Page 24 - Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct 2018

IDEA WATCH HOW I DID IT

THIS ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE. IT’S A our focal issues have included health, education, and
financial stability for every person in every commu-
21ST-CENTURY VERSION OF WHAT I nity, and there’s a lot of evidence that our work has
made a difference.
Another risk is the inertia in a 130-year-old orga-
DID WITH PAPER SURVEYS SO LONG nization. We need to show success fast to get more
adoption of digital by local United Ways. We expect
AGO. ASK PEOPLE WHAT THEY CARE that once more of them are using the system and do-
ing well with it, even more will sign on. That’s one of
ABOUT. ENGAGE WITH THEM. SHARE the benefits of a franchise system: When one member
experiences success, others want to follow. The down-
INFORMATION THEY ARE INTERESTED side of a franchise system when you’re trying to drive
transformations is that they often fail because organi-
zations give up on them too soon. So you have to be
IN. THEN ASK THEM TO GIVE. careful to build and maintain momentum.

BENCHMARKING OUR APPROACH
known and used by many of our corporate partners. We’ve continued to pilot the program in 2018, and the
By the end of 2017 we had signed up several compa- results are very good. In general, when people stop do-
nies to pilot the system, including Anheuser-Busch. nating to United Way, it’s not because they decided to
It works like this: When you log in, you see your do so; it’s because they changed employers or we lost
individual home page, with your profile and photo. track of them and stopped asking. The digital strategy
It tracks all the gifts you’ve made and all the volun- reduces instances of that, lowering churn rates and
teer hours you’ve committed to causes. It shows con- helping us recapture lapsed donors.
tent chosen by you, United Way, or your company. We’re especially encouraged when we benchmark
The platform uses Salesforce’s Einstein artificial in- our approach against that of other nonprofits. Two
telligence functionality, so the more you use it, the examples are Greenpeace and AARP. Not very many
smarter it gets. If your behavior within the platform years ago, Greenpeace was best known for protesting
suggests that you’re especially interested in breast at World Trade Organization events. It has shifted to-
cancer awareness, or early childhood education, or ward a direct-to-consumer advocacy model, creating
low-income housing, the platform will begin high- an ecosystem that helps individuals find ways to make
lighting content or policy news or volunteer oppor- their voices heard. We’ve adopted some of that think-
tunities relevant to that cause. One of the advantages ing. We also admire how AARP has shifted its model,
of working with a company like Salesforce is that it establishing commercial relationships that create real
has the resources to update the platform every three value for its members. That helps it gain the revenue
months, so the functionality keeps getting better. And it needs to exert influence on policy matters impor-
even though people create their initial profiles in the tant to its members. AARP moved from a pure service
workplace, they keep the same ones if they change mentality—What can we do for our members?—to a
companies or decide to work for themselves. That’s model built on commercial partnerships.
crucial in an economy where people are changing jobs The global economy is changing. More people now
more frequently. live outside their country of birth than ever before,
Our new approach has some risks. One of them is and migration is increasing. The Baby Boomers who
that it allows donors to earmark their money for cer- led the expansion of the United Way brand are retir-
tain causes. For most of its history United Way took ing, and the Millennials replacing them have different
in donations and then distributed them to commu- relationships with their employers. Meanwhile, digital
nity organizations as local leaders saw fit. So although technology is blowing apart business models.
we can raise a lot more money under this system, we As that happens, we need new ways to bring peo-
have less control over how it’s spent. But the risk that ple together and build community. This isn’t rocket
donors will shift to fund causes directly has always science. It’s a 21st-century version of what I did with
existed. Since I became CEO, I’ve said that our mis- paper surveys so long ago. Ask people what they care
sion isn’t to raise funds but to create social change. To about. Engage with them. Share information they are
do that, we need to create content and educate peo- interested in. Then ask them to give—and there’s a
ple about the policies we’re targeting—and the data good chance they will.
shows that we’re succeeding. Over the past decade HBR Reprint R1805A

44 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2018