Overview
The Philadelphia Committee to END Homelessness (PCEH) was founded in 1982 after a citywide conference was held to address homelessness in the City of Brotherly Love. PCEH’s mission is to empower individuals and their families by providing opportunities to move off the streets and into affordable housing.
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Objectives
PCEH hosts a variety of fundraising activities to support its mission. One of its most successful fundraisers is the holiday card program, which generates revenue when services are needed most. What started out as small program has since grown to thousands of cards each season, generating more than one million dollars to help families get off the streets. Today many prominent Philadelphia-area businesses and private donors buy their holiday cards from PCEH in support of its important mission.
Challenge
While PCEH was thrilled at how the program had taken off, the nonprofit with limited resources was overwhelmed. Orders were placed via phone or fax and as the number of orders grew, the process became an administrative nightmare for the staff. The added burden reduced profitability. So PCEH turned to its long-time partner, TGI, for a solution that could ease administrative issues and lower costs – but didn’t expect to also increase sales.
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TGI Solution
TGI had seen this problem before – in non-profit, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, financial service industries – many organizations that have kick-started their marketing efforts without adequately preparing for the increased process requirements or costs. A common challenge, TGI offered an uncommon solution. TGI designed an innovative online marketing portal where PCEH supporters could go to order and customize holiday cards. The new system was designed to look like the PCEH site but performed like a consumer-friendly shopping site – complete with ‘refer-a-friend’ functionality.
Supporters simply select between 13 standard cards and 10 different customizable cards. Corporations can tailor their holiday card with images, company logos and greetings to add a personal touch. Orders of any size are turned around within 24 hours. TGI manages all of the printing using on-demand technology so PCEH doesn’t waste money printing cards that may never be ordered.
“Before TGI created our online ordering system, we had to print each of our card varieties en masse to ensure that we had enough available when the orders would start rolling in,” said Phyllis Ryan Jackson, Executive Director of PCEH. “We had to guestimate the quantities, often resulting in overstock that just went to waste. TGI’s solution not only eliminated hundreds of hours of administrative hassles but it also saved us upwards of $10,000 in wasted materials per season.”
To help drive supporters to PCEH’s holiday card ordering portal, TGI also designed and managed an email campaign that promoted the program. TGI plans to continue to support this annual marketing drive with both email blasts and a new social media campaign.
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Results
Today, all PCEH holiday card orders, personalization and payments are handled online. Consequently, PCEH were no longer forced to hire additional staff during the holidays, and they can access data in a snap. Additionally, TGI’s on-demand printing services helped PCEH dramatically reduce production costs by only printing processed orders. Inventory costs were also eliminated. This revolutionary storefront was a new and effective approach to a decades-old fundraising activity and helped the organization improve cash flow for the good of its mission.
As impressive, TGI not only save the nonprofit money, it also helped INCREASE the number of card orders. By the second season, PCEH had added two large corporate clients who appreciated the efficiency of the new card ordering process. Overall, PCEH has seen an 10% increase in holiday card orders with a 15% decrease in man hours for administrative handling.
TGI’s turnkey marketing support program – complete with on-demand printing, a new online ordering portal and promotional campaign – helped PCEH collapse the purchasing process and spawn sales. Mission accomplished.
“As a nonprofit with limited resources, anything that can save us time or money is incredibly valuable. TGI’s innovative marketing support program did both!” concluded Jackson.