The Client
St. Francis House is a nonprofit, nonsectarian day shelter. The largest such organization in New England, they serve more than 800 men and women every day of the year. They provide basic services including food, clothing, daytime shelter, and medical care combined with mental health and substance abuse counseling and rehabilitative services, as well as job skills training and supportive housing to help guests establish lives independent of shelters and institutions. St. Francis House believes that homelessness is an experience, not an identity. In that spirit, they provide a safe, caring, respectful, and dignified refuge.

The Problem
With only 150 email addresses and an aging donor base, St. Francis House needed to grow its housefile and connect with younger prospects online. St. Francis House needed to supplement traditional direct mail with online communications, and streamline its online processes and donation capabilities to increase fundraising results. Existing communications with its constituent base were limited to four direct mail newsletters and four appeals each year, as well as a ‘brochure’ website with content that was updated infrequently because of the time, effort, and expertise required to make changes.

How We Solved It
St. Francis House worked collaboratively with Convio’s strategic consulting services to improve its online communications through the implementation and ongoing use of Email Marketing, Convio Fundraising, and Content Management (Convio PageBuilder). With Convio’s expertise and assistance, St. Francis House created and launched micro-campaigns, including "Friends of Frank," to target donors in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. The organization also began to send a regular email newsletter, along with event updates, as part of an effort to provide consistent communications to constituents. By segmenting constituents based on giving history and other data collected, St. Francis House now launches coordinated online and offline fundraising campaigns.

The Outcome
A Convio Interactive Consultant devised and implemented an integrated strategy that increased the size of St. Francis’s housefile from 150 to 1800 email addresses within 12 months. The strategy also helped raise more than $73,000 online within 10 months, exceeding the organization’s fundraising goal by over 500%. In addition to attracting many new donors who gave online, St. Francis House increased online giving from existing donors who traditionally gave offline. All of these results were achieved efficiently with one person managing all of St. Francis’s online marketing.  

Convio products used: Email Marketing, Fundraising, Web Content Management