Case Study: Animal Humane Society doubles major gifts and grows planned giving with WealthEngine

Animal Humane Society - Customer Case Study

The Animal Humane Society (AHS) is the largest animal welfare organization in the upper Midwest, operating five shelters and caring for more than 25,000 animals annually. After a 2007 merger left the organization with multiple, fragmented donor and constituent databases, AHS needed a 360-degree view of donors, adoptees and volunteers to strengthen planned giving, grow major gifts and improve annual giving—so they began using targeted database screening to better understand and segment constituents.

AHS partnered with WealthEngine and Bentz Whaley Flessner to append wealth and demographic data, apply NCOA and email overlays, and deploy predictive models for major, planned and annual giving plus a cluster model of constituent connection. The modeling identified a large pool of major gift prospects, enabling AHS to hire two additional major gift officers, realign portfolios and double both the number and value of major gifts in about a year; their Legacy Circle also grew from 600 to 675 members, demonstrating clear ROI and informing future campaign planning.

Animal Humane Society

Debra Behrens

Director of Donor Relations