The Challenge
Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston (BGCB) engaged GG+A to conduct a mid-campaign assessment to determine how best to position BGCB’s current fundraising efforts, deploy its internal resources to ensure a successful campaign, leverage its strengths and capabilities, and to achieve and sustain a new level of ongoing support for expanded Club service.
Our Approach
GG+A’s methodology for the mid-campaign assessment included:
- A comprehensive “self-study” process to review BCBG’s Development programs and operations
- An extensive review of program data and documentation to evaluate fundraising operations in the context of best practices
- A review of BGCB’s campaign case for support and communications efforts
- A series of confidential interviews with BGCB leaders, select Board members, and staff
Key recommendations encompassed:
- Hiring more development staff to reach both the current campaign goal and to sustain increased giving post-campaign
- Raising the visibility of specific campaign components
- Creating clear, compelling and consistent messaging across all channels
- Developing a consistent gift processing and database management system
The Results
As of November 2016, BGCB had raised $118M against a $125M goal, on track to a successful campaign completion by June 30, 2017. The organization also launched a successful Champion Society, which provided an opportunity to grow their mid-level donor base; this donor group exceeded BGCB’s goal by $160k. Aside from campaign successes, BGCB created a new strategic development operations director position to implement new and updated processes to improve gift processing and analytics.