Interfaith Outreach & Community Partners
Interfaith Outreach & Community Partners (IOCP) is a community-based outreach organization with a 30-year history of serving low-income families, children, and individuals. Their mission is to identify and respond to the basic unmet needs of people in their community, and to assist them to move toward self-sufficiency. IOCP provides direct assistance and connects people with life-changing opportunities and resources utilizing a creative, inclusive partnership of communities of faith, schools, government, businesses, community groups, foundations, health systems, and individuals. In addition to a food shelf, IOCP addresses five areas of greatest need in the local community: housing, employment, child care, transportation, and community connections.
Highlights
- By adding Greater Giving’s Online Payments to their online fundraising strategy, IOCP has realized a 10% increase in online giving since implementation in April 2009.
- Posting the results of the silent auction with Event Software reports within minutes of closing, helped IOCP to raise over 30% more than the target goal in their live auction.
- Using the limited-release Greater Giving Join Me product for their CFKI Walk and Sleep Out Campaign, IOCP has been able to offer an online peer-to-peer fundraising solution to all of their supporters.
Challenge
IOCP has been holding their Spread Your Wings Gala every other year for 6 years. The organization draws about 350 people to the event. At past galas, all the event details were handled on spreadsheets. Check-in and check-out were not automated, creating long lines, confusion, and many hours of staff and volunteer time. Post event reconciliation was especially time consuming. Most importantly, guests had to wait for up to an hour to find out their silent auction winnings — keeping some from participating in the live auction.
IOCP also holds two major fundraising events which depend on peer to peer fundraising — the Caring for Kids Initiative (CFKI) Walk for Kids and the Sleep Out Campaign. The Sleep Out Campaign’s fundraising goal was over $2 million, so they needed to leverage the most cutting-edge fundraising strategies available to keep the campaign vital in the community and beyond. Communicating by email and word of mouth was no longer effective enough for their supporters to raise enough funds to meet the goal. IOCP knew it was time to find an online product that could give their supporters an easy way to reach out via personal Web pages and social networking tools.
Solution
The timing was perfect for a new fundraising solution when IOCP received a Wells Fargo grant to upgrade their technology. Backed by those funds, their first goal was to add an online donation function to their Website that would integrate with an event planning software solution. While researching solutions, Laura Hookom, Finance & Operations Manager for IOCP, discovered Greater Giving’s Complete Event Suite — including Event Software, Online Payments and Auctionpay. The solution was a perfect fit feature-wise, but Laura decided to shop around for the best value, and was pleased to discover that Greater Giving also offered them significant cost savings over similar solutions. IOCP then purchased Complete Event Suite and Greater Giving Online Auctions.
Shortly thereafter, Hookom was delighted to discover that Greater Giving was testing a new online peer-to peer-fundraising product called Greater Giving Join Me. They had been looking at other competitors for this same solution, so Laura made the commitment to be a part of the beta test and get a “first look” at the software.
Tips from IOCP
- When you switch to taking credit cards at a live event, promote the change to your audience prior to the event to drive higher guest acceptance.
- The ability to register online and the ability to pay by credit cards will speed up adoption of the new technology by your supporters.
- Don’t underestimate the power of peer-to-peer fundraising and social networking — IOCP’s biggest Sleep Out Campaign fundraiser is only 15 years old!
Results
The integration of Online Payments and Event Software resulted in an immediate improvement with the management of their auction. Many guests would arrive at past galas with a pre-determined donation amount in mind, but had to wait up to an hour to see what they’d won at the silent auction. By the time they got their silent auction donation amount, the live auction would be over, depriving guests of that second opportunity to bid—and give. Hookom said, “We were able to provide results of the silent auction to our guests within minutes of closing.” This improvement meant that more guests could bid in the live auction, driving up bidding. The direct outcome? IOCP’s live auction generated three times the anticipated fundraising goal!
Hookom also noted that being able to capture credit cards for the first time was extremely popular, estimating that 90% of the guests pre-registered a card, saving days of bookkeeping time processing for staff. Stated Hookom, “(Saving time) is money back in the bank for us. We realized savings in overhead costs with Greater Giving –and in the outcome and convenience to the guests.” A win-win situation for everyone.
Another unexpected benefit? Everyone at IOCP is thrilled about the support they have received from Greater Giving’s Client Services team. Hookum remarked that “no question has been too repetitive or too silly.” The entire IOCP team appreciated the TLC they got from Greater Giving, and the fact that such superior service is included with all the products.
Each Fall Laura and her co-workers become deeply involved in planning and promoting their annual Sleep Out Campaign, which takes place each November. Fundraising for this campaign relies on supporters, who recruit sponsors to donate to the cause. By testing the Join Me product with their CFKI walk, they are fully confident that Join Me will bring the same dramatic results they have seen with other Greater Giving solutions.
The group has already realized a benefit from the pre-release product. Hookom stated, “We’ve been able to directly support to our fundraising partners in their efforts. For example, Peter, a 15-year-old who raises $100K each year for us, is able to communicate about the walk by using his Join Me personal fundraising page for donations. With that page, he’s now able to get the word out further than by just sending email, and the page has become a place for people to support him and see the results of their giving immediately.”
By finding a full suite of interactive products from Greater Giving, Hookom and the staff at IOCP feel that they have found the key to their integrated fundraising strategy — helping them to continue “changing the odds” for families in need.
Return to list of client stories