The Marketing Executives Group International

Written by: Bruce E. Segal
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/besegal

Summary: As it prepared for a big fund raising effort, one university applied social network strategy to use Linked-In to fine tune its pre-launch prospecting and hone its targeting. As a result, it uncovered alumni who knew which other alumni to approach, found new prospective donors to approach and revealed potential donor landmines to avoid.

THE CHALLENGE

A university prepared for a major fundraising effort. With a donor base in the tens or hundreds of thousands it needed to determine the most efficient way to make sure it had current and accurate information about the capacity of potential donors to give.

The goal is to identify which active donors are prospects to increase their contribution and which are at risk of decreasing it? This information lets the school evaluate the total amount it can raise and determine the number of gifts it needs at specific dollar amounts– i.e. how to define its donor pyramid; especially the top and middle. It needs to identify discretely and confidentially new and past alumni donors who may or may not be financially able to make medium or large donations.

The school had to find alumni likely to know which other alumni to solicit, and which to leave alone. In the past, it asked alumni who made big donations these questions.

THE SOLUTION–WHAT WE DID

But, using social network analysis, we demonstrated that the size of a donation does not correlate highly to knowing a person’s donation capacity. We used networking websites, a.k.a. “social media,” to develop innovations to identify prospective donors.

First, we applied the strategic insight taught by social network analysis; that highly connected alumni should be chosen early to ask these questions; regardless of how much money they gave. They know who feels close to the school or to classmates, who started a new business or lost a job, and who is focused on finance-affecting family issues; e.g. divorce or health. “Connectors” are likely to know who in the alumni body are open to being approached and those who are not.

The school did not systematically identify any alumni as “Connectors.” We showed they are easy to find on Linked-In and are as well connected off-line to other alumni. Then we developed a process to build several lists using Linked-In to find alumni with the top 60 Linked-In networks, and thus let the institution discreetly and confidentially approach them.

Second, we developed a process to use Linked-In to sub-segment the highly connected alumni into those who feel an affinity for the institution, and those who do not. In the process, we revealed alumni the school did not know felt close affinity because they connect
through classmates and were inactive alumni. We used this process to create a contact list of alumni with warm feelings for the school.

Lastly, we developed a systematic and repeatable business process using Linked-In to update these lists and the school’s internal data with current information. On an on-gong basis, the school could validate and update its internal information against data from Linked-In.
Plus we showed the generational distribution of alumni on Linked-In. It looms large.

THE RESULT–STRATEGY. TACTICS. ACTION

In a short time, the school found alumni most likely to know which other alumni to approach for medium to large donations. It discovered alumni to approach it previously did not know, found known alumni it might have otherwise skipped and revealed landmines of alumni not to ask. It updated its database with current information as well as expanded it with new information. And it began to understand generational differences in alumni with profiles on a major social networking website.

Strategy: Identify alumni most likely to know who to approach for donations based on social network analysis–who is a connector outside of the alumni body–and not solely how much money they last gave. Connectors are likely to know many people across the alumni body.

Tactics: Identify alumni who Use Linked-In (an online networking or “social media” channel) to augment the internal database. Use it to identify connected and trusted alumni it did not know existed and add them to its database. And use it to update alumni already in its database with new information from Linked-In.

Results: Use Linked-In social network analysis to fine tune pre-launch prospecting and hone targeting. Generate targeted and focused list of donor prospects, additional connector-sources and validate them against house list. Identify alumni with Linked-In profiles by generation. Expand initial list from the top 60 alumni connectors to the top 150 or more. Use the consolidated lists of connectors, donors to approach or leave alone to start campaign. Then after launch, measure results by money generated.