Crafting magic: Building a predictive model based on donor affinity
Abstract
At the University of Waterloo (UW), the Annual Giving programmes aim to scale fundraising efforts while providing a personalised experience for donors. By analysing collected data, institutions can gain insights into donors’ interests, enhancing engagement and philanthropic contributions. Limited resources, however, often hinder the effective implementation of mass personalisation. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities faced by the UW in improving response rates for bulk appeals, such as Giving Tuesday, Renewal and Short Lapsed campaigns. The traditional ‘Last Gift’ segmentation method, while straightforward, is cumbersome and relies heavily on manual data preparation. To address these issues, we developed a prototype donor affinity model (DAM) that leverages donor data to predict and align fundraising efforts with donor interests. This model aims to enhance the effectiveness of our annual giving programmes by moving beyond last-gift analysis to a more comprehensive understanding of donor behaviour. This paper focuses on improving response rates for bulk appeals, starting with Giving Tuesday, using a donor affinity approach. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.
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Author's Biography
Jennifer Murray is a graduate of the University of Waterloo’s co-op programme Cultural Management programme and has spent her 20+ year career working for a variety of non-profit organisation across multiple sectors include healthcare, social services and the arts where she has help multiple roles including Volunteer Management, Events and Sponsorships, Community Partnerships and most recently in Annual Giving. She is currently the Senior Development Officer for Annual Giving at her alma mater, University of Waterloo’s Office of Advancement. With over nine years of experience at the university, Jennifer plays a pivotal role in providing strategy and analysis for the Annual Giving team, along with managing the Faculty, Staff and Retiree (FSR) Giving Programme. Jennifer also volunteers with Girl Guides of Canada as a unit leader for girls aged 5–9, providing a girls-first programme to helping girls to discover their potential and ‘create a better world, by girls’.
Nigel Henriques is a double graduate of the University of Waterloo, with a degree in computer science and a master’s in management science. He has a 35+ year career in information technology, application development, project management and various leadership roles in management for the past 20+ years across multiple sectors, including manufacturing, software, agriculture and higher education. In his current role, he serves as the Director of Systems at the University of Waterloo’s Office of Advancement, overseeing a broad portfolio of Information technology, information systems, reporting and analytics services. He has been with the department for just over 19 years. Outside the university, he volunteers with a local cultural association to run a scholarship programme supporting racialised youth in his community. He is also an avid sports fan and has coached soccer for over 18 years.
