Beyond the Sign-Up: Building Lasting Support for the Scottish SPCA

At Zen Fundraising, understand that a successful face-to-face fundraising campaign is about more than just sign-ups. Inspiring new supporters matters, but it’s just as valuable to know who chooses to support a charity, the quality of those supporters, and what happens after that first conversation. These factors reveal much more about a campaign’s long-term success.

We’ve seen this firsthand through our ongoing work with the Scottish SPCA. Our teams have been connecting with people through private site, street and door-to-door fundraising, sharing the charity’s work and inviting them to become regular supporters.

The results have been fantastic so far, with the campaign generating 1,229 supporter sign-ups.

But some of the most interesting insights sit behind that headline figure. A key measure for us is early supporter retention, with Month 1 attrition currently at 7.74%. By monitoring what happens beyond the initial sign-up, we can build a much clearer picture of supporter quality and how those relationships develop.

The average age of supporters who joined through the campaign is 48, compared to our target of 40. 84% of supporters are over 30, much higher than our goal of 50%. Gift Aid is also performing well at 86%, just above our target of 85%.

These numbers help us see a more complete picture of how the campaign is performing and who our supporters are. One advantage of a long-term fundraising partnership is the opportunity to keep learning.

Rather than viewing a supporter sign-up as the end of the journey, we monitor campaign performance beyond the point of acquisition, including attrition. This information helps us see how relationships with supporters grow over time and gives our teams what they need to keep improving the campaign.

Our approach focuses on finding quality supporters, using data to target the right people and understanding what helps build longer-term support.

Our work with the Scottish SPCA is an ongoing, year-on-year campaign that helps us learn from the data and adjust our approach, always focusing on the supporter experience.

At Zen, we understand that behind every percentage is a person who stopped to have a conversation and decided that the Scottish SPCA was a cause they wanted to support.

For us, that’s where successful face-to-face fundraising begins: not by achieving a number, but by helping charities build support that lasts.

Find out more about fundraising the Zen way.