted effort to reconnect with past supporters who had major donor potential.  David reported that since their GiftWorks conversion, they had accessible and accurate data, with donor relationships recorded in detail.  They were able to easily analyze and identify who might be potential major supporters in a difficult year and act upon it.  David's board was very supportive and very willing to make calls to these prospective major donors for TCAN, especially with such detailed and thorough information provided to them ahead of time.

Second, TCAN used GiftWorks to group supporters around their artistic genre preference and cultivate them appropriately.  Specifically, they had people who were interested in classical music.  They knew who they were and invited them to a special reception attended by other classical music lovers in the community (all easy with GiftWorks), as well as the classical music lovers on their board.  This was done for again for those who love community theatre and again for those who love folk music.  The result was that they were able to thank people for past support in a very meaningful, appropriate way, and then "rekindle relationships" that are so fundamental to fundraising.  These events proved phenomenally successful over the course of 2009.

GiftWorks did not increase fundraising for TCAN by 22%.  A strong, innovative, and motivated team did this amazing and impressive work.  But GiftWorks provided the tools that made it possible.  David said that there is no way he would have taken this effort on without the ability to understand and use their data as GiftWorks empowered him to do.  He also feels strongly that he would not have had such strong board support in his fundraising efforts without the professional, usable, and meaningful data GiftWorks put at their fingertips. 

David's decision to invest $1000 in GiftWorks in 2008 gave his organization the ability to buck every trend in 2009.  He was able to increase giving  by $41,000 or 22% in one of the most challenging years in our history.  He was able to grow his individual giving program to offset the losses from other fundraising sources that are going down or away entirely. 

I would say David and his colleagues are to be commended for their unbelievably positive year, and that David's GiftWorks investment was a wise one indeed, wouldn't you agree?