“There is nothing more constant than change” – Heraclitus, 535 BC
The last several years have seen the face-to-face fundraising sector stop, adapt, restart and evolve in the face of political crises, a pandemic, war and economic uncertainty. Through all this, one constant remains: the resilience and sustainability of the regular giving model. Now, as an organisation, we are evolving too, to better support our non-profit partners in retaining and rebuilding their regular-give donor bases so they can continue making an impact.
The pandemic years taught us the importance of a diversified fundraising strategy. With the worst behind us, 2022 showed us the resilience of face-to-face as an acquisition channel and solidified the importance of the regular-give model and sound donor retention practices to drive sustainable income. We understand that every charity has its unique set of strengths and challenges, and therefore needs solutions which meet its needs and circumstances.
Over the past year, we have been setting the foundations to ensure our solutions are timely, responsive and adapted to a variety of needs. We are integrated with more third-party platforms than ever before and continue to identify partnerships which will deliver long-term value to our charity partners. We unveiled a bigger, more advanced Data Share format to facilitate more insightful data-driven conversations with and among our charity partners. Finally, we introduced several new products into the SG-verse which enhance our digital acquisition capability, providing scalability and flexibility to charities and recruiters, no matter big or small.
2023 will see many of our fundraising solutions enter new markets, provide more acquisition channels or enhance charities’ existing fundraising strategies. At the same time, we will continue to listen and engage with our charity partners, deliver timely data-driven insights and continue to build the future of fundraising, together.
This annual report illustrates how we have driven positive outcomes and delivered value to our non-profit partners across four key areas – diversifying acquisition channels, driving donor retention, generating data insights to support decision-making and investing in systems and infrastructure – what we see as pillars to growing regular giving donor bases while building resilience into an ever-evolving fundraising landscape.
In doing this, our people have always been critical towards accomplishing our goals; this report also explores how we have continued to build our culture as an organisation, hired and retained talent, and worked to foster a positive and inclusive environment.
In the last year, our digital data capture tool, signUP, was used by over a hundred fundraisers to recruit over 36,000 new donors for 13 non-profits across Malaysia, Korea and Taiwan. With the capability to support local languages in any market, signUP is currently deployed in English, Korean, Traditional Chinese and Spanish-speaking markets.
In addition, we introduced the Form Builder tool which allows fundraisers to have better control over data capture forms to suit its intended purpose and regulatory requirements in their markets. Combined with point-of-sale (POS) payment capabilities, location-assigning capability, real-time sales performance dashboards, and a prepaid credit-based subscription, signUP is a PCI-compliant and complete sales management solution within a single application, offering borderless flexibility and scalability to face-to-face acquisition teams.
We are delighted to partner with SimplyGiving, Asia’s crowdfunding platform for social impact, to add an exciting new dimension to our charity and non-profit partners’ fundraising strategies through peer-to-peer (P2P) crowdfunding.
With an existing presence in seven markets (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Hong Kong), and over 1,200 partner organisations registered on the platform, SimplyGiving will create new touchpoints to engage with charities’ active donors, reach out to new ones, quickly set up emergency response appeals, and work with corporates and private individuals to amplify their causes across social and peer networks.
Moreover, the website’s level 1 PCI-DSS certified payment gateways and capability to accept cross-border donations in 17 currencies mean charities can accept international donations in a safe and secured manner.
We had the pleasure of hosting a session at IFC Online, where we delved into the opportunities, challenges and trends of digital acquisition in Asia. Specifically, we talked about our 2-step approach, which combines digital ad targeting with telemarketing, to drive quality leads and convert them to regular give donors. Through case studies of campaigns we have run for our non-profit partners, we shared recommendations about the use of effective copy and images, managing budgets, and the importance of taking a long-term view to facilitate proper testing and learning to optimise campaign returns.
The Q&A session which followed showed there is keen interest in digital as an acquisition channel among Asia-based non-profits. In the past year, we have grown our Digital team to support the scaling up of our campaign pipeline by bringing on a Creative Strategist, and we will be testing new campaigns and tactics to drive regular-give donor acquisition for our charity partners.
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When it comes to People, our goal is to create a culture that fosters inclusivity, collaboration and growth, whilst being results-driven.
To put it quite simply, we want people to enjoy coming to work, and for their time at SG to be as rewarding and fulfilling as it can be.
Employees
New Joiners
In 2022, we formalised changes to our Long Service Scheme which provided more flexibility on how people utilised the benefit. And we were proud to see a number of highly-valued team members reaching significant milestones.
Head Data Strategist
Assistant to Head of Finance
Senior Customer Service Executive
Procurement & Supply Chain Manager
People and Culture will continue to be a priority for us in 2023, and we have many initiatives in the pipeline. As always, our goal is to facilitate the best workplace experience that we can for all employees by ensuring that they are given the tools to function as a high performing team, they are rewarded well, there are opportunities for growth, and that their health and wellbeing are prioritised and protected.
We strive to improve in this area each year and will stay true to our approach of “progress over perfection” – not being afraid to try new things, and also not being afraid to pivot towards something better.
Our focus in 2023 will be to continue to improve our core business processes and evolve our fundraising solutions to meet the changing and diverse needs of our charity partners. We look forward to bringing our solutions to new markets, namely Australia, the UK and the US, and to forging strong and value-driven partnerships with recruiters and non-profits, with the aim of making fundraising easy for all.
In getting there, we are as always in awe of and inspired by the work that our non-profit partners do, in all corners of the world, in driving social change and alleviating problems for those who need it most.
SG Support exists to make fundraising easy for charities by working in partnership to acquire new donors, retain existing ones
and win back those who have left. We do this through our complete suite of services that range from providing data-driven strategies,
consultancy and ensuring the smooth running of the operational aspects of payment processing, contact centre and financial reporting.
Since our establishment in 2002, we have grown to become the world’s largest fundraising agency working with 70 charities in more than
14 countries, managing over 3 million donors.
SG Support exists to make fundraising easy for charities by working in partnership to acquire new donors, retain existing ones
and win back those who have left. We do this through our complete suite of services that range from providing data-driven strategies,
consultancy and ensuring the smooth running of the operational aspects of payment processing, contact centre and financial reporting.
Since our establishment in 2002, we have grown to become the world’s largest fundraising agency working with 70 charities in more than
14 countries, managing over 3 million donors.