PropheZy Helps Boost Charity Fundraising

For some time now we at Z/Yen have been convinced that PropheZy can help organisations to target their direct marketing activities better. The fundraising arms of our charity clients are, of course, heavily involved with direct marketing. Z/Yen has therefore been conducting experiments with one charity client whose database has several hundred thousand donors. This client has a heavy reliance on, and excellent track record of, fundraising through direct marketing. After several retrospective experiments, PropheZy participated in the client’s autumn mail-shot with a couple of thousand potential donors that PropheZy fancied even though conventional methods would not have selected those donors. The results were superb, exceeding our expectations (although not exceeding PropheZy’s of course) with c30% of the people PropheZy fancied actually giving.

Following that success, in January, a much larger PropheZy selection will participate in that charity’s first post-Christmas mailing. If, as we hope (and PropheZy predicts) PropheZy can boost the return from that mailing by 15% to 25%, we will have proved that PropheZy is capable of significantly boosting performance. Jez Horne, Mary O’Callaghan and Ian Harris are the Z/Yen team on the case.

We believe that PropheZy can also help solve other fundraising and membership problems, such as helping to select donors with a propensity to switch to committed giving schemes and helping to recover lapsed members who have a propensity to rejoin.

Any charity and/or membership and/or direct marketing readers who want to know more about this exciting development should contact Ian Harris on ian_harris@zyen.com or by telephone.

EX Marks The Spot

Not content with watching others build financial exchanges, a little advance teaser that, with a fair bit of help from Mike Smith, Z/Yen will be launching its own exchange game, ExtZy, in the New Year.

Yet Z/Yen’s work with real financial centres continues apace. Michael Mainelli was asked to co-chair the Exchange Invest Conference Monaco. It was a fantastic event says Michael where, naturally, he spoke about the Global Financial Centres Index. Ever the champagne republican, he goes on and on about meeting royalty and seems to have committed Z/Yen to co-sponsor Exchange Invest Conference Monaco 2008. So if you do anything with exchanges please do mark down Wednesday & Thursday, 15 & 16 October for a trip to the casino with Michael.

Mark Yeandle and Michael have also been appearing and/or travelling regularly, such as on Korean & Canadian television, at meetings with cities such as Stockholm & Dubai, in numerous publications and, occasionally, at the office. To help keep them on the road, Now & Z/Yen readers are asked to participate in GFCI 3.

Floating The London Accord?

Z/Yen is immensely proud that it helped create and deliver the London Accord with the City of London Corporation, BP plc, Forum for the Future and Gresham College. During 2007, two dozen contributing organisations, many of them Z/Yen’s investment bank clients, donated 25 papers on climate change investment opportunities – ‘cash in, carbon out’. The result – 25 reports and nearly 800 pages of valuable research on climate change, free to the world. Michael Mainelli, Mark Yeandle, Ian Harris and Alexander Knapp all authored and/or co-wrote papers.

But Z/Yen is equally pleased that the London Accord had a float in the Lord Mayor’s Show on 10 November! How many firms can point to their logo and a page in the programme – all right, quite a few, but at least we were one of them.

Returning to the London Accord, there are detailed investment research papers on renewables, biofuels, energy efficiency, emissions trading and forestry, to name a few. The conclusions of the London Accord are many. In short – there is no silver bullet; we must commit to significant carbon prices; forestry is the area of biggest uncertainty. The London Accord questions certain technologies, such as carbon capture & storage, as well as certain policies, such as taxation and planning permissions. The Rt Hon. Lord Mayor of London, David Lewis, and the City of London Corporation are most kindly hosting a gala publication launch on 19 December at the Mansion House.

Z/Yen is exploring how the London Accord might continue to add value. Suggestions on an email to Alexander Knapp! Any Now & Z/Yen reader with an interest in climate change should visit www.london-accord.co.uk & the Full Reports List to start reading. Please do contact Z/Yen if you would like a CD-ROM of the results, or any more information.

Nativity Story

It wouldn’t be a Christmas Special without a cuddly story, and what could be more suitable than a nativity tale? So we are delighted to announce that Becky and Neil Dawson have produced Isaac, a young brother for Oscar. Isaac weighed in at 6lb 8oz on Day One [is that featherweight? – please check – Ed.] and all the family are doing well. So let us put aside Linda Cook’s grumbling about the payroll software refusing to believe that the same member of staff can go on maternity leave twice. And let us also put aside Ian Harris’s annual “bah humbug” noises at Christmas time. Instead, we wish the Dawson family all the best and also wish all Now and Z/Yen readers a very happy Christmas and Happy New Year!