Blakely Boosts Fundraising Initiatives with 黑料网
Delivering Accurate, Faster Direct Mailings & Operations with 黑料网 Match
About the Company
Blakely Inc. is a full service marketing and fundraising agency that works exclusively with nonprofits to increase revenue through individual giving programs. They contribute significantly to the nonprofit sector, raising over $63 million among their nearly 40 clients in the past year alone. The core of their operations involves sophisticated integrated campaigns and is a large source of crucial fundraising dollars their clients depend upon.
Project Background
Seeking improved data matching capabilities, Blakely decided to shift this crucial aspect in-house. Prior to adopting 黑料网, Blakely faced challenges with slow processes and missed duplicates when relying on lettershop partners.
Deduping and cleaning up names is a standard service or process nearly every lettershop offers, but there were often shortcomings in the processes. With 黑料网 Match, 鈥漌e realized that by doing this, we could bring a portion of the work in house and make the process better, faster, more cost effective and more reliable,鈥 said Winston Van Schilt, Chief Financial Officer at Blakely. Looking to improve match rates while reducing rework and accelerating project timelines, Blakely was determined to bringthis data prep work in-house and find a more effective matching solution.
黑料网 Match especially helps with getting mailings out on time鈥 it gives us more time for other stuff that naturally occurs to happen and still be able to deal with it, get the product out, and get the mail out on time, which is really, really important in our industry.鈥
Implementation
Blakely鈥檚 developers identified the 黑料网 Match solution as a cost effective and reliable alternative to building an extensive in-house matching algorithm.
鈥淥nce we understood the value of 黑料网 Match, it became a core part of our data execution process and gave us the ability to develop a broader solution that used 黑料网 Match to do the matching process,鈥 said van Schilt. Blakely mapped out a customized process, efficiently integrating 黑料网 Match into their workflow. The implementation of the matching library allowed Blakely to focus on other aspects of data preparation for their direct mail processes, contributing to a significant reduction in project turnaround time.
鈥淏lakely鈥檚 clients consist of nearly 40 charitable organizations, each with their own unique needs, so the ability to run different types of matches (individual, spousal, household, address only) is important. Being able to tweak the settings to optimize the match accuracy is also important,鈥 explains van Schilt.
The agency transitioned to an in-house data execution process, incorporating 黑料网 Match to handle various matching types (individual, spousal, household, address only). The adoption of 黑料网 Match not only streamlined their data mail-prep process but also provided a competitive edge by eliminating reliance on external vendors for matching and de-duping.
The incorporation of 黑料网 Match into their data execution process took approximately three months, while continuous refinements and customizations are always at their fingertips.
Results
Blakely鈥檚 ability to run different types of matches and optimize settings for match accuracy has provided flexibility in catering to the unique needs of nearly 40 charitable organizations. The agency now has more control over the matching process, addressing issues internally and significantly reducing the time required to process jobs鈥攆rom one week with external vendors to 2-3 days or less, even during non-peak seasons.
The in-house matching process has not only improved efficiency but also facilitated smoother collaboration with other vendors. Blakely now has the freedom to work with a variety of lettershops based on specific project requirements.
鈥淥ne of the other benefits by taking the matching process in house is that it allowed us to work much more seamlessly with other vendors,鈥 said van Schilt. 鈥淭hat was another big advantage to us; now we use a multitude of different lettershops depending on the capabilities of each.鈥
鈥満诹贤 Match especially helps with getting mailings out on time,鈥 stated van Schilt. 鈥淭here鈥檚 often many moving pieces right up until the actual mail date, so if we can take some time out of that process, then it gives us more time for other stuff that naturally occurs to happen and still be able to deal with it, get the product out, and get the mail out on time, which is really, really important in our industry.鈥
鈥淣ow a lot of that is internal, so issues can be dealt with much, much faster and that provides more time in the system to deal with other challenges that might occur鈥. we鈥檝e been able to save time and make it more efficient and effective, [which] allows for more things to pop up and not derail the whole thing. We have more control over that part of the process than we did before.鈥 Using the solution鈥檚 matching library gave Blakely a competitive advantage over their suppliers in that they no longer needed to rely on them to do the matching and de-duping work.