How the Canadian Cancer Society Cut 80% of Manual Work and Supercharged Appeal Results with AI

Canadian Cancer Society is Canada’s largest national cancer charity, working in partnership with donors and volunteers to improve the lives of all those affected by cancer through world-class research, transformative advocacy and compassionate support.

In 2024, they adopted Dataro with a primary immediate objective of accelerating Year-End giving. Their team sought to improve donor engagement, increase donor retention and grow mid-level and major giving by identifying the best engagement strategies for each donor and strategically targeting their campaigns. 

CCS’s standard Year-End campaigns typically rely heavily on direct mail appeals. Unfortunately, a postal strike that ran from November 15 to December 17, 2024 necessitated a last-minute pivot to alternative channel strategies. In an extremely challenging fundraising environment, CCS relied on Dataro’s data-driven predictive insights to guide their new plans for engaging their donors in a multi-channel Year-End campaign.

‍

Key Results

Using Dataro’s AI audiences and personalised donor insights, Canadian Cancer Society's year-end appeal achieved:

• 80% reduction in campaign management effort
• 8% increase in response rate
• 27% response rate for Dataro identified midlevel giving prospects
• Achieved income targets despite the postal crisis

‍

How We Did It

Before implementing Dataro, CCS identified several key fundraising challenges:

• Operational efficiency: Facing increasing costs for managing mail campaigns and effectively interacting with donors, as well as growing time spent preparing and executing campaigns, CCS sought to implement a more intelligent and automated process. Prior to implementing Dataro, up to 30% of their mass marketing team’s time was spent manually building their list, including the creation of up to 60 sub-segments with 4-5 personalized content variations.
  
  
• Difficult donor engagement and a shrinking donor base: Having previously relied primarily on an RFM-based segmentation model, the CCS team found it difficult to identify unique constituent segments and match them to personalized engagement strategies. They aspired to move toward a more holistic model which would enable them to find the right ask for each donor, and engage them in multi-channel campaigns.
  
  
• Predictive segmentation and forecasting: CCS also sought to adopt a more forecast-driven planning approach, based on predictive insights that would allow them to accurately project response rates and campaign revenue in order to make strategic decisions with confidence.

Integrated data was a critical requirement for the CCS team. Dataro’s predictive models integrated directly into their Salesforce database, providing regularly updated donor scores and predictions which indicated each donor’s likelihood of giving, preferred channel, ideal ask amount, and more. The team at CCS was able to build predictive playbooks for their fundraisers, defining the models and workflows that could be used to achieve different objectives, including personalized email journeys, mail campaigns, and telemarketing campaigns.

When the November 2024 postal strike began, CCS worked with Dataro to quickly develop a multi-channel Year-End campaign strategy, with new playbooks for telemarketing, email, and SMS marketing. Relying on Dataro’s predictive insights to help them identify the alternative channels that each donor was likely to respond to. They focused specifically on engaging mid-level and major donors and prospects, with the goal of raising larger gifts to account for both their shrinking annual donor base and the impacts of the postal strike.

‍

Analyzing the Results

Despite the challenge of an unforeseen disruption to mail delivery, CCS was able to use Dataro’s predictive model technology to help stabilize and even grow revenue by 1% year-over-year. The ability to identify donors with capacity and affinity for mid-level giving was a crucial piece of the puzzle, with midlevel givers contributing 45% of the year-end revenue share.

The CCS team had been clear from the beginning, they didn’t just want to change fundraising outcomes, they wanted to change how they worked. By using AI to activate their donor data and drive more targeted campaigns, not only did they increase revenue, they also reduced the time spent on manual data and campaign management by 80%. Additionally, the accuracy of Dataro’s campaign revenue and response forecasts has given them increased confidence in their ability to create strategic plans and make smart decisions when planning their targeting and personalization strategies for future campaigns.

‍

‍