When every mailed piece has a cost, reaching the right donors matters. For Children’s Minnesota Foundation, better targeting didn’t just mean sending fewer mailers. It meant finding more of the people who were ready to respond.
Who
Children’s Minnesota Foundation supports Children’s Minnesota, which operates pediatric hospitals in St. Paul and Minneapolis along with clinics across the Twin Cities.
The Challenge
The foundation wanted to strengthen its planned giving program, but identifying the right donors was holding the team back.
Broad outreach meant spending time and money reaching people who were unlikely to respond. And without a clearer way to identify which donors belonged in a planned giving mailing or portfolio, the team wasn’t seeing the results they knew were possible.
They needed a better way to focus their efforts on the donors most worth reaching.
Why EverTrue
The foundation brought in DonorSearch by EverTrue to make that targeting more precise.
Using DonorSearch, the team could identify the donors most relevant for each planned giving mailing and determine which prospects belonged in gift officer portfolios. Instead of relying on broad outreach, they could put more intention behind who they contacted and how they engaged them.
That shift changed the economics of their outreach.
The Results
The foundation saw stronger results across its fundraising efforts, including an increase in annual giving’s average gift size and a significant lift in response rates to planned giving mailers.
For the planned giving team, the difference was clear: better targeting was leading to better fundraising outcomes.
The results were strong enough that the foundation’s planned giving officer called it one of the best returns he’d ever seen.
“We’ve seen incredible results from the onset, whether it was choosing the people who go into a mailing or choosing the people who go into a portfolio. The results that we’ve seen speak for themselves, and they’re higher than anything we’ve experienced in the past.” — Children’s Minnesota Foundation
But the impact wasn’t limited to the numbers. As the foundation continued working with EverTrue, the team found a partner that helped them put the data into practice and make each implementation more effective.
“It didn’t feel like a vendor. It felt like a family. We were part of this family, and we were going to have the best experience possible.” — Children’s Minnesota Foundation
For Children’s Minnesota Foundation, better data gave the team a clearer way to focus its efforts, reach the right donors, and turn planned giving outreach into stronger fundraising results.