UMACC (UMass Amherst Community Campaign) 2016-17 Annual Report Prepared by: Jennifer Page, External Relations and University Events BACKGROUND UMACC (the UMass Amherst Community Campaign) has been an active program for employees and retirees since the early 1990s. Since that time, UMass faculty, staff, and retirees have donated over $8 million to charitable organizations through the program. UMACC allows employees and retirees to designate their donation to any 501(c)(3) charitable organization through payroll deduction or cash/check/credit card. The program is a win-win-win. Employees and retirees get an efficient way to donate to the charitable organizations that they chose, charitable organizations get an easy way to raise funds, and UMass gets goodwill from employees/retirees and the community at large. HISTORY Last year (for the 2015-16 campaign), UMACC gained a dedicated manager, something it hadn’t had for several years. UMACC’s performance last year was impressive, with $408,000 raised – a 36% increase over the previous year. This year, we planned to capitalize on that momentum. 2016-17 CAMPAIGN This year we raised $434,975 in pledges, an increase of 7% over last year, beating our goal of $430,000. The 648 donors in this year’s campaign gave to 400 charitable organizations. The average total gift per person was $671. On average, an organization received $1,087 in total designations. Each donor gave to an average of four charitable organizations. Marketing This year’s marketing plan included many of the elements that were successful in last year’s campaign: • Volunteer Ambassadors at the department level who promoted UMACC within their departments and acted as an information source for department members. • The UMACC Stories Blog, which doubled in size this year, with 25 additional blog posts from recipient organizations (for a total of 50), as well as 14 “Profiles in Giving” profiles of donors. • All-campus emails: Five all-campus emails between September and January, promoting the campaign and giving updates on progress. • Events: o All-campus kick-off event with a Charity Fair where potential donors can learn more about the charitable organizations to which they can give. o Leaders’ Circle Reception, to be planned for May 2017, for people who gave $500 total or more. • Campaign Chair: Dr. Willie Hill, director of the Fine Arts Center, was the UMACC campaign chair for the second year. Dr. Hill is highly regarded on campus and has been an enthusiastic supporter of UMACC. • Incentives: Grand prize $300 Amazon gift card, donated by Amazon @ UMass. Other prizes included a hockey game with the Chancellor, athletics tickets, event tickets, parking passes, and more. • Thank-you gift to all donors. The Department of Music and Dance has generously donated tickets to one of four student performances in the Spring 2017 semester. New marketing elements for this year: • Department presentations. Most department heads and deans were contacted to request a slot on the agenda of a department meeting in the fall, for a UMACC presentation. Around 30 responded, and 26 presentations were made to 500+ people over the course of four months. Almost all of the presentations included a representative from the United Way of Hampshire County or Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County. We heard from several people, via email and the donor survey, that they appreciated the department presentation as a way of learning about what UMACC is and how it works. • Website improvements. This year, for the first time, people who donated online last year could easily view and repeat their designations using the “repeat this donation” button. Also included was an “Add 5%” button to encourage people to increase their gift amount. We believe that this contributed to the higher proportion of donors who gave online this year (see Appendix Report 3), and to the increase in total gift size per person ($671 this year, vs $592 last year). • Social Media. This year’s social media plan focused on pushing out the new blog posts featuring stories from charitable organizations and donor stories. The UMACC page has few followers (110 page likes). Given that UMACC targets employees, and people may be unlikely to interact with their employer on social media, this may be an area we decide to devote less time to next year. Budget UMACC was again allocated a budget of $20,000 this year, which we again underspent. This year more funds were devoted to the mailing, which was upgraded to a full-color fold-out brochure. We received anecdotal evidence that the mailing was well received. We spent less on events this year, thanks to Auxiliary Services sponsoring the Charity Fair kick-off event, and to the fact that we did not hold an all- donor thank-you event this year. (See Report 9: Budget) Events This year’s Kick-Off Event and Charity Fair was a success, with almost 200 attendees and over 30 organization represented. The number of attendees was a significant increase over last year, and we hope to see more people attend each year. Given that last year’s All-Donor Thank You event had low attendance, we decided not to hold it again this year. The Leaders’ Circle reception is scheduled for May 17, 4-6pm, at Hillside. Analysis • Though more dollars were pledged this year than last year, fewer people donated. 2015-16 2016-17 % Chg Total Dollars $408,070 $434,975 +6.6% # of Donors 687 648 -5.7% • Though we do not have any concrete data on why fewer people donated this year than last year, we can make some educated guesses. o People may have been motivated to given directly to nonprofits, due to the uncertainty of the political climate. o People may have donated to political campaigns (both nationally and locally) in lieu of making charitable contributions. o People may be feeling less confident about their financial situation, given the uncertainty at the national level. • Even though fewer people gave overall, more people gave at the Leaders’ Circle level ($500 total or more) than last year (310 this year, 282 last year) • A higher proportion of donors gave online this year (58%) than last year (47%). This is likely due to the fact that online donors could view their last year’s gift and easily repeat it (“Repeat this pledge” button). (See Report 3: Pledge Method) • The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation showed the most significant gain in designations this year, compared with last year. Last year ACLU Foundation had $700 in designations from 11 people. This year, ACLU Foundation received $6,310 from 40 people, propelling it to the #10 slot in terms of total designations. (See Report 10: Donations by Charitable Organization) • Planned Parenthood also showed impressive growth, up from $5,543 in designations last year to $9,307 this year. (See Report 10) • When asked the open-ended question “How did you decide which nonprofit organizations to donate to this year?” most people answered that they have a personal connection to, or knowledge or awareness of, the organization(s) chosen (of the 174 people who answered this question, 147 stated some personal connection). Other top answer categories include mention of wanting to give to local organizations (31), and mention of the current political climate (16). • When asked the open-ended question “What can we do to better differentiate UMACC from the UMass Faculty & Staff campaign?” several people suggested changing the UMACC name and/or branding to make it more clear what UMACC is (“Maybe put the words "Community Campaign" before UMass?” “Perhaps a name change or adding the word ‘giving’ after community?”). It is worth mentioning that several people stated that they did not know there was a difference between the two campaigns. • When asked the open-ended question “What questions do you have about UMACC?” several people mentioned wanting to know when the nonprofits receive donations (“How/when do the charitable organizations receive funds?”) APPENDIX Report 1: Donation by Location % of Donations by Nonprofit Location 70% 64% 62% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 12% 13% 13% 13% 9% 9% 10% 1% 1% 0% Western MA New England Regional (US) National (US) Global 2016 2017 Report 2: Payment Method Payment Method % of Donors % of Donors # of Donors (2016) (2017) (2017) Payroll Deduction 71% 71% 462 Cash or Check 18% 15% 100 Credit Card 11% 13% 84 Other 0% 0% 1 TOTAL 100% 100% 647 Report 3: Pledge Method Pledge Method % of Donors % of Donors # of Donors (2016) (2017) (2017) Online 47% 58% 376 Paper or other 53% 42% 272 TOTAL 100% 100% 648 Report 4: Total Donation Amount Total Gift Amount % of Donors % of Donors # of Donors (2016) (2017) (2017) $26 or under 7% 3% 22 $27 - $99 15% 13% 81 $100 - $249 20% 21% 136 $250 - $499 17% 15% 99 $500 - $749 21% 23% 147 $750 - $999 2% 3% 20 $1,000 - $2,499 14% 16% 104 $2,500 - $4,999 3% 5% 31 $,5000 - $15,000 1% 1% 8 TOTAL 648 Report 5: UMACC History Year TOTAL $ Year TOTAL $ 1990-91 $121,374 2004-05 $366,473 1991-92 $113,357 2005-06 $414,120 1992-93 $119,840 2006-07 $449,505 1993-44 $157,265 2007-08 $455,508 1994-95 $167,995 2008-09 $476,666 1995-96 $180,323 2009-10 $464,060 1996-97 $211,797 2010-11 $461,809 1997-98 $248,754 2011-12 $417,813 1998-99 $318,278 2012-13 n/a 1999-00 $397,234 2013-14 $366,000 2000-01 $462,308 2014-15 $299,756 2001-02 $447,448 2015-16 $408,070 2002-03 $362,608 2016-17 $434,975 2003-04 $354,250 UMACC Total Dollars Raised $600,000 $500,000 $400,000 $300,000 $200,000 $100,000 $0 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Report 6: SURVEY: Why do you give through UMACC? (Select all that apply.) Answer option % (2016) % (2017) It’s important for me to give back.