San Diego Humane Society builds donor-centric
programs and sets new goals for growth.

San Diego Humane Society provides lifesaving care to nearly 50,000 animals per year. That number includes dog and cat adoptions but also less obvious services, including a program to keep people united with their pets during times of financial strain, a wildlife rehabilitation center, and a kitten nursery.

Senior Director of Annual Giving Jennifer Grantham calls those services “safety net programs” and describes them as a key factor in starting a monthly giving program. “Thanks to Blackbaud Luminate Online® and other Blackbaud solutions, it’s up to $75,000 per month coming in without us having to spend a lot of time on it,” she explained.

San Diego Humane Society named the sustaining donor program Constant Companions and played it smart by augmenting stewardship touchpoints for that group while excluding them from routine appeals. “Now is a good time to build sustainers, because people are used to subscription-based services with things like Netflix,” Grantham said. “People are used to having payments automatically deducted on a monthly basis. We’re taking advantage of that.” San Diego Humane Society also enlisted the right tools for the best results.

Although a regional organization, the team employed traditional face-to-face fundraising strategies most commonly used by international organizations to reach people in the most organic way—by starting a conversation in public places. San Diego Humane Society also relied on Blackbaud’s flagship fundraising solution, Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®, to drive phone calls to donors who have given twice per year and Blackbaud’s marketing solution to drive online messaging to a wider audience through social media. The results: over 500% growth in monthly donors in eight short years, with a 12% increase in retention and growing.

Saving Time and Money

San Diego Humane Society relies on Credit Card Updater, offered exclusively to Blackbaud Merchant ServicesTM customers, to avoid time-consuming and potentially awkward calls to donors with expired credit cards. “It’s something really simple, but every time we don’t have to pick up the phone and call a donor or email a bunch of times, we are really grateful,” Grantham said.

In the first three years alone, San Diego Humane Society recovered 1,221
credit cards representing over $58,000 in potentially lost revenue. The organization also saved an estimated 200 hours of staff time. Online Giving Manager Wyn Furman knows how time-intensive lapsed donor calls can be and is grateful for Credit Card Updater lightening the work load. “Credit Card Updater actually got me on my gift this month,” she said. “I didn’t need to update my payment data and instead waited for it to be done automatically

Building a Website to Drive Engagement

San Diego Humane Society recently partnered with Blackbaud for a
website redesign with a stronger donor focus. “We have gotten so many
compliments—including from some industry experts,” Grantham said.
The organization set up focus groups to learn what supporters want and
need, then made recommendations accordingly. They asked for an easier,
mobile-responsive search function to help make it simpler to check out
animals available for adoption. San Diego Humane Society’s own team
wanted the website to help drive more meaningful donor connections
through impact reporting. “The Blackbaud team really listened to what we wanted,” Grantham said. “There was a lot of thought that went into the site, studying who our personas are and making sure we had what our constituents wanted. We didn’t even think it was possible to make that happen. That was a labor of love.”

Planning for Growth

San Diego Humane Society intends to grow every year, both in the number of animals helped and the funds raised to ensure that those “safety net programs” continue operations. “The expectation for us to raise more money is definitely there, and it’s going to be increasing in the next five to seven years,” Grantham said. “We have to be able to scale what we’re doing, and our software is allowing us to do that.” She remembers when her team aspired to make its sustained giving a milliondollar program. “It’s kind of unreal to me, because we are achieving that now,” Grantham said. “Now $1 million isn’t enough. In thinking about how to manage that next step, it’s going to be the technology.”

San Diego Humane Society recently launched the silent phase of a comprehensive fundraising campaign to grow its philanthropic program. The campaign’s fundraising strategy includes everything from endowment solicitations of major donors to a website that integrates with solutions for
payment services, fundraising and relationship management, peer-to-peer
fundraising, and more. “We’re growing really fast, and technology is so important,” Grantham said. “We need our systems to talk to one another. That’s one of the reasons we’ve taken on so many Blackbaud products—because of their ability to integrate with one another.”