Case Studies
PEP Direct
Donation Processing for Fundraising Organizations
The Business
Non-profit charitable organizations typically find themselves trapped in a dilemma. Their mission is to provide help to a target client base. An important part of providing that help involves organizing fundraising campaigns and ensuring that donations are put to their intended use as quickly and accurately as possible. The processing of donations is a challenge for many of these organizations, taking them beyond their core competencies. As a result, when non-profits need help in the area of donation processing, they turn to PEP Direct.
PEP Direct Inc. is a full-service direct marketing firm with over 30 years of experience meeting and exceeding the fundraising goals of non-profit organizations. Their electronically secured processing facility in Wilton, New Hampshire utilizes state-of-the-art high-speed mail extraction and imaging technology with the ability to open, data enter, image and transmit donations.
The Problem
Donation processing has always been a very manual environment based on the fact that solicitation for donations is driven by direct marketing fundraising efforts and little has been done to ensure that the reply device could be processed in an automated environment. The "package" has to support the fundraising campaign and get the individual to make a donation, therefore the reply devices cannot look like a typical financial transaction document such as an invoice. Customer information contained on the reply device has to be entered into the system, to keep track of payments and also to capture donor information in a database – information such as who contributed, how much, their contact information, and the campaign to which they responded. This information will be analyzed and used to shape future fundraising campaigns. Accuracy and timeliness in capturing this information is crucial, but the lack of standardization in size and format of the reply devices has hindered attempts at automation...