The Nature Conservancy reactivates deeply lapsed donors with an Epsilon model and Abacus® Cooperative
Project
Donor reactivation
Services
Modeling Abacus Cooperative
Industry
Nonprofit
THE STORY
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) depends on contributions from donors, but had declining response rates from their internal universe of donors who had been inactive for 19+ months. They asked Epsilon to help them mail more effectively and efficiently to improve response rates from deeply lapsed donors. They believed their results with these segments could benefit from the power of Abacus® Cooperative.
THE SOLUTION
We conducted house file modelling and ran a head-to-head test of TNC’s internal model against Abacus Cooperative, the industry’s original and best-performing transactional cooperative database.
The Results
With Epsilon’s model and the Abacus Cooperative, The Nature Conservancy was able to identify donors and bring in 8% more from groups lapsed for 37+ months than they had with their internal model. The additional donors paid for the modelling costs by the end of the first year. And the test showed TNC that they could mail into a deeper universe using additional data points (e.g., where else people are spending) from the Abacus Cooperative.
Building on the success of this effort, TNC and Epsilon worked together to enhance the selects process, going beyond RFM to mail deeper into the TNC lapsed audience. TNC was able to open up the internal select to 60 months using true RFM, then model with the Abacus Cooperative at 61+ months. The savings from this effort allowed TNC to reinvest and model more deeply into the lapsed universe using the Abacus Cooperative. In 2015, TNC increased mail volume by 10% and planned to mail to 7% more of their lapsed audience in 2016.
8%
more donors Epsilon's model and the Abacus Cooperative brought in 8% more donors than TNC's internal model.
“They listen, they are incredibly responsive, and they are fluent in solutions. Epsilon brings a lens specific to our programme and finds a way to enhance it.”
— Jaclyn Teffeau, New Member Acquisition Manager, The Nature Conservancy
