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Charleston Animal Society The Charleston Animal Society Uses The Raiser’s Edge to Maximize Fundraising Efficiency and Enhance Stewardship
For nearly 130 years, the Charleston Animal Society, a chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, has combated animal abuse and neglect within its local Charleston, South Carolina, community and across the region. Founded in 1879 by state charter, the Charleston Animal Society has fought against the inhumane treatment and shipping of work animals, and they have worked tirelessly to outlaw cruel animal “sports.” Central to the Society’s mission is to shelter and find homes for neglected, abandoned, and abused animals. Today, the Charleston Animal Society’s shelter houses more than 12,000 animals each year.
The Challenge
- With a unique, four-legged “alumni” community, the Charleston Animal Society staff was tasked with acquiring, maintaining, and stewarding a donor base that would be willing not only to provide financial support, but also make a long-term commitment through adoption or advocacy.
- Without a centralized database, much of the donor interaction was not well-tracked, and with multiple staff members communicating with the same individual on different levels, it was difficult to know where they were in the cultivation process and what level of commitment they could expect — financial or otherwise.
- As a nonprofit in charge of an entire county’s stray population, the organization faced the challenge of managing its resources in order to create the greatest and most positive impact for both the human and animal community.
The Solution
- The Charleston Animal Society selected The Raiser’s Edge to track all donor interactions, engagement level, and supporters’ lifetime value from a centralized database.
- It also incorporated all of its adopters, its largest affinity group, from a disparate data source into The Raiser’s Edge.
- The Society also chose to participate in the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Fundraising Efficiency Project (FEP) to benchmark its performance against past years and with other organizations around the country in order to maximize efficiency.
The Results
- All staff members now have a clear picture of how supporters interact with the Society on multiple levels and can see their history with the organization, helping them better target fundraising and advocacy campaigns.
- By using the FEP plug-in and analysis tools in The Raiser’s Edge, the Charleston Animal Society can easily pull key metrics and analyze how it is performing on acquisition, retention, renewal, and overall fundraising.
- Staff members now work smarter, not harder, by eliminating overlap and analyzing cost per dollar raised to maximize their efforts where they can optimize fundraising programs. The Society is now also able to focus its efforts on building a stewardship program to enhance donor relations.
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