JustGiving pushes data tool for charity marketers

The tool helps charities mine and analyse personal and demographic data captured by the site when users have opted in. It is hoped the tool will help identify trends and create targeted marketing activity and boost engagement with supporters.

Not for profit organisations can use the tool to integrate JustGiving data with existing CRM systems such as Salesforce.

The tool, which soft launched in 2012, is being presented to charities today (29 January) at the brand’s marketing innovation conference.

More than 8,000 charities are signed up to JustGiving, which is used by fundraisers to attract online donations for sponsored events. Charity members pay a fee to use the service.

Romain Bertrand, JustGiving head of marketing, says: “We wanted to make sure that they had the best access to data around the donations given through JustGiving, around the individual users, so they can go back to these users if they have permission. They can mine all the different trends, look at all the different products, mine it by the time of the day, by channels like mobile.

“That is an interface that the majority of charities would never be able to build themselves. For us, it is below the radar in terms of media, but it is very important in terms of how we work with charities. We have much better reporting and a much better interface for them to come and make sense of the data.”

Charities, particularly smaller organisations, are facing ongoing challenges through the downturn and are being squeezed by declining donations and increasing demand for services.

Donations fell 20% to £9.3bn in real terms during 2011/12, down from £11bn the previous year, according to an annual survey by the Charities Aid Foundation – the largest fall in giving in the survey’s eight-year history.

Janet Snedden, chair of the Institute of Fundraising’s insights special interest panel and CRM and data strategy director at data analytics firm Metametrics, describes the tool as a “wonderful” opportunity for charities to boost donations and engagement.

She says: “Open source data is a good thing and any additional insight that charities can can get about supporter behaviour will help them nurture relationships. [Data] allows charities to better serve their supporters. They can strengthen the types of communications they can do, offer more engagement, better timing for communications like thank-yous for donations and it gives better capability for long-term strategic planning rather than just waiting for donations to arrive.”