2 Colleges Score Big Gains Using Data-Driven Fundraising

After doubling donations to $4-million in 2011, Lincoln Memorial University has continued to improve its fundraising returns, which are expected to top $7 million this year, using a statistically based approach.

The methods were developed by Chuck Holland, an undergraduate alumnus and statistician who more than three decades ago founded QualPro, a Knoxville, Tenn., company. Mr. Holland uses sophisticated statistical analyses that help groups simultaneously test dozens of ideas to save money and increase revenue.

While most of the more than 1,000 entities served by QualPro are companies, it has helped a few nonprofits. The University of Tennessee, where Mr. Holland got his Ph.D., has been working with QualPro for 18 months and has paid Mr. Holland and his son Ken $80,000, about half their regular fee.

The company is trying to persuade alumni who have never contributed before to give in response to the university’s direct-mail and telephone fundraising campaigns.

QualPro’s testing methods found, for example, that the university got a better response by asking for smaller amounts in initial solicitations — $75 rather than $150 — and by requesting that alumni make a gift to a particular college rather than the campus at large,

QualPro also improved responses to the university’s telemarketing efforts: New donors recruited by phone increased from 9.3 percent of alumni to more than 15 percent. Last year, the university recruited 2,150 new supporters that way, up from 1,300 in 2013. And as of March 31, during the first nine months of its fiscal year, the telemarketing drive raised $360,000, up from $200,000 during the same period last year.

“QualPro is helping us make better data-driven decisions,” says Scott Rabenold, the University of Tennessee’s vice chancellor for development. “We’re absolutely ecstatic with the results.”

Send an email to Holly Hall.