 Donor Perception Report
In the fall of 2013, we contracted with the Center for Effective Philanthropy to conduct a Donor Perception Survey to learn what donors most value about the Oklahoma City Community Foundation and its services and resources. For those of you who participated, thank you for spending time to provide our Trustees and our staff with invaluable feedback.
Donors contacted to participate were those that have an advised fund or had made gifts within last three years to a scholarship or charitable organization endowment fund. We were pleased that 34 percent of those contacted participated in the survey. Please know that your candid responses informed us of what we're doing right and recommended areas we can improve upon.
The survey allowed for minimal customization in order to provide comparative data among the community foundation sector overall as well as 11 community foundations that we indicated were similar in size or community to the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. Learning more about our donors' perceptions, preferences for engagement and giving patterns will help us better define, assess and improve our effectiveness.
All of the survey information has been included in a Donor Perception Report and will be very helpful as the Trustees embark on a long-range planning process in the spring. Below are highlights of the survey findings. You can review the Donor Perception Report's executive summary including recommendations at www.occf.org/survey. Please don't hesitate to contact me or Jennifer Stewart if you have questions. Again, thanks to everyone who participated in this project.
 Nancy B. Anthony
President
You like us!
The Oklahoma City Community Foundation received the highest rating of donor satisfaction out of the 53 community foundations that have utilized the Donor Perception Survey. Our donors have exceedingly positive perceptions of us compared to donors of the typical community foundation. From the executive report:
"Overall, OCCF donors have exceedingly positive perceptions of the foundation compared to donors of the typical community foundation. On nearly every measure in the report, OCCF donors rate the foundation higher than 80% of the funders in CEP's comparative dataset. In particular, OCCF receives the highest ratings for donor satisfaction out of the 53 community foundations that have used the Donor Perception Report."
The chart below shows our percentile ranking on key areas relative to the Center for Philanthropy's overall data. Rankings are also shown for the selected cohort of 11 peer community foundations:
Click graph for larger version.
Motivation of First Gift
The survey asked respondents to select the two most important reasons behind their initial gift to OCCF: - 42% gave to support a specific charitable organization.
- 33% selected "to give back to the community."
- 26% indicated their first gift was to create a charitable legacy or continue a family tradition.
Quality of Donor Relationships
The survey results show that the frequency of interaction with our donors occurs on a similar frequency as donors at a typical foundation but our donors rate the helpfulness of this advice and expertise higher than typical.
One respondent described OCCF staff as "very aware of local needs and issues." Furthermore, donors rated the responsiveness of OCCF staff more positively than typical. They also identified the quality of our staff as one of the main reasons they choose to give to OCCF over other options and 94 percent of respondents indicated that they are satisfied with the quality of the staff.
What Resources Donors Use Most
Respondents were asked to select what resources or services they used to achieve their charitable giving goals. The top three selections: - Annual Report - 61%
- Website and Donor Central - 42%
- Events, educational programs - 39%
The report states that our resources are widely used by donors with 83 percent stating that they used some resource. This is higher than the typical community foundation donor. Donors indicated that all of our resources are very helpful, rating the helpfulness for each higher than that of the resources at the typical community foundation. Donors' Future Giving
Donors are more likely than typical to continue giving to the Oklahoma City Community Foundation with 85 percent of respondents indicating they expect to continue to give.
Recommendations
The Donor Perception Report included several recommendations for the Trustees and staff to consider for future planning purposes. These recommendations included continuing to invest in the resources that donors find most helpful, work to increase the number of donors who use the resources and seek out opportunities to increase referrals from professional advisors.
Who Responded: - 87% of respondents were ages 55 or older.
- 58% were male.
- 66% of the respondents answered the survey online.
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