Improving the service quality of donor care with monthly donors a study of the non profit organization in ho chi minh city, vietnam

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

NGUYEN VO TRUC GIANG

IMPROVING THE SERVICE
QUALITY OF DONOR CARE WITH
MONTHLY DONORS
A STUDY OF THE NON-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION IN HO CHI MINH CITY,
VIETNAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2021

1


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

NGUYEN VO TRUC GIANG

IMPROVING THE SERVICE
QUALITY OF DONOR CARE WITH
MONTHLY DONORS
A STUDY OF THE NON-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION IN HO CHI MINH CITY,

VIETNAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2021

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................................... 5
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................................... 6
ABBREVIATION ........................................................................................................................................... 7
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT............................................................................................................................... 8
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................. 9
I.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION ............................................................................................................. 10

1. Problem context ...................................................................................................................................... 10
1.1. ABC Vietnam Organization overview (referred to as ABC Vietnam) ................................................... 10
1.2. Communications and Fund Development department ............................................................................ 10
a. Digital Marketing and Communications team ...................................................................................... 11
b.Corporate Partnership team ................................................................................................................... 11
c. Face to Face fundraising team: .............................................................................................................. 11
d.Tele-fundraising team............................................................................................................................ 11
e. Donor care team .................................................................................................................................... 12
1.3. Problem overview: .................................................................................................................................. 12

2. Symptoms ............................................................................................................................................... 14
3. Potential Problems Identification............................................................................................................ 17
3.1. Problem definition .................................................................................................................................. 17
3.2. Potential problems .................................................................................................................................. 18
3.2.1. Potential problem 1: Lack of income .............................................................................................. 18
3.2.2. Potential problem 2: The Poor Service Quality of Donor Care ...................................................... 20
4. Main problem validation ......................................................................................................................... 24
5. Potential causes ....................................................................................................................................... 25
5.1. Potential cause 1: Lack of understanding of monthly donor insights ..................................................... 25
5.2. Potential cause 2: Lack of Communications .......................................................................................... 26
5.3. Potential cause 3: Manual Database Management ................................................................................. 27
6. Main cause validation ............................................................................................................................. 29
II. ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS.............................................................................................................. 30
1. Donor Database management system component: ................................................................................. 31
2. Donor database management system purpose ........................................................................................ 32
3. Alternative Solutions .............................................................................................................................. 32
3.1. Alternative solution 1: Cloud database management system ................................................................. 33
3.2. Alternative solution 2: Hard drive database management system .......................................................... 34
4. Solution selection.................................................................................................................................... 34
5. Action Plan in Organization ................................................................................................................... 37
III. SUPPORTING INFORMATION ........................................................................................................... 38
1. Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 38

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2. Interview guide ....................................................................................................................................... 38
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................. 40
APPENDIX A: Transcript of in-depth interview (Phase 1) .......................................................................... 43
APPENDIX B: Transcript of in-depth interview (Phase 2) .......................................................................... 53

APPENDIX C: Transcript of in-depth interview (Phase 3) .......................................................................... 57
APPENDIX D: Welcome and thank you email template .............................................................................. 58
APPENDIX E: Questionnaires for choosing alternative solutions at ABC Vietnam .................................... 59

4


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: ABC Vietnam Organization Structure
Figure 2: The structure of Communications and Fund Development department
Figure 3: DD Cancellations Feb-Apr 2019 & 2020, the report of Woods Valldata about the
impact of Covid-19 on individual giving
Figure 4: DD Cancellations Rate Jan – Sept 2018, 2019 & 2020, the update report's May
2020 of Rapidata
Figure 5: The percentage of the Donor Retention
Figure 6: The percentage of the attrition rate of the monthly donors
Figure 7: The donor journey
Figure 8: The preliminary cause and effect map for problem solving at ABC Vietnam
Figure 9: The secondary cause-effect smap for problem solving at ABC Vietnam

5


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Number of new monthly donors and number of monthly donors cancelled from
2018-2020
Table 2: Number of cancelled monthly donors who gave announcement and reason in 2020
and Q1/2021
Table 3: Number of donors and number of Donor Care Staff from 2018 – 2020 comparison
Table 4: A Donor Management System’s general requirements of ABC Vietnam

Table 5: Different alternative solution based on online – offline DDMS choice
Table 6: The advantage and disadvantage of AS #1 versus AS #2
Table 7: Quantitative result for problem solving of ABC Vietnam
Table 8: Action plan for Alternative Solution #1 in the last six months of the year 2021
Table 9: Qualitative Phase 1 – Initial Understanding, Symptom and Problem Deep Dive
Table 10: Qualitative Phase 2 – Causes Deep Dive
Table 11: Qualitative Phase 3 – Solution Development

6


ABBREVIATION
AS

Alternative Solution

CEO

Chief Executive Officer

CFD

Communications and Fund Development

CRM

Customer Relationship Management

DD

Direct Debit

DDMS

Donor Database Management System

GB

Gigabyte

HR & OD

Human Resource and Organizational Development

ICT

Information Communication Technology

IPS

Internet Service Provider

KPI

Key Performance Indicator

Q1

Quarter 1

SME

Small-Medium Enterprise

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First, I express heartfelt gratitude to Associate Professor Mai Trang for her immense support
to carry out this thesis; my attempt at any level cannot be satisfactorily completing without
the support and guidance of my Supervisor.

Secondly, I am much thankful to Mr. Thien, Mr. Hung and Ms. Thu for providing me a good
condition to accomplish the thesis.

Thirdly, I am truly grateful that ISB has granted me an amazing opportunity to apply all of
the knowledge that I have acquired at school to solve a real-world problem. This experience,
by no doubt, has established a solid foundation for me in my career journey ahead.

Finally, I am greatly thankful to my beloved family and friends, especially my great half for
the relentless support that they had given me to reach our goals. Thanks to them, I was
motivated not to give up on difficulties and completed this thesis with the highest quality.
Yours truly,
Nguyen Vo Truc Giang

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ABC Vietnam is a non-profit and non-government organization belonging to an
international organization that aims to support children and young people to grow up in a
safe family environment, get a good education, and be able to self-reliance employability by
mobilizing the caring power of the communities in Vietnam and around the world to
accomplish the mission of ABC Vietnam.

ABC International set a goal for ABC Vietnam to raise a local fund of five million euros in
2025 and this goal is assigning to the CFD department of ABC Vietnam. However, there is
a negative symptom that a high attrition rate of the monthly donors that affected to the goal
of the CFD department. In addition, different literature reviews are used and in-depth
interviews with managers and employees in the CFD department are conducting so that the
current situation and problems fully comprehends at the department. Thus, the findings show
that the poor service quality of donor care of ABC Vietnam and lack of income due to the
Effect of the Covid-19 pandemic were the potential problems of the symptom of ABC
Vietnam. However, the Effect of the Covid-19 pandemic is out of the scope of this project
because it depends on the Covid-19 situation and no one knows when it is gone so this thesis
just focuses on the main problem that is the poor service quality of donor care to solve.
After the main problem, which is the poor service quality of donor care, ABC Vietnam has
been determined; the main causes are also discovering based on the combination of literature
reviews and in-depth interviews. Then, proposed alternative solutions related to its problem
are developing to solve the main problem. At the end, Alternative Solution #1 was selecting
to develop a detailed implementation plan.

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I.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

1.

Problem context

1.1.

ABC Vietnam Organization overview (referred to as ABC Vietnam)

ABC Vietnam (ABC is disguised the organization name) is a non-profit and non-government
organization belonging to an international organization that has been established for 25
years. ABC Vietnam aims to support children and young people to grow up in a safe family
environment, get a good education, and be able to self-reliance employability.

ABC Vietnam bases in Ho Chi Minh City, which has departments such as Finance and
Controlling, Human Resource and Organizational Development, Program Development,
Information

Communication

Technology,

Construction,

Administration,

and

Communications and Fund Development.

Vision: Aim to create a better future for disadvantaged children and young people.
Mission: Build a safe environment for children and young people in need, help them shape
their own futures, and be self-reliant in the future.
The core value: commitment, trust, transparency and accountability.
Chief Executive
Officer
CEO Assistant

Finance and
Controlling

HR & OD

Program
Development

ICT

Construction

Administration

Communications
and Fund
Development

Figure 1: ABC Vietnam Organization Structure
(Source: ABC Vietnam Internal Structure)

1.2.

Communications and Fund Development department

The main responsibility of the CFD department is to build awareness about ABC Vietnam
to the audiences and raise local funds as per the agreed targets from individuals,
organizations and corporations to help ABC Vietnam to achieve five million Euros in 2025.
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The CFD department has 01 Functional Director, 05 teams and 01 General Affair person.
Each team will be responsible for different KPIs. For example:
a.


Digital Marketing and Communications team
Communications will manage internal and external communication, media relations,
raise awareness about Children’s Right and ABC’s brand in Vietnam. Moreover,
Communications is also in charge of crisis communications to ensure coverage of the
identified issues in the targeted media channels.



Digital fundraising has to innovate & explore new possibilities in digital fundraising in
Vietnam; drive, initiate and coordinate fundraising campaigns.

b.


Corporate Partnership team
This team is responsible for building relationships with Corporates sector or High Net

worth Individuals. To analyze their needs and expectations and their relevance to the
organization; develop and implement a strategic partnerships engagement and
communications plan; contribute to the development of communications material for the
above target audience so as to raise much needed funds for the mission of the
organization.

c.


Face to Face fundraising team:
The main responsibility is to raise regular giving from individuals. The team has to
recruit new fundraisers, train and manage field based team members. Set and monitor
the performance as per identified targets. Secure the venues where donor’s recruitment
will take place e.g., malls, shopping complexes, office buildings and other public areas.

d.


Tele-fundraising team
This team will be responsible for acquiring new regular giving for the organization by
calling prospective donors each day. Coach, manage, train, and motivate member in the
team to exceed their financial and non-financial KPIs ∙ Develop more leaders so that the
organization can continue the growth.

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e.


Donor care team
The main responsibility is to interact with donors via phone, email, and social media to
provide and process information in response to inquiries, concerns and requests about
ABC Vietnam services.



Retention of donors by donor. Appropriately record and bank all money collected in the
fundraising campaigns. Update the public donation list on the website. Monthly
crosscheck with an accountant who in charge of finance and controlling of
Communications and Fund Development department about the number of existing and
new donors and their donation amount. Suggest the ideas to improve Donor Care
procedures and practices to maintain the donor as per target.

Figure 2: The structure of Communications and Fund Development department
(Source: ABC Vietnam Internal Structure)

1.3.

Problem overview:

Monthly donors provide the non-profit organization with a stable source of donation amount
through small monthly donations that add up to a sizable annual total. Monthly giving has
retained donors, serving as the foundation of the organization’s success. Their loyalty
provides a predictable and reliable revenue stream that helps the organization operate as its
mission, vision, and goal have set.

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According to (1) have shown that monthly donors are more likely to continue to give year
over year. However, in 2020, the first wave of Covid-19 shocked and affected many people
in Vietnam and around the world in general. An unprecedented situation for all, amidst the
challenges to finance, health, freedom, and fundraising of movement it presented. According
to the report of Woods Valldata about the impact of Covid-19 on individual giving, the
number of regular giving cancellations in 2020 was higher in Feb and March in 2019 (2).

Figure 3: DD Cancellations Feb-Apr 2019 & 2020, the report of Woods Valldata about the impact of
Covid-19 on individual giving

Moreover, in the update report's May 2020 of Rapidata they revealed that the Direct Debit
regular giving cancellations had seen an initial high jump during the first month of
lockdown, before quickly dropping back to the usual level in April. However, if we compare
the attrition rate of 2020 with 2019 and 2018 we can see that the cancellation rates in 2020
have been well below the summer rates of both the two previous years (3).

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Figure 4: DD Cancellations Rate Jan – Sept 2018, 2019 & 2020, the update report's May 2020 of Rapidata

Besides, customer service is building into the for-profit sector. Businesses have one main
party to please: the customer. Nevertheless, it gets a little complicated for nonprofit
organizations. While they exist to meet the needs of their beneficiaries, they also have to
cultivate strong relationships with the donors who fund their programs. Many organizations
continue to struggle with the latter, resulting in donor attrition. On the donor side, it is critical
that non-profits operate to make giving convenient, easy, and even enjoyable since they
cannot rely on providing the contributor with a direct and immediate product or service. It
is also important to understand what drives those that contribute -- i.e. donor wants and
expectations, since meeting those will be essential for retaining contributors. On the other

hand, the role of the quality of service offered to the donor in enhancing retention is also
highlighting, as are donor perceptions of the feedback they receive and the impact they
believe their gift might have on the cause (4).

2. Symptoms
ABC Vietnam wanted to invest in fundraising so that the organization can raise five million
Euros to support the beneficiaries in Vietnam in 2025. The donors of ABC Vietnam are
individuals, corporates, and organizations and ABC Vietnam divides donors into 2 types:
one-time donors and regular donors. The one-time donors are corporates, organizations, and
individuals that do not commit to give long-term support. While the regular donors who are
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individuals commit support from 2-3 years or longer for ABC Vietnam, among the regular
donors there are yearly donors and monthly donors. The average donation amount of yearly
donors is 200 Euros per year while the average donation amount of monthly donors is 20
Euros per month. Besides, the average period donation of yearly donors is 2 years but the
average period donation of monthly donors is 3 years and 6 months. One more important
thing is that ABC Vietnam has more than 12,000 regular donors while the monthly donors
contribute about 60-70% income of ABC Vietnam every year.

However, there are some problems in the service quality of donor care with monthly donors,
which may affect the goal of the organization in the future. Based on interview outcomes
with monthly donors of ABC Vietnam, employees in the Communications and Fund
Development department at ABC Vietnam and analysis from internal secondary data, there
has been an alarming fact that signals a high attrition rate of the monthly donors of ABC
Vietnam.

In 2018, the number of monthly donors of ABC Vietnam at the beginning of the year 2018
was 1550 monthly donors; the Communications and Fund Development department

recruited 2850 new monthly donors so the total of monthly donors in 2018 was 4400, among
that there were 924 monthly donors who stopped donating in 2018. Because of this, the
number of monthly donors of ABC Vietnam at the beginning of the year 2019 was 3476 and
the Communications and Fund Development department recruited 4559 new monthly
donors so the total of monthly donors in 2019 was 8035 but 1974 monthly donors stopped
the donation at the end of the year. In 2020, the CFD department recruited 6853 new monthly
donors but at the end of the year 2020 there were 4000 monthly donors who stopped
donating.

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Table 1: Number of new monthly donors and number of monthly donors cancelled from 2018-2020

Year

No of Active
monthly
donors
present at
start of the
period

No of new
monthly
donors added
during the
period

No of Active

monthly
donors
present at end
of the period

No of monthly
donors
cancelled
during the
period

The
percentage of
active the
monthly
donors at end
of the period

2018

1,550

2,850

4,400

924

79%

2019

3,476

4,559

8,035

1,974

75%

2020

6,061

6,853

12,914

4,000

69%

(Source: Internal data from ABC Vietnam)

Moreover, in The Non-Profit Recurring Giving Benchmark Study, monthly giving/recurring
donors have a retention rate of 90%. They are the most valuable donors and they are vital to
the long-term sustainable growth of the organization (1).

Figure 5: The percentage of the Donor Retention
(Source: The Non-Profit Recurring Giving Benchmark Study)

Based on Table 1, we can see that the percentage of attrition rate of the monthly donors of
ABC Vietnam was high from 2018 – 2020, especially in 2020. Moreover, according to (5)
shows that the high attrition rate of monthly donors affects the goal of ABC Vietnam that
will raise five million Euros in 2025.

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35%

31%

30%
25%

25%

21%

20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
2018

2019

2020

The attrition rate of the existing monthly donors - %
Figure 6: The percentage of the attrition rate of monthly donors
(Source: Internal data from ABC Vietnam)

3.

Potential Problems Identification

3.1.

Problem definition

According to (6) the position for non-profit organization is further complicated because it is
probable that both donor service quality and the perceived quality of service delivered to the
beneficiary group may be at issue that the donors stopped donating for the organization.
There are some arguments showed that maybe donors are in fact purchasing both services.
As in the previous sessions, we know that ABC Vietnam is non-profit organization, its
operation based on the donations from donors and the organization supports children and
youths in need. That means ABC Vietnam has two kind of services: the first one is to deliver
support to the beneficiaries and the second one is to serve the donors.
Based on an in-depth interview with Mr. Minh – Communications and Fund Development
Director, he shared that the target of recruiting new donors in 2018 - 2020 was always
achieving well by Face-to-Face Fundraising team and Tele-fundraising team. However, the
target of retention of monthly donors did not meet as the expectation of the organization.
Therefore, to understand clearly the reason why the monthly donors have made decision to
donate for ABC Vietnam and committed to donate for a long time. Through an in-depth
interview with Mr. Toan, Face-to-Face Fundraising and Ms. Tu – Tele-fundraising Team

17


Leader, both of them agreed that the reasons the monthly donor decided to donate for ABC
Vietnam. Firstly, ABC Vietnam has a good brand in Vietnam; ABC Vietnam also has been
operating in Vietnam for 25 years so they trust in ABC Vietnam and the service that ABC
Vietnam delivers to the beneficiaries. Secondly, ABC Vietnam is supporting for orphans,
abandoned and disadvantaged children who have lost the parental care or lack of parental
care so the monthly donors empathize with them so the monthly donors wanted to help them.

Hence, based on the sharing from Mr. Toan and Ms. Tu, we can see that the monthly donors
have the perceived service quality of ABC Vietnam delivered to the beneficiaries, which
means the service quality that ABC Vietnam delivers to the beneficiaries is good and satisfy
monthly donors. This is the reason why they made decision to donate for ABC Vietnam.

On the other hand, Table 1 showed the growth of new monthly donors was increasing every
year but the growth of monthly donors who canceled was higher than the growth of new
monthly donor every year. Therefore, a question has been arisen as to why the monthly
donors cancelled donations afterwards. What made they do not commit to donate longer for
ABC Vietnam? Hence, by combining relevant literature with both primary and secondary
data collected at ABC organization, the potential problems causing the symptom of the high
attrition rate of the monthly donors are designing as below.

3.2.

Potential problems

3.2.1. Potential problem 1: Lack of income
In Table 1, if we compare the number of monthly donors cancelled between the periods of
2019-2020 with the period of 2018-2019, we can see that the number of monthly donors

cancelled in the period 2019 – 2020 was higher 6% than the period of 2018-2019. As (5)
also finds that a charitable giving in the first quarter of 2020 declined 6% on a year-overyear basis. Besides, conducted by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the
Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, the analysis of sample data
from nearly 250 nonprofits in AFP's Growth in Giving Database found that after a positive
January and February dropped 11 percent in March compared to the same period in 2019.
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Additionally, Ms. Elizabeth Boris, Growth in Giving Steering Committee chair said that the
first two months of the year 2020 started out strong but in March alone, they saw an 11%
decline in donations, which was almost certainly a reflection of the impact of COVID-19
(7).

On the other hand, based on the knowledge obtained in an in-depth interview with Ms. Thu
– Head of Donor Care team that the attrition rate of monthly donor’s expectation of the
organization is 10 – 15% but the attrition rate was higher than the expectation of the
organization in 2018 and 2019. The situation is worse in 2020 because of the effects of the
Covid-19 pandemic; the attrition rate of 2020 was 31%. The highest reason was giving by
monthly donors that they were losing their job so they did not have enough money to donate;
others were lack of income due to Covid-19 so they want to save money for the family.

Table 2: Number of cancelled monthly donors who gave announcement and reason in 2020 and Q1/2021

Reason to cancel

Number of cancelled monthly donors

Lack of income

78

Personal reason

24

I want to do by myself and friend(s)

9

Save money for family

5

Total

116

(Source: Internal data of ABC Vietnam)

According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, in the first 6 months of 2020, there
were 897.5 thousand people losing jobs while the number of unemployed people was at 1.3
million, an increase of 123.9 thousand, making the unemployment rate reaching the highest
point in 10 years (8). Thus, lack of income due to the effects of Covid-19 pandemic was the
reason leading the monthly donors to stop donating for ABC Vietnam.

In Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam faces challenges for the businesses as well as workers in
the process of adapting to the new economic model. Generally, the business market suffered

19

heavy losses due to the crisis, which led to an inordinate increase in the unemployment rate.
Because this situation belongs to the market outside the organization so this project will not
focus on lack of income of monthly donors by the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.

3.2.2. Potential problem 2: The Poor Service Quality of Donor Care
It is obvious that customers/donors are one of the important stakeholders in organizations
because they contribute finance through buying/using the products/services or donating for
its operation so their satisfaction is a priority to the organization. Customer/donor
satisfaction has been a subject of great interest to organizations and researchers alike. In
recent years, organizations usually add on more service to their offers so that they can satisfy
the customer/donor. Thus, the quality of service has become an aspect of customer/donor
satisfaction. Some researchers have proven that service quality is related to customer
satisfaction as (6) the context of fundraising donor satisfaction with the quality of the service
that they are been provided with would drive subsequent loyalty.

Hence, to be better understand ABC Vietnam's donor care process, the author took an indepth interview with Ms. Thu. She shared the donor care process of ABC Vietnam to care
for donors that when a donor has been recruiting and already transferred the donation amount
to ABC Vietnam’s bank account, Donor Care person will send a welcome and thank you
email to the donor with 1-2 working days. After that, they will send thank you gift to the
donor via post office and if the donor does not transfer money in the 2nd month, they will
send a reminder email. They spend a lot of time in collecting materials to make annual
reports for donors because there are 6,0000 reports needed to send to more than 12,000
monthly donors who are living around Vietnam. In every Lunar New year, they send Lunar
New Year card to donors via post office. The donor care process is been shown in Figure 7
below:

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Welcome and thank you
email

2nd month

1st – 2nd day

Thank you gift and
reminding email

Annual report

June

Birthday card

December

Lunar New Year card

Figure 7: The donor care process of ABC Vietnam
(Source: Internal information from ABC Vietnam)

Based on Figure 7, we can see that ABC Vietnam cares for all donors as the same and
APPENDIX D, page 56 that was sharing by the CFD department, shows that the body
content of the welcome and thank you email to donors is very simple and only changed some
basic information for every month. The email content even is not separately for any specific
kind of donor. That is completely not good for the donor care service because based on (9)
it’s a good practice to put monthly donors into a separate email list to keep them from being
placed on the general email (including one-time donors and monthly donors) list where they

are consistently sent appeals for donations even though they’re already giving. In addition,
the organization should send a personalized thank you letter (10). Ms. Hoa, a major monthly
donor of ABC Vietnam also complained, “I do not know why ABC sends me the email with
the same content every month. Although I do not need to open the email, I know what email
is about so I asked the Donor Care person not to send email to me anymore. I also stopped
donating after 3 months because I am unhappy with the service of ABC Vietnam”.
[APPENDIX A, page 49].

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On the other hand, (11) showed that responsiveness, reliability and empathy were
significantly relating to service quality and service quality was significantly relating to
customer satisfaction. Indeed, the acknowledgement gained from in-depth interview with
Mr. Minh and two major monthly donors that further clarify on what has studied on (11).
Mr. Minh – CFD Director shared that there were many monthly donors who wanted to get
more update about beneficiaries like quarterly or biannually instead of annually. The update
about the changes of children or youths (based on Children Law of Vietnam, Mr. Minh
cannot share in detail of the content of report/update about children/youths) that monthly
donors are supporting so they want to know the changes of beneficiaries so that they know,
their donation has used for beneficiaries. However, Donor Care team can’t give what
monthly donors wanted that made few monthly donors stopped donating because they don’t
know how their money being used. In another in-depth interview with Mrs. Khanh, the major
monthly donor in Ho Chi Minh city who stopped donating for ABC Vietnam from January
2021. She told “I was asking the donor care person to send me more information about
beneficiaries but after 2 months, I still didn’t get it so I stopped donating for ABC Vietnam
because that made me doubt about the reliability of my donation’s the use in ABC Vietnam”.
[APPENDIX A, page 50].

Moreover, in an in-depth interview with Mr. Hung, the major monthly donor in Ho Chi Minh

City, he said, “I want to get more information about the beneficiaries that I am supporting,
it is no need for a report but an update. Although I have asked twice, the Donor Care person
did not give it to me. I called her to request but she said she is sorry that she cannot send it
to me due to lack of time and HR capacity. However, I can’t empathize and accept that so I
stopped donating” [APPENDIX A, page 51]

Besides, Donor Care team could not send birthday card to donors even it is an e-birthday
card because they are managing the donor database by Excel so they don’t have a system to
remind the donor’s birthday. It is impossible for them to remember the monthly donor’s
birthday by them self. According to (12), a birthday card is special and sending a birthday
card on the monthly donor’s birthday that could work well for this group. Besides, in the
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survey that CFD department made in December 2020 showed that 25% wants to receive
birthday card or greeting card made by children for holidays, New Year or their birthday
while 45% think that e-card is also fine with them. However, the Donor Care team does not
have enough time, HR and technical capacity to produce the products as the monthly donors
required. In an in-depth interview with Ms. Thao, the monthly donors who has donated for
ABC Vietnam for 01 year also shared
“I like to get birthday/Lunar New Year card made by children that I am supporting. When I
receive them, I feel happy then I will share it on ABC Vietnam Sponsor Group on Facebook
but I have not gotten any birthday card from ABC Vietnam. I am disappointed about that so
I stopped donating after 01 year”. [APPENDIX A, page 52]

On the other hand, Table 1 shows that although 4,000 monthly donors canceled the donation
in 2020, there were only 116 monthly donors who gave an announcement as in Table 3 but
Donor Care team did not contact them for the reason. In an in-depth interview with Ms. Thu,
she shared that
“Based on our observation, perhaps because of ego and ethics, many monthly donors

stopped donating without announcement to us. We think they are afraid to tell because it is
not good or unethical to stop sponsoring for children in need. Some may forget to continue
to donate but we didn't call them to remind them” [APPENDIX A, page 46]

Furthermore, based on (13), (14), it is now well established that satisfaction has a strong
positive effect on loyalty intentions in a wide variety of product and service contexts.
Satisfaction is viewing as the consequence of comparison between expectations and overall
evaluations of delivered service quality (15).

In conclusion, with the information shared via in-depth interviews from ABC Vietnam's
internal management (Mr. Minh and Ms. Thu) and external major monthly donors who
committed to donate for 5 years, monthly donors who committed to donate for more than 1
year (Mrs. Khanh, Ms. Hoa, Mr. Hung, and Ms. Thao) along with the result of the survey.
To be adding by literature (6), (11), (13), (14) and (15) the poor service quality of donor care
23


made monthly donor dissatisfaction that has significantly influenced the high attrition rate
of the monthly donors. Based on all of the aforementioned, this thesis has identified the
potential problems of the symptom that are: lack of income of monthly donors due to the
effect of the Covid-19 pandemic and the poor service quality of donor care made the monthly
donor dissatisfaction that leads monthly donors to decide to stop donating for the
beneficiaries of ABC Vietnam. Figure 7 below illustrates the preliminary cause-effect map
of the symptom and the potential problems.

The Poor
Service Quality
of Donor Care

Monthly donors

dissatisfaction

High attrition rate of
monthly donors

Lack of income

Stop donation

Figure 8: The preliminary cause and effect map for problem solving at ABC Vietnam

4. Main problem validation
Like the previous section, all the potential problems have been validated based on the
combination between interviews, data and be analyzed in the literature. Based on the
literature, the preliminary cause and effect map shows the high attrition rate of the monthly
donors related to the poor service quality of donor care of ABC Vietnam and lack of income
due to the Effect of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the Effect of the Covid-19 pandemic is
out of the scope of this project because it depends on the Covid-19 situation and no one
knows when it is gone. Besides, the in-depth interviews with monthly donors in the previous
session shows that ABC Vietnam needs to improve the service quality of donor care to care
for monthly donors. Because the poor service quality of donor care made the monthly donor
dissatisfied so they stopped donating for ABC Vietnam. Thus, that leads to ABC Vietnam
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will not be able to reach the goal as ABC International set and ABC will not have enough
fund to support for the beneficiaries in Vietnam as well. Moreover, the CEO and CFD
Director of ABC Vietnam also agreed that the poor service quality of donor care is the main
problem that leads to the high attrition rate of the monthly donors.

5.

Potential causes

A problem will not stop existing unless its root causes are identifying and properly handled.
Therefore, a review of relevant literature shall be executed beforehand to provide a
framework for the determination of potential causes triggering the problem at ABC Vietnam.
After that, primary data obtained at the organization will be utilizing to analyze these causes.

There are many kinds of research and journal about factors affecting the service quality of
the non-profit organization (6), (10). Indeed, although there are many best practices and case
studies such as Managing Relations with Donors Using the CRM concept, Fundraising
Management: Analysis, Planning and Practice but these practices concentrating on many
stakeholders and factors complicated might not relate to the problem of this thesis.
Therefore, to match the context and scope of this thesis, an integrated model was developing
by combining appropriate factors Managing Relations with Donors Using the CRM concept
and Fundraising Management: Analysis, Planning and Practice. Based on this approach, the
poor service quality of donor care problem faced by ABC Vietnam can be explaining by
three potential causes that are (1) lack of understanding of monthly donor insights, (2) lack
of communications and (3) manual data management.

5.1. Potential cause 1: Lack of understanding of monthly donor insights
As we can see the donor journey in Figure 5, CFD department care all of donors as the same,
either one-time donors or regular donors. Because of lack of donor segmentation that made
the Donor Care team does not understand monthly donor insights why they donate to ABC
Vietnam. As Ms. Thu – Head of Donor Care team shared in the in-depth interview: “ABC
Vietnam does not segment monthly donors by age, donation amount, donation period or
sexuality to care. When we receive the donation, if we have the donor’s email we will send
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