Case Study: The Kids' Cancer Project boosts fundraising efforts by 83 percent

The Kids' Cancer Project has boosted its fundraising efforts by 83 percent through various strategies including re-engaging inactive donors and creating staffing efficiencies via updated systems.

The independent charity has been able to grow its regular giving program, leading to the fundraising rise over a four-year period through the implementation of its system with SAS.

Owen Finegan, CEO of The Kids' Cancer Project, told Digital Nation the software solution also automated its financial data processing reducing reporting time from around eight to 10 days to between six to eight hours.

Working with SAS for over three years and with funding tied to “the economic environment”, Finegan also added “We've been able to grow our regular giving program.

“In 2019, we were raising just under $1. 2 million and last year we raised over $2. 2 million.”

He said with the time saved staff are able to work on other tasks “which allows them to be more analytical and do a lot more, but also helped us with a strategy to re-engage those inactive donors to increase our regular giving. That's key”.

“That's key. Our commitment to childhood cancer research is long-term.

Finegan explained research is takes multiple years, “normally three years or more.

“Having funding that's more continuous for us is really important.

He added previously if the team wanted to raise revenue by 10 percent “we'd try and go out and email or message or contact 10 percent more schools and try and get a result”.

However, now the organisation can look “more strategically” and retain monthly donors while building new supporters.

Reengaging more long-term donors also “played a key role in its success”.

“It wasn't just about the software, it was about their expertise and personnel and working with our team and educating our team along the journey, but mapping out programs.

“We have a lot of non-active donors, people that had sort of hadn't donated for three years or more, so we mapped out a program on how we could reactivate most of those donors.

“We also worked on how to enlist new donors, increase the number of our regular donors, which is probably our key fundraising initiative, but then minimising that churn and working on how we communicate with those people.

“Then the system over seven, six or seven years now transferring into a more automated structure, our CRM is moving from Razor's Edge to Salesforce we've been able to use the powerful analytical software that SAS has.”

He added as part of its work the company reconciled its CRM and accounting system.

Finegan said the system has created a refreshed mindset within The Kids' Cancer Project.

“Our partnership has been transformative. It's challenged us to think differently. So that's not just with the data team. That's with the whole team.

“We've changed how we operate for the better. We see it not just as a software program, but as a true partnership and collaboration and then SAS is deeply invested in our organisation.

He said the teams recognise this plus its donors are also feeling the positive impact of the changes.

Some next steps will see the business land “a kiosk where you can go and change how much you're donating or it's automated or you can go online and into your own portal.”

“That stuff is where we're moving to, it's also worth mentioning that SaS educational courses have played a big role and onboarding our new staff.

“It gives us a more strategic mindset and an ability to articulate where we want to get to it.”

He said despite the high results, the organization still has much, it hopes to achieve.

“Last year we were able to fund 46 research projects across every state in Australia, over 76 scientists had funding from The Kids' Cancer Project.

“For us to be able to change those statistics is really important,” Finegan said.

“The Kids' Cancer Project started 30 years ago and the survival rates were in the 50's.

“Thirty years on, they're at 86 [percent], but our vision is 100 percent survival of cancer and SAS, through the Data for Good program, have been really supportive in allowing us to get to that.”