"We substantially surpassed our capital campaign fundraising goal!"
 

Alan Beach
Development Director

 

The Ronald McDonald House based in Palo Alto, California has been operating since 1979 and houses over 1,200 families every year. To support its operating expenses, RMH Stanford has built a $2.4 million endowment, in addition to the average $1.5 million the organization raises each year to cover annual non-capital expenses.
 

To accommodate the growing needs of the local community, RMH Stanford began expanding its housing capacity from 24 to 46 rooms. The need was so great that RMH Stanford estimated that more than 500 families are turned away each year given the limited space in the current house.
 

In order to support this expansion, the organization reached out to the community through an extensive capital campaign to raise money for the remodeling expenses.

THE CHALLENGE

For RMH Stanford's fundraising campaign to be successful, the organization must both communicate effectively and target its marketing efforts efficiently. In addition, RMH Stanford must constantly look to maximize its finite cash and human resources to achieve optimal operations. Effective communication and productive marketing efforts are crucial elements in a successful fundraising campaign.
 

Historically, RMH Stanford relied upon a cumbersome, paper-based process to track and manage interaction with its donors, as well as with its volunteers and guests. As a result, volunteers and RMH professional staff spent much of their time on administrative tasks, especially initiatives such as direct mail and reporting. Also, RMH could not personalize communications to all of its 15,000 donors and could not easily analyze the results of their fundraising campaigns.
 

"Given our communication and marketing limitations, we were not certain that we were realizing the maximum potential of our fundraising efforts," said Alan Beach, Development Director at RMH Stanford.

THE SOLUTION

Since 1989, the organization has used Exceed! Premier—Arreva's desktop donor management software solution—to track and manage its donors. By using Exceed! Premier, the RMH Stanford staff has the ability to manage all of their donors in one centralized location, enabling them to personalize donor communication based on the donor's individual history with the organization and stated preferences—connecting RMH with constituents like never before.
 

For example, if a particular donor is interested in supporting cancer patients, RMH can personalize its communications based on cancer-related programs and campaigns. In addition, due to more efficient record-keeping and reporting capabilities, RMH Palo Alto can slice and dice its data to provide detailed information to donors on how their specific contributions have positively impacted the organization's mission.
 

Through a customized module, Exceed! Premier also enables RMH Stanford to track its house guests, more efficiently assign rooms and manage occupancy rates. By tracking this type of information, RMH can easily calculate what percentages of families are staying with related illnesses, such as cancer or heart transplants. In addition, by using Exceed! Premier RMH has vastly improved its operational efficiency and volunteer communication through its ability to track volunteer hours, projects, history and much more.
 

Finally, with the unique mailing features found in Exceed! Premier, RMH Stanford can now automatically generate thank-you letters to donors and volunteers, usually a time-consuming, manual task.
 

Today, RMH professionals have the ability to develop and foster one-to-one relationships with donors in a way that is usually expected from smaller-sized organizations with fewer donors. RMH Stanford is spending less time on administrative tasks and has improved its record-keeping and reporting, raising the overall potential of its fundraising campaigns.
 

In just nine months, RMH Stanford raised $21 million to complete its capital campaign to remodel the house.
 

"We substantially surpassed our capital campaign fundraising goal! We estimate that with the support of Exceed! Premier, we more than doubled the amount of money raised from $9 million to $21 million, thanks in large part to improved communication to our donors," remarked Beach.

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