In the past year, Easter Seals has made large strides in uniting its affiliates' online fundraising and marketing efforts, supporting their goals of connecting with a new group of supporters.
In an article in DIRECT Magazine, Easter Seals, a longtime Beaconfire client, explains how it has been steadily phasing a single new "online network" which provides a central technology platform to unify their online branding and improve their sharing of data with the national office.
"What we were faced with a year ago was there was no consistency at all, at any level, in any measurable form from one site to another," said Shirley Sexton, Easter Seals' Internet Marketing Director.
The effort stemmed from their vision for making the Internet a significant part of their overall fundraising program. Direct mail has long been the "bread and butter" of the 80-year-old organization, but online donations, while still relatively small, have been increasingly important to growing their base of constituents.
Online approaches also aided Easter Seals' new walk-a-thon. About one-third of participants registered and solicited donations online, and the average gift was three times higher than the average for off-line participants.
Easter Seals and Beaconfire began planning for the site in 2001. The national site launched in September 2002 along with ten affiliates. The organization plans to roll out ten sites every other month, with the goal of all affiliates coming online by fiscal 2004.
Read the full article in DIRECT Magazine.
