A united effort

You might not think a charitable organization would have to conduct customer satisfaction research, but charities face the same kind of problems that beset for-profit operations. Competition for the charitable dollar is intense, so, like a consumer product or service provider, a non-profit has to keep its contributors happy, lest they take their dollars elsewhere.

That's especially true in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, an area known for its generous support of charitable organizations at both the corporate and private level. With so many worthwhile organizations chasing a (seemingly) finite number of dollars, it's more important than ever for charities to keep their donors satisfied.

Though their home cities engage in a kind of civic sibling rivalry, the United Ways of Minneapolis and St. Paul long ago put any geographic prejudices aside and began working together. "We're facing the same issues," says Sue Johnson, vice president, marketing, United Way of St. Paul Area. "Our donors live in one community and work in the other. They often aren't all that conscious of there being two United Ways in the area. And many donor companies have offices in both cities."

This spirit of cooperation has extended to marketing research projects. While the two United Ways had conducted a lot of research, until recently most of it had been on a short-term, need-to-know basis. "Our research had been reactive rather than proactive," says Pam Carlson, director of advertising and promotion, United Way of Minneapolis Area. "We felt we didn't have a good ongoing sense of what our customers locally are thinking about United Way."

"We had done lots of surveys where we got perceptions about giving and about United Way but we had never asked what was most important to them and how United Way measured up in those areas," Johnson adds. "We needed a new methodology to be able to make the results more action-oriented."

The Marketing Research Committee of the United Way of Minneapolis and St. Paul recommended an ongoing customer satisfaction research program. "This was a commitment to an ongoing pulse taking. Just as the pulse of a human being changes, the dynamics of a relationship with any organization change over time," says Beth Fischer, president of Twin City Interviewing, a Minneapolis research firm, and chair of the United Way Research Committee.

(Other volunteer members of the United Way Research Committee include: Joe Brunner, senior vice president, Layton Marketing Group; Nancy Brown, president, Nancy S. Brown Marketing Research; Susan Flach, director of marketing information, IDS Financial Services; Susan Goode, assistant vice president, research services, Lutheran Brotherhood; Jody Hilgers, Hilgers Marketing; Bill Muggli, director of marketing research, Norwest Bank Minnesota; and Vicki Staudte, research director, Minnesota Public Radio.)

The objectives of the research were to: measure customer/stakeholder satisfaction; determine how to increase satisfaction and donor retention; provide systematic donor input on funding decisions; determine which problems in the community donors think United Way should work on; get insight into United Way's donor/market segments and what they value about United Way compared to other charities.

Core contributors

For the first phase of the research program, the United Ways wanted to survey three core segments of their audience: the existing base - employees of large corporations who contribute through workplace donation programs, usually during the fall fund-raising campaign; volunteers - those who donate their time through corporate or other programs; and agencies - those who work at agencies that receive funding from the United Way.

"We felt it was important to talk first to those who we already had a relationship with," Fischer says. "We wanted to come up with a list of attributes, to determine what the factors are that bring someone into a relationship with United Way. What are they looking for, as a donor, as a volunteer, as part of an agency that receives support for their programs from United Way?"

The satisfaction surveys were distributed (in many cases with the help of local corporations, which passed them out to employees) at the conclusion of the fall 1995 United Way campaign.

The six-page survey asked respondents to assess the importance of statements like "United Way invests my contributions wisely" and "United Way keeps administrative costs to a minimum," using a five-point scale ("extremely important" to "not at all important") and then indicate how they felt United Way performed in that area ("strongly agree" to "strongly disagree").

Respondents were asked to divide a $100 contribution among several areas of need, including "providing food and shelter" and "nurturing children and youth," both as they would and as they felt United Way would.

The survey also looked each respondent's recent contribution behavior and asked how they preferred to receive information about the United Way and why they had or had not contributed in the past.

Gap analysis

After the results were tabulated, Fischer used gap analysis to identify service areas that needed attention. "With gap analysis, you can tell where you have opportunity gaps. I prefer to call them that because if you look at the gaps as a problem, someone will always want to assess blame. They're opportunity gaps because we know something that we didn't before and we have an opportunity to do something to change it," she says.

Gap analysis is an excellent way to make research findings easily understandable to a lay audience, which was especially valuable in United Way's case. "Beth did a really nice job of putting the findings into everyday terms," Johnson says. "We present the findings to such a diverse group of volunteers. Some of them are very comfortable with research, others aren't. We needed to make it palatable and easy to see its usefulness."

"If I present the results of research and someone in the audience isn't a number cruncher and they can't walk out of the presentation with a solid understanding of the findings then I haven't done my job," Fischer says.

"Throwing numbers at them doesn't work. They want to know how they can do their job better. So if they're going to use the information, they have to understand what we found out. That's what researchers are about: creating value in the information that we provide. When we can't do that, the research just sits on a shelf."

Different perceptions

The research showed that each segment had its own set of perceptions and priorities. For example, those in the existing base ranked the statement "United Way is an organization I can trust" as most important, while those in the volunteer group gave more importance to United Way investing contributions wisely.
"How the dollars are spent really drove their satisfaction level," Johnson says. "What is really most important to them is that we're helping people who need help. That was heartening to me. While they may have opinions about fund-raising, they were really starting to understand why we're out there."

With the existing base, the research showed importance/agreement gaps in responses to the statements "United Way is an organization I can trust" and "United Way invests my contributions wisely."

"Just like in any category where they spend their money, people are looking for value in the charitable market," Carlson says. "They want to be able to trust us, to know that we're spending their money wisely, that we're helping a broad spectrum of people. In order to help reassure them that they are investing their charitable dollars wisely with United Way we need to come up with more concrete data on results."
Thus the Twin City United Ways have begun asking the agencies they fund to demonstrate that their programs get results. "While we know that the agencies have always done good work, in St. Paul, and I know Minneapolis is moving toward this, we're asking the agencies to evaluate their programs and give us concrete information about how their programs are improving people's lives. We think that's going to help close the gap that the research identified," Johnson says.

The research also paved the way for more funds to promote United Way programs throughout the year, rather than just once a year during the fall fund-raising campaign. "Our corporate giving base said they wanted to hear about United Way year-around. I had felt that we were underdeveloped in our year-around communication efforts, but it's difficult for a staff person to make those budget recommendations without something to back them up. If I can point to the research and show that it is something that donors want, that helps me build my case for a stronger year-around program," Johnson says.

This survey was the first time that the United Way had formally sought the opinions of people in the agencies it funds. "When we've worked with the agencies we've never asked them to put on their donor hats," Johnson says. "We've asked them about community issues, but this was the first time that we talked with them as a United Way donor. The hypothesis going in was that they might allocate the $100 differently because they are more involved with the community and community issues. They turned out to have rankings very similar to the corporate respondents."

Growing segments

In the next year, the Twin City United Ways plan to survey the non-donor audience, including three growing segments - retirees, small businesses and at-home workers. This group will be quite different from those addressed in the first wave - many of them may have had little or no contact with the United Way. But the research approach will stay the same.

"The methodologies are similar to what you might use in a for-profit project but it's a different environment," Fischer says. "Whereas with a consumer product, where you talk about the product and the package and the taste, now we're talking about a relationship. Any methodology we use has to be tailored to the environment it's being used in. In for-profit research, people are looking at service dimensions, looking for expectation-performance gaps. It's not that much different in United Way's situation."

Give a voice to the donor

An important side benefit of the research has been giving a voice to the United Way donor, Johnson says. "As we've presented the results to our board and to other committees, it's made people aware of how the donor is thinking and gotten them thinking about ways to use the research. Before this we really didn't have as much acceptance of using donor research as a part of understanding our business. This research has been taken more seriously because of its long-term strategic implications."