Case Study: Building the Case for Investment in Strategic Growth

Converting Vision to Mission: Building the Case for Strategic Growth

International Justice Mission

International Justic Mission (IJM) is a global organization that protects people in poverty from violence. IJM partners with local authorities in 33 communities across 19 countries to combat slavery, violence against women and children, and other forms of abuse against people who are poor. IJM works to rescue and restore victims, hold perpetrators accountable and help strengthen public justice systems. Learn more at IJM.org.

“Multiply Strategies was instrumental in laying a foundation for success. Their strategic vision, operational insight, and hands-on partnership created the clarity and momentum we needed to launch a startup direct response program from the ground up. From identifying the right team structure to guiding channel strategy and donor engagement, Multiply Strategies didn’t just help us secure investment —they helped us build a team and invest those dollars right.”

JILL MILLER, HEAD – MASS MARKET AUDIENCE, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION

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The Challenge

While IJM saw revenue growth during the 2020 – 2021 fundraising cycle, an assessment of the overall health of the fundraising program revealed some warning signs impacting future growth potential. The first was that revenue successes were being driven by a small number of high value donors for generating undesignated funds, creating a significant risk for IJM. The second identified that the overall donor file was shrinking due to lower retention rates, reduced levels of giving by mass market donors and a decrease in acquisition of new donors through the existing event based program. The mass market file is the pipeline to midlevel, major donor and future planned giving revenue.

The bottom line? A “business as usual” approach to the fundraising program indicated that the active donor file would continue to shrink, resulting in an overall revenue decline for the entire organization in future years – at a time when IJM was projecting to need to scale in size significantly to meet the needs of the mission.

IJM brought Multiply Strategies onboard to build a Case for Investment in Strategic Growth of the fundraising program that would turn the tide and enable future revenue and file growth.

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The Solution

Multiply Strategies partnered with IJM leadership to conduct an assessment and create a Case for Investment and transformative Strategic Fundraising Plan to provide the IJM Executive Team with a clear vision on where to invest, how to make those investments and when to invest.  The identified goal was to build a pathway to meet the financial needs of the mission by 2030.

The comprehensive audit and strategic plan considered:

• Internal and external capabilities – what resources, staff, and vendor partners were required to be fit for purpose in order to achieve the goals along the growth path.
• Fundraising operations & technology governance needs to support additional volume and stakeholders.
• Organizational structure and all donor audience programs were assessed to determine staffing needs, RASCIs, and process needed to scale rapidly while enabling a strong donor pipeline.
• KPI’s and milestones were established to monitor progress towards the goals and inform further optimizations.

The Case for Investment in Strategic Growth presented a new long-term Development strategy that offered predictable and sustainable growth of funds that would put the fundraising program on the right trajectory to support the global mission of IJM.

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The Road Map

To design the investment case and fundraising strategic plan, Multiply Strategies led an assessment to determine readiness to scale across the fundraising team from a capabilities perspective. Based on this assessment, recommendations were made for necessary leadership and staffing, services and scalability, vendor partners and/or skill set needs to build the foundation for audience and channel development.

Multiply Strategies provided project management to complete the build-out of numerous investment scenarios with IJM leadership and their analytics partner to support the investment case. 

Financial implications were considered, determined by anticipated cash flow and investment ROI. A recommended acquisition mix and growth strategy was designed focused on scaling revenue and the donor file over the next ten years.

For this initial phase of the project, Multiply Strategies delivered:

• Comprehensive written documentation including the strategies, initiatives and investments to drive growth, with KPI’s and milestones.
• Financial projections.
• Presentation deck for Executive Leadership and the Board of Directors Case for Investment in Strategic Growth that demonstrated all of the above.

This thorough roadmap not only clarified where and how to invest – it equipped IJM with the strategic foundation and operational blueprint needed to confidently more forward with transformational fundraising growth. During the assessment a variety of opportunities were identified including strategic tactics to improve acquisition / conversion, revision of goals to drive strategy focused on long-term donor value and file growth, and creating an integrated planning process to break down channel silos.

The Sustainer Opportunity Analysis deliverables included:

• Comprehensive 40-slide power point presentation for leadership
• Prioritized list of 38 recommended action items
• Complete messaging audit across Direct Mail, Email, and Telemarketing
• Staffing recommendations
• Goal recommendations to manage change to audience prioritization across channels

Multiply Strategies led several in-depth debriefs of the analysis and recommendations for Oxfam leadership, members of the development team and channel owners.

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The Multiply Effect

The Case for Investment was approved by IJM leadership, allowing for immediate activation and implementation of the strategies and initiatives. These included:

• Change management process framework for transformational reorganization to set the IJM team up for long-term success.
• Tech audit completed and recommendations for process and system improvements to ensure data security and fundraising scalability launched.
• RFP conducted for Agency of Record and facilitation of agency onboarding to ensure timely kick-off of initial marketing deliverables.
• Team restructure to add resources needed to scale, remove redundancy and silos created around inefficient processes, and align fundraising experts around the mission to grow.
• Updated job descriptions and role expectations for all new and changed positions.
• RASCIs for new structure with clear swim lanes for new processes.

In parallel, the Multiply Strategies team provided support:

• As gap-fill mass audience leadership during the initial year of the implementation of the strategic plan
  • RFP, selection, and onboarding of an Agency of Record to lead direct mail and digital
  • Search and onboarding of an experienced, innovative leader for the mass market program

IJM brought onboard an expert leader with deep industry experience, Jill Miller as Head of Mass Market to establish a team and drive the growth required.

With new leadership in place, Multiply Strategies worked alongside Jill’s team to implement a phased approach for the delivery of key marketing initiatives, launch of new channels and a focus on the health of the full donor file. Program implementation included:

• Investment made in new donor acquisition to begin to rebuild the donor file, with immediate focus on execution of direct mail.
• New channels launched including Face-to-Face canvassing to directly acquire recurring donors for sustainable revenue.
• A donor-centric approach to retention and reactivation of the entire file was implemented.
• An optimized multi-channel touchpoint plan including a custom personalized ask strategy for Mid-Level donors created and deployed.

In collaboration with Jill, a blueprint to build the team over time was executed. Priority roles were identified and those gaps in the team were filled, while Multiply Strategies provided internal interim support through embedded roles for Face-to-Face Channel Management, Inbound Donor Services and Mid-Level Audience Strategy until it made financial sense to hire internally for these roles. The transformation of IJM’s direct response fundraising program has already begun to yield powerful results. With a revitalized strategy and new leadership IJM has reversed the decline in its donor file, launched new acquisition channels and implemented a donor-centric approach that is driving sustainable revenue growth. The foundation is now firmly in place and the organization is on a clear path towards its ambitious goals – positioned to fuel its global mission for years to come.