Stop Emailing and Start Listening: New Survey on Donor Interests

Sea Change Strategies, a fund-raising consulting company in Takoma Park, Md., just announed findings from a survey it conducted along with Convio, an Austin, Tex., company that provides Web-based software for nonprofit groups, and Edge Research in Arlington, Va., which does research and polling for nonprofit organizations.

The study finds that wealthy people want to increasingly give online, according to Philanthropy.com.

The survey was based on data from 3,443 donors who had made gifts of at least $1,000 to a single cause in the past 18 months and donated an average of more than $10,896 per year to charities.

Sixty-four percent of the donors were age 45 to 64, and 57 percent had incomes of at least $100,000. The donors’ names were provided by 23 organizations that represent an array of causes, including advocacy groups, health organizations, international relief groups, public television stations, and Christian ministries.

Among the key findings:

• Four out of five donors said they had made a charitable gift online, and a little more than half, 51 percent, said they prefer to use the Internet for their donations. Some 46 percent said that they expect to make a greater percentage of their charitable gifts online within the next five years.
  
• Fifty-six percent said that charities send too many e-mail messages, and 47 percent said they do not read as many messages from charities as they did in the past.
  
• Seventy-four percent said it’s inappropriate for a charity to obtain their e-mail address from a commercial database, while 82 percent said they don’t think it’s right for charities to send them messages about another organization.
  
• Ninety-two percent of donors like getting year-end tax receipts by e-mail, while 83 percent want to get electronic updates on a charity’s finances and spending. Seventy-four percent said e-mail messages are appropriate when notifying donors that it’s time to renew an annual gift or to explain how a donation has been spent.
  
• Eighty-one percent of donors dislike messages that take an urgent tone in seeking a repeat donation.
  
• Forty-six percent of donors said the charity’s messages do a good job of making them feel connected to the organization, whil 43 percent said the messages are well-written and inspiring.
  

In case you're wondering, the picture is not really related to this article. I just found it when I Googled "older donors," and thought it was hilarious.

It's not about you (It's about the donor, Part II)

As a follow-up to yesterday's blog, I found this fantastic piece by Kivi over at Nonprofit Communications called:

Five Sure Signs Your Print Newsletter Is Really Boring

I will admit, the advice cut a little close to the bone for me! I definitely have been guilty of doing all of her top five things.

Maybe I should read my own blog more often?

Her advice on photos is especially good (as well as quite funny).

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It's about the donor

In combing through the various feeds that I arrive in my inbox each morning, I came across this wonderful piece at the Donor Power Blog: "Is your fundraising a long, dull conversation?"

The blog cites a blog that is new to me -- Copyblogger, with their wonderful piece: "Why Great Copy is a Conversation, Not a Soliloquy."

(In reading a few of Copyblogger's other articles, I added it to my growing feed... alas, I could spend the entire day reading and getting nothing done! For shame, for shame, that we must all have day jobs...)

These articles reminded me of something very important:

It's not about you, Madam Fundraiser,
nor about you, Master Marketer;
it's about the donor.
Here is one simple way to improve your own approach to donors:

Look back at your most recent thank you letter to a donor. Circle every "I" or "we" (or the name of your organization) -- and then rewrite the letter so that you replace as many of those first person pronouns with the word "you," particularly when it's at the beginning of a sentence or a paragraph.

Force yourself to begin the letter with "You" instead of the boring "On behalf of the board, the staff and the thousands of starving, blind, crippled, poor orphans who somehow manage to wheel their way uphill, through the snow and into our office each day...."

See how the whole feel of the letter changes from being yet another bragadocious piece of fundraiser-marketer drivel to a relationship-building engagement piece.

Some organizations get it.

Some don't.

But sometimes, the ones that "get it" can get in trouble by taking it a bit too far.

Case in point: as a I blogged previously ("UT Southwestern: A Case Study in the Core Problem with Major Gift Fundraising"), UT Southwestern was recently torn up in local media because one of their more advanced fundraising practices leaked out: they have segmented their patient list so that top donors -- and even prospects -- are highlighted for "star treatment" when they arrive at the medical center.

Since I am sure that you, like me, was curious who made the list... I offer you this link to it (although I post the names below):

UT Southwestern list of high-profile people Dallas Morning News News for Dallas, Texas News for Dallas, Texas

SOME OF THE NAMES
UT Southwestern records information about well-to-do or well-known people to assure they receive select treatment during hospital visits. Here is a sampling of some of the people and their family members on the list, which was created in 2003, grouped by how they are known.

IN POLITICS

Vice President Dick Cheney (spouse)

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (husband)

Rep. Ken Marchant (various family members)

State Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway

Sen. Chris Harris (son)

State Rep. Tom Craddick (wife)

Former State Rep. Alvin Granoff

U.S. Dist. Judge Barefoot Sanders

State Rep. Tony Goolsby (spouse)

Former State Rep. Kenn George (spouse)

State Rep. Helen Giddings

Former Rep. Martin Frost

Former Secretary of Commerce Don Evans

Former Mayor Ron Kirk

Former Mayor Steve Bartlett

State Rep. Joe Driver

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson

Former Sen. Mike Moncrief (various family members), current Fort Worth mayor

Former Speaker of the House Gib Lewis (spouse)

Former Ambassador Robert Strauss (various family members)

Former Mayor Starke Taylor (family members and previous family members)

Former State Rep. Steve Wolens (mother, family members)

Former Mayor Laura Miller (listed as Laura Wolens, Dallas mayor 2002)

Former State Rep. James Horn (family members)

State Sen. Royce West

IN SPORTS
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones

Former Dallas Stars owner Norm Green

Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach

Former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley

Former Cowboys wide receiver Lance Rentzel

Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks

Former baseball player Mickey Mantle's family

Former Cowboys coach Tom Landry's family

Former Texas Rangers coach Bobby Jones

Former University of Texas football coach Darrell K. Royal

Former Dallas Mavericks general manager Norm Sonju

Astros owner Drayton McLane

CHEFS AND RESTAURATEURS
Dean Fearing

Shannon Wynne

Phil Vaccaro

Kevin Ascolese

Patrick Esquerre

Scott Ginsburg

IN MEDIA
Jim Moroney, publisher of The Dallas Morning News (and family)

Bob Mong, editor of The Dallas Morning News (spouse)

Robert Miller, columnist at The Dallas Morning News

Robert Decherd, chief executive officer and chairman of Belo Corp. (and family)

Wick Allison, publisher and editor of D Magazine

Prudence Mackintosh, contributor to D Magazine and Texas Monthly

Alan Peppard, columnist at The Dallas Morning News

Norm Hitzges, host for KTCK-AM (1310) (and spouse)

IN BUSINESS
John Albers, chief executive of Fairfield Enterprises

Ebby Halliday, founder of Ebby Halliday Realtors

Ron Anderson, president and chief executive of Parkland Health & Hospital System

Bruce Brookshire, owner of Brookshire Grocery Corp.

Don Buchholz, chairman SWS Group

Donald Carty, former chief executive of American Airlines (and family)

Comer Cottrell, founder of Pro-line International

Robert Crandall, former chief executive of American Airlines

Trammell Crow, developer

Thomas Engibous, chief executive of Texas Instruments

Jinger Heath, founder of BeautiControl.

Irvin Levy, chief executive of National Chemsearch

Kathleen Mason, chief executive of Tuesday Morning

Morton Myerson, chief executive of 2M Cos. (and family)

Lonnie Pilgrim, chairman of Pilgrim's Pride Corp.

Timothy Wallace, chief executive of Trinity Industries

IN ARTS AND SOCIETY
Magdalena Abakanowicz, sculptor

Jeremy Adams, screenwriter

Edith Baker, gallery owner

Emanuel Borok, concert violinist

Richard Hamburger, former executive director of Dallas Theatre Center

Pavlo Hunka, visiting Dallas Opera performer

Hilda Alsabrook, former Junior League president

Ann Corrigan, Sweetheart Ball, Crystal Charity Ball

Linda Gibbons, Sweetheart Ball

Marguerite Kirk, author

Marylyn Kelso, Cattle Baron's Ball

Jerry Naylor, former lead singer of Buddy Holly & The Crickets

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Does (gift) size matter?

Thanks to Unfair Park, GiftHub and The Chronicle of Philanthropy for linking to my last post: Would you rather have one $100,000 donor or 2,000 $50 donors?

There are some interesting comments on those three blogs, and I encourage you to visit them for some perspective on what I hope will become an ongoing discussion in fundraising offices around the country:

"Are we pursuing the right donors?"

On the The Chronicle of Philanthropy blog, there was a comment from Susan Racanelli that stated the obvious: "healthy nonprofit needs both types of donors in the appropriate measure." I agree fully, and don't think that either I or the anonymous donor at
Don't Tell the Donor.org -- whose blog initially started this discussion -- intended to imply that an organization should intentionally choose between the two.

In reality, very few of us would turn down a six-figure gift or turn away 2,000 small donors. This was not the debate.

(Although I did enjoy finding the images of "Giants among us" at Worth1000.com).

What the aforementioned blogs were trying to portray were the considerations that fundraisers must make when pursuing either. There are some unique differences between how you sustain a relationship with a single, six-figure donor vs. a swarm of two-figure donors.

The real strength of any development program is, of course, its ability to sustain both.

I am currently working on my department's 2008 Strategic Plan as well as our 2008 Annual Operations Plan (AOP). One of the most crucial elements of these plans is that they work together: activities that are not tied to a broader strategy will not help a development department to achieve its goals, and strategies that are unrelated to the daily operations of a fundraising program are worth less than the ink they take up on the paper.

Here are some of the broad goals that I am considering including in this Strategic Plan:

• Decrease the lapsed donors rate (by comparing the percentage of 2007 donors who lapse in 2008 to the percentage of 2006 donors who lapsed in 2007)


• Increase renewal rate of lapsed donors (by comparing the percentage of donors who gave in 2005, lapsed in 2006 and came back in 2007 to the percentage of donors who gave in 2006, lapsed in 2007 and came back in 2008)


• Increase average gifts from existing donors (by comparing the average gifts of donors who gave in both 2007 and 2008)


• Increase number of new donors acquired in 2008 compared to 2007

These are goals that apply to both our $50 donors as well as our $100,000 donors. The AOP will likely include significantly different activities for these two types of donors, but the fundamental goal remains the same.

Regardless of the size of your organization's budget, you should have a clearly outlined strategy for soliciting donors. Even if you are part of a smaller organization that does not have a full-time development officer, you should try to set up a clear set of expectations for revenue generation that are not purely financial (i.e. "raise $_____ from individuals."). By focusing on outcomes such as those mentioned above, you will almost invariably achieve better financial results for your organization than if you simply focused on dollars raised.

It is also critical that any development program have a plan for its annual activities; again, this is regardless of an organization's size. Even if it is nothing more than a calendar of the various print and electronic communications that you will send in 2008, this plan will enable you to look at your overall activities costs related to sustaining donor relationships.

This will help you to be a good stewards of your own time and the resources that your organization dedicates to fundraising.

QUESTION: What are the additional goals that should be a part of any fundraising program?

Would you rather have one $100,000 donor or 2,000 $50 donors?

UPDATE: Thanks to Unfair Park, GiftHub and The Chronicle of Philanthropy for linking to this post.

The anonymous blogger at Don't Tell the Donor.org makes some interesting points but overlooks some important details in their recent blog, "The difference between philanthropy and fundraising."

In summary for those who read this blog through syndication, the blog states that:

"I know some nonprofits that rely on big gifts from a small group of philanthropists in order to keep their doors open, however I personally feel better when an organization has hundreds (maybe thousands) of individual members who give provide many nonprofits with their mandate to exist."

We could argue pretty fruitlessly about the issue of needing to validate the organization's mandate (which I only see as relevant in order to satisfy the IRS' private vs. public charity test; it's a matter of tax benefits, not public good). However, I think that some valid points can be made on the matter of how these two scenarios impact non-profit organizations (and fundraising offices in particular).

In many ways, the anonymous blogger is right that it is better to have 2,000 gifts of $50 rather than a single gift of $100,000.

First of all, this situation is more sustainable. Making a political mistake with a donor in scenario one costs you $50, rather than $100K in scenario two.

And yes, as a fundraiser whose organization relies on major donors, I can tell you that there are people who have given upwards of $100,000 per year who suddenly stopped giving because we invited the wrong speaker to an event or our CEO made a comment with which they disagreed.

This is the downside of major gift programs: the tyranny of the donors.

(See this blog from Larry James, CEO of our organization, about Justin Hudnall's fabulous article, "Giver's Greed")

Second, the mission is more likely to be the focus rather than the donors if you receive lots of small gifts rather than a few large ones. As much as I support the sort of donor-centered fundraising advocated by Jeff Brooks at the Donor Power Blog or Phil Cubeta at GiftHub, major donors can wield undue influence over organizations that can frequently distract these organizations from their mission.

And yes, in the same way that I can give you examples of major donors who have pulled their giving to Central Dallas Ministries because of silly faux pas, I can also cite several instances in which we have been driven to make unwise decisions because a large checkbook was behind them.

I am proud to say that we have also turned down lots of money along the way because it would have pulled us off strategy. And I mean 6-figure and 7-figure gifts... nothing to balk at. We've maintained our integrity in key moments when donors were pushing the organization in the wrong direction.

But we are not perfect, and major donors have wielded disproportionate influence over our work at times.

And yes, we have at times been guilty of chasing money.... writing and securing grants for new programming because the money was available, not because we had the program in place and needed to fund it.

Again, these are problems that you would not have in the scenario of relying on many small gifts rather than a few large ones.

And if you're the Salvation Army, with a bucket on every corner soliciting pennies from the public, you don't have even to worry about filing a Form 990.

There are some problems, though, with relying on the masses for the bulk of your support.

First, some practical problems for the fundraising officers:

1. If you believe in good stewardship, you send a receipt for every gift that you receive regardless of size. At $0.41, receipting 2,000 gifts is over $800 in postage. Factor in the costs of paper and printing, and your spending 1% of your gift just on bare-bones stewardship.


2. Someone has to enter that information into your database and print those letters. Assuming it takes 2 minutes per acknowledgment (likely a very conservative estimate), that's nearly 67 hours in staff time. At a minimum wage of $5.85 per hour, that's an additional $4,000. Since most development officers make at least twice that, you're now talking about an additional 1% of your gifts on just bare-bones processing.


3. Someone has to spend time depositing those gifts. That's more staff time, and possibly fuel costs. Likely, this is another 1% of your gift.


4. Many of those $50 gifts will come in via credit card. That's another 3-5% cut off the top.


5. You can therefore conservatively estimate that you will receive $6,000 to $8,000 less in the scenario of 2,000 $50 gifts rather than a single $100,000 gift.

These are just a few of the immediate costs associated with receiving lots of small gifts rather than a few large gifts. This doesn't even begin to include the costs of newsletters, event invitations, annual reports and other communications mailed to these donors. The costs can quickly grow to the point where these thousands of small gifts begin to contribute less and less to your organization's mission.

Let's take it to the next level: It is nearly impossible to build relationships with 2,000 donors who give you $50 compared to single donors capable of giving you $100,000. The return on investment of spending time calling $50 donors, sending them personal notes and meeting with them to tour programs is simply not there compared to cultivating major donors.

Are there people donating $50 to your organization who are capable of donating $100,000? Certainly. In fact, my organization recently received a commitment of $5,000,000 from a donor whose first gift was $100.

But this was a very rare exception to the rule. Although we eventually did a very good job cultivating this donor, his initial gift brought forth no such stewardship. In fact, he would have gone completely unnoticed without the help of an outsider -- who did not even know about his first $100 gift -- who referred him to us as a place to donate $50,000 at the end of last year.

This gift got our attention... which helped us to then add two more zeroes to that commitment within 12 months by stewarding the relationship.

We never would have done this for someone who donated $50 unless we realized that they were capable of the major gift.

On a related note, there is an insightful blog about at the Donor Power Blogcalled "The secretly wealthy donor fantasy." This blog debunks the myth of the $90,450 Direct Mail donor (in brief, they criticize that justify continually mailing the small-gift donor by saying that they may leave them money in their will when they die).

I do not believe that major giving programs should fully replace all other forms of fundraising (in fact, I previously blogged about some the problems of major gift fundraising in my November 10 blog, "UT Southwestern: A Case Study in the Core Problem with Major Gift Fundraising.").

However, if I had to choose between $100,000 from one person vs. $50 from 2,000 people, I would realize that there would be far more ramifications to my choice than simply the validation of my organization's mandate to exist.

I am thankful for the Don't Tell the Donor.org blog. At the end of the day, I think that any successful fundraising program needs to integrate both a high-volume, low-dollar annual gift program alongside a major giving program driven around a small number of high-dollar gifts.

The two words every donor needs to hear

In the business of raising money, it's important to remember that saying "thank you" is often more important than asking for money. I've often heard it said that you should say thank you seven times for every one time that you ask for money.

That's a difficult ratio to achieve. Particularly since you should consider newsletters that include remittance envelopes and emails that include a Donate Now button to both be forms of an ask, regardless of how "thankful" their content is. I also don't think that annual reports that include lists of donor names are an effective thank you, at least not in terms of building relationships (particularly if the annual reports include an envelope and a cover letter that asks for money).

Here are some ways that you can express your thanks to your donors without asking for money (knowing that doing so may actually help raise you more money in the future):

• Send them a personalized receipt letter that is hand-signed by both the CEO and Development Director within 2-3 business days of depositing their gift; if these two people don't have time to sign thank you letters to donors, they likely have the wrong priorities. If the gifts are designated to a particular program, try to have the program director sign the letter instead of the development director. At least one signature should always have a brief handwritten note -- even a simple "Thank you!" -- next to it, regardless of the size of the gift. Always feature two signatures so that donors understand that a team of people is aware of their gift. Very significant gifts, such as capital campaign contributions, should be co-signed by a board member. Never use a fake signature for a receipt. You can justify fake signatures on appeal letters to thousands of people, but no organization should be too busy that a real person cannot take a few minutes out of their day to sign thank you letters.
  
• Receipts should never include an envelope.
  
• Follow this receipt within a few weeks with a handwritten note for major gifts; let the donor know how their funds were spent and how they are an important partner with you in your work. Consider inviting them on a tour or for a personal meeting just to say thank you.
  
• Say thank you at least two times at each public event that you hold. If possible, try to publicly thank the sponsors by name each time.
  
• Feature a donor profile in each newsletter that you send. This will make that donor feel very special, but will also let other donors know that they're appreciated.
  
• Similarly, feature donor profiles on your Web site.
  
• After you wrap up an event, send the sponsors/attendees a "thank you" letter that does not include a remittance envelope. Consider including pictures from the event.
  
• Consider sending postcards that express your thanks to donors by featuring a success story that their support helped create. Postcards are cheap to print and to mail, and you don't have to worry about open rates. Make the front image compelling, and keep the copy short and focused on saying thank you.
  
• Send an annual thank you letter from the CEO to the previous year's donors on the first week of the year. Make the letter as personal as possible -- definitely cite the amount that they donated in the past year (i.e. "We appreciate your two gifts for a total of $135 last year."), and try to segment the letters as much as possible by gift amount and donor type (i.e. individual vs. institution). Give examples of how their money was used.

Your goal as a fundraiser is to build a relationship that makes your donors ecstactically happy with their decision to support your organization.

Here's an idea. Focus on trying to get this reaction from your donors when they open a package from you:

Make it Easy for Donors to Give

Last year, I included a brief paragraph in some newsletter about how "Central Dallas Ministries accepts donations of appreciated assets such as stock and real estate."

Someone who had never donated called me up to ask for more information. I set up a meeting, and next thing I know... we start getting quarterly transfers of around $20,000 from him.

If you are not setting up a system for accepting such gifts (which admittedly take some time and can be a bit difficult to track down once the transfer is made), you are missing out on major opportunities.

This article states it well:

Most Stockholders Don't Understand Tax Breaks for Donating Securities, Study Finds - Philanthropy.com

Sixty-eight percent of the investors were unaware of the tax benefits of giving appreciated stock rather than selling it — namely, that they could save 15 percent of the amount by which their stock had appreciated in capital-gains tax, on top of the deduction they would receive by donating either stock or cash.

One of your primary goals as a fundraiser should be to remove as many barriers as possible that your prospect might face to making a donation. This includes:

• Use business reply (i.e. postage paid) envelopes for your newsletters/appeals; if they cannot find a stamp and don't want to make an online gift, you may lose the gift;
  
• Develop a plan for accepting non-cash gifts: cars, trucks, boats, real estate, clothes, food, and more. Definitely consider developing a policy in which you can turn down gifts, and also develop a policy for pick-ups. It's OK to tell people "no." If they stop donating or get mad at you because of it, they are probably the sort of high maintenance donor you don't want anyway.
  
• Develop a plan for accepting stocks and mutual funds (see above).
  
• Your Web site's primary purpose should be to cultivate a gift out of a prospective donor. Don't make them click through page after page to find your "donate now" button. Put it on the front page. Better yet, build a common header/sidebar that is on every page and that includes this button.
  
• Be sure your receptionist knows what to do when a donor calls to make a gift and no development staff are in the office.
  
• Be sure that your voicemail tells people to go to your Web site for more information.
  
• If you have automatic answering service on your phone system, be sure to have an option, "For more information about making a donation, press ___."

The easier you make it for donors to make a gift, the more donors -- and donations -- you will have.

Recommendations for a great non-profit newsletter

The Nonprofit Communications blog recently publised Five Questions about Print Newsletters, which provides some excellent guidance for what makes a good nonprofit newsletter. In summary, the author recommends that a non-profit newsletter should be:

• Focused on your specific target audience.
  
• Limited to four pages in most cases.
  
• Published quarterly.
  
• Contain articles no more than 600 words.
  
• Feature no more than two fonts.
  
• Be printed in four-colors.

Below are some of my reactions, as well as some additional recommendations for items that need to be considered when publishing a newsletter. I would love to hear your thoughts, as well.

Focus on specific target audience
This is an obvious but often overlooked point. She spells it out very well here, but I think that an even better explanation can be found at the Donor Power Blog's reaction to her post, "One thing you need to know about your nonprofit newsletter."

As with most parts of the typical non-profit donor program, a newsletter generally lacks a specific goal. Staff and board want it to bring in funds, sure, but they also drop senseless lines about how the newsletter needs to "raise awareness," "build the brand," "change people's attitudes" and "put a stake in the ground."

On all of these things, I think that NPO staff/volunteers are mostly delusional. Donors are not looking at newsletters for these things. At least, those are not the main things that they expect. They want to know:

- Where was my gift spent?
- What did my gift do? (i.e. did it have an impact?)
- Who else supports this organization? (i.e. am I a fit with this organization?)
- Why should I continue supporting this organization?

This last question is the hardest to answer, but answering it is the critical task for any newsletter. Focusing on this goal will help non-profit newsletters to focus on their core audience -- donors.

Four pages limit
This makes a great deal of sense. The cost of adding pages -- not just the printing/mailing, but the staff time required to write and design extra pages -- is just not worth it when most readers just flip it open for a few minutes at most. If you can't raise money in the first four pages, the additional two won't make it easier. Focus on the donor, with the goal of telling them why they should continue to support you.

The only difficulty is that four-page newsletters generally require folding/sealing in order to have a remittance envelope. One of the things that we are dealing with at Central Dallas Ministries is our attempt to mail our newsletter "flat" (like a magazine), so that recipients are more likely to read it. When it mails folded, half of what they see is the side with the mailing label (which is reduce to 1/4 of what they see if it is mailed flat and unfolded). The thing you want to avoid is having your newsletter be thrown away without being opened (let alone read).

Published quarterly.
Considering how much mail some of your donors receive, this seems like a maximum amount of times you want to send your newsletter. A monthly newsletter sounds overwhelming -- unless it's a two-side piece with just the bare bones.

Whatever schedule you use, be sure to deliver your newsletter reliably and regularly. This makes it easier on your staff to produce the piece, and donors will be more receptive to it.

Contain articles no more than 600 words.
Amen! I struggle with this a great deal in my work at Central Dallas Ministries. I frequently end up with articles at nearly 2,000 words and try to cut back towards half that much.

I am going to start requiring this limit for our articles. It is unreasonable to expect that donors will read more about our organization than a newspaper article that interests them.

Feature no more than two fonts.
This is pretty clear. Featuring too many fonts looks very unprofessional, like you just learned how to download new fonts and are trying to take advantage of your new skill. Allow fonts to become an unnoticed but effective medium for your message.

Be printed in four-colors.
I actually disagree with this point, in some cases. At Central Dallas Ministries, we are often accused of producing direct mail that looks too "fancy." For a social services organization -- particularly one the deals with poverty -- it can look wasteful to produce a full, four-color newsletter with beautiful photos. Donors want to see that their money is being spent on feeding the hungry, not buying ink.

It's the opposite for arts organizations. They are supposed to look slick and cool, and cutting corners to save a few bucks implies that they don't have the capacity to advance the arts. The nature of your mission should determine the look and feel of your newsletter: everything from paper quality to ink colors.

A few final thoughts
Some additional things to consider when looking at your newsletter:

• Build Your Newsletter Around Images, not Words. Tell your story with pictures whenever possible. Never use the same photo twice, however compelling it is (readers will think that they've already read the piece). Have a photo on every page. Integrates charts and graphs, as well, since different people are drawn to different images.
  
• Small is Big. Don't talk about 10,000 starving orphans; talk about one whom you were able to feed. Don't talk about needing $1 million to meet your annual budget; talk about needing $1,400 to pay your supply budget. Allow your readers to see how they can fit into your organization by providing manageable opportunities for them to get involved.
  
• Consider using postcards instead of newsletters. Their printing/mailing costs are dramatically cheaper, and there is no concern about whether or not donors open them. The problem is obviously space and lack of remittance vehicle, but a postcard can deliver a targeted message that drives readers to your Web site for their desired action (i.e. donation, registering to volunteer, etc.)

I'd appreciate any feedback that you have on this topic. What are your own do's and dont's when it comes to newsletters?

More Appealing Appeals

Some blogs to guide your pursuit of fundraising happiness through direct mail and electronic appeals to donors (with some general donor cultivation mixed in, just to keep you honest)...

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy: New Research Sheds Light on What Works in Charitable Appeals: An excellent summary of some fascinating findings, such as "fund-raising appeals do best when they are crafted around a single gripping image" rather than a collection of images (i.e. people were more sympathetic to a single starving child than they were to two children facing the same plight). Additionally, "fund-raising events that involve pain — such as marathons or even walks across shards of glass — might sometimes spur bigger gifts...than a picnic or gala ball."
  
  
• Donor Power Blog: Five secrets to fundraising happiness: Some very good advice on overall fundraising, and some decent career advice for development professionals.
  
  
• onPhilanthropy: Little Moments, Big Magic - and Money in the Bank: How Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado increased fundraising by eliminating events and focusing on the "what’s in it for me?” question from each prospective partner.
  
  
• Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog: The Best Email Ever: A quick analysis of a very compelling email. It's all about the stories, friends. People love stories.
  
  
• Donor Power Blog: The bigger the number, the smaller the comprehension: Another good one from Donor Power Blog. Turns out one starving child raises more money than 18,000.

And finally, a good discussion on an issue that is even more critical than the appeal, but rarely discussed... the receipt letter.

• Donor Power Blog: Are your receipts a positive experience?

Telling an Organization's Story... one client at a time

Below is a letter from my friend, Kariteaa, a young man who has been involved with our Transition Resource Action Center (TRAC), a one-stop shop for youth who "age out" of foster care at age 18.

I encourage you to read his letter, and then to hear his story in the attached video.

To watch the video in full screen, click here.

At CDM, we are using this stories to educate our the community about the impact that our organization -- and their support of our organization -- is making on people's lives. So far, individual giving is up about 20% compared to this time last year (when we did not have this campaign)

Dear Friend,

My name is Kartieaa, and I entered the foster care system at age 12 after my adoptive parents died in a car accident.

I was moved through 11 homes and wound up in jail before “aging out” of the foster care system at 18. I had no one to turn to and no place to live – until I got connected with Central Dallas Ministries’ Transition Resource Action Center (TRAC).

Now I have an apartment, a job and am taking classes at El Centro College.

Without your support of TRAC, I would probably be on the streets or back in jail.

Thank you for re-writing my future.

Sincerely,

To see more videos about your neighbors, click here.

The New El Dorado: Online Fundraising

There is no need to be a fundraising blog nerd like me . . . truly, it is at best a way to learn about all the ways that you could be bringing in the big bucks if you were doing something besides reading blogs.

But, if you were an unfortunate creature such as this, you might have noticed a peculiar spike in the number of blogs recently on the topic of "online fundraising." In fact, according to Technorati, there was a surge in posts containing the term Online Fundraising at the end of June.

Get your own chart!

What could be causing this trend? We are in the throws of another summer, and everyone's coffers are rapidly depleting ... hoping to reap the harvest in the fall and early winter. "O, bountiful December, please rain checks on me!"

In the interim, it appears there is a resurgence in interest in online fundraising. Perhaps driven by recent reports on various politicos' success in such ventures, the blogosphere has been alight with stories of online fundraising successes, failures and how-to's. Are development directors looking at the prospects of higher than average gifts as their new El Dorado, and a free email as their jet-powered conquistador craft?

Here are some of the blogs that I found the most beneficial:

• FundRaising Success presents an article called "The Great Debate: Direct Mail vs. Online Acquisition," which provides some facts to drive your decisions about where to spend your time, energy and resources dedicated to donor acquisition and cultivation.
  
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy's Give and Take Blog comments on an excellent article on the Donor Power Blog about how non-profit Web sites have eight seconds to rope readers in before they are abandoned.
  
• Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog presents the top ten "take-aways" from the American Marketing Association (AMA) Foundation Conference's seminar, "10 things to engage constituents online"
  

What are your thoughts on these articles? What is in the future for online fundraising?

How To Build Community (Post Cards)

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the Bake Sale notecard... wouldn't this make a great mailer to your supporters?

How To Build Community (Post Cards)



A nice thank you for all that they've done, while also giving them a gift that actually supports your mission? I bloggeed a similar idea here:
http://theraiser.blogspot.com/2007/07/thank-you-gifts-that-support-your.html

Four sites that will help you raise more money online.

The theme to today's blogs is raising money online through effective design and compelling copy. The theories also translate to offline forms of marketing, such as direct mail... so even if you have not invested the time/resources to get online, you should consider reading these articles (particularly the fourth):

Donor Power Blog: Want online donations? Let donors lead web design. A novel approach that removes Web design from the board room (or more likely, a staffer's PC) and places it in the hands of the end user!

Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog: To Increase Charitable Donations, Appeal to the Heart—Not the Head. Sensible advice on how to better craft your "pitch" to donoors. Remember, individual donors are not foundation staffers!

These final two Web sites are not specifically about fundraising, but they can help any fundraisers to improve his/her work:

Advanced Marketing Institute: Headline Analyzer. Ensure that your email's subject or the cover of your envelope gets the target to open your letter!

Paul Graham: Writing, Briefly. Ensure that your letter achieves its goal of getting the reader to take an appropriate action... like make a gift!

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SHAMELESS PLUG: At Central Dallas Ministries, we have also recently set up a partnership with Active Giving to help us raise money online. Here is an example of the type of fundraising site that our donors can now set up for us:
http://www.active.com/donate/cdm/maddie

Learn more about how CDM is using this program here:
http://www.centraldallasministries.org/active/index.htm

Does direct mail actually cost you money?

Our friends at Donor Power Blog recently pondered the effectiveness of direct mail campaigns in their blog, "I say potato, you say pyrrhic". The conversation is worth having.

At CDM, we are asking ourselves these same questions. We spend about $10K to produce one of our quartetly newsletters, and we typically generate 3-4 times that much simply through the envelopes that we included in the mailing (which does not include the donations that were motivated by these newsletter but that came in other forms, such as online and in unmarked envelopes). We also spend about $3K to produce one of our quarterly postcards (which obviously does not have a remittance vehicle). Is it working?

In the first four months of the year, individual giving rose about 33% compared to the previous year (when we did not have the postcards, but did have the newsletters).

That being said, these costs do not count the amount of staff time it takes to produce these projects: there are three or four of us who spend quite a few hours on each one of these projects. That time could be spent in other ways -- calling donors, writing grant proposals, etc.

At the end of the day, we cannot really know the success of our direct mail campaign until we take a broader view and look at the annual results. Or, even more importantly, the 3-5 year results that show trends in giving.

Of course, as Phil Cubeta might remind me, the best way to know the impact of the campaign would be to ask the donors themselves.

"Do you like getting this newsletter or postcard?"

"How do these items affect your donations?"

"Do you really love us, or are you just trying to keep us at bay... sending us checks large enough to keep us off your back, but small enough to not make us want to call you for coffee?"

DISCUSSION: How do you use direct mail, and what are your results/concerns?

Direct Mail for Cheapskates

Armed with countless articles on the ineffectiveness of direct mail, I still cannot tear myself away from our direct mail solicitations of donors. Like many established organizations, we have a strong number of donors who have an established giving pattern around our quarterly newsletters and annual solicitations. Lacking email addresses for over 90% of them, it would be impossible to transition away from the direct mail list at this time.

Given that scenario, I found this article from 1099.com to be very helpful:

Low Cost Direct Mail Campaigns, by Linda Formichelli

Some questions worth asking for any mailing?
- When is the ideal time for your donors to receive this mailing? (not just "When can we finally finish all of the copy and drop it into a layout?"
- What barriers does this piece present to a possible donation? (i.e. do they have to find a stamp, or is your remit envelope pre-paid?)
- Assume three similar mailings arrive from other organizations the day that yours arrives. What will make yours get opened? read? acted on?

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DISCUSSION: How can organizations effectively secure email addresses from their constituents?

Do you write like a boy or a girl?

This is pretty interesting... tries to determine if your writing looks masculine or feminine in its writing style. If your audience is heavily weighed towards one gender, it could be an interesting test to drop your copy for your newsletters and appeal letters into this form to see if you're "speaking the right gender."

The Gender Genie

Here is the abstract from the articel about the algorithm used to make this determination:

Abstract.
This paper explores differences between male and female writing in a large subset of the
British National Corpus covering a range of genres. Several classes of simple lexical and
syntactic features that differ substantially according to author gender are identified, both in
fiction and in non-fiction documents. In particular, we find significant differences between
male- and female-authored documents in the use of pronouns and certain types of noun
modifiers: although the total number of nominals used by male and female authors is virtually
identical, females use many more pronouns and males use many more noun specifiers. More
generally , it is found that even in formal writing, female writing exhibits greater usage of
features identified by previous researchers as "involved" while male writing exhibits greater
usage of features which have been identified as "informational". Finally, a strong correlation
between the characteristics of male (female) writing and those of nonfiction (fiction) is
demonstrated.

Models of Transparency: Food For The Poor

I received an email from "Food for the Poor" this week which brought a delightful surprise -- not a request for funds, but a report on how funds had been spent.

Annual Report - Food For The Poor

The report happened to be very attractive, as well, which is a nice touch. They have a clear layout of expenses by service area, laced with tales of the impact of their work.

At CDM, we usually publish our annual report at the end of year as a nice fundraising piece. However, this puts nearly 12 months between the end of our last fiscal year and the day that our donors receive the report.

This year -- inspired by Food for the Poor -- we are going to send out a preliminary financial report to our donors as soon as the audit has been completed. Our goal is to increase the level of transparency in our organization, while also cultivating stronger relationships with donor who want to know where their money was spent.

DISCUSSION: Any other ideas on how to share financial information with donors?

Refining your Direct Mail Pitch

Before sending out your next appeal, run a self-check through the 20-point Checklist from DennyHatch.com.

Tough Times Ahead: The Need to Cultivate Donors

Peter Panepento's excellent "roundup of blogs about the nonprofit world, Give and Take, recently asks the question: "Are there Tough Times Ahead for Fund Raisers?

In this, Peter cites some sources that indicate that one of the primary problems is the inability to cultivate long-term relationships with donors. I believe that this is driven by several things:

• Increasing number of organizations has created more competititon on a macro level,
  
• Increasing number of communications makes it easier for organizations to compete on a micro level (i.e. whereas your donors used to get nothing more than a quarterly newsletter from their university that talked about the overall school, they are now getting monthly emails from the department they graduated from... speaking directly to them about the things that they care about)
  
• Increasing competition from the private sector, which is beginning to market its own products as solutions to social ills (i.e. "rather than donate to Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross, buy this new phone and our corporation will make a donation")
  

I think that the good people at Merkle|Domain have put out an intersting "orange paper" that can help non-profits who are struggling to acquire and keep new donors:

New Donor Bonding: The Value of Loyal Donors

I believe that the key is focusing on building a relationship. At Central Dallas Minitries, we are committed to providing a personalized receipt to every donor, and calling each of them at least once per year to thank them. We are also hosting two regular tours per months for donors... these are not "ask events," but rather cultivation events that can nurture long-term relationships.

Philanthropy Today: Automatic Donations Attract Growing Interest From Donors

Philanthropy Today: Automatic Donations Attract Growing Interest From Donors: "Automatic Donations Attract Growing Interest From Donors
Charities and companies are responding to growing interest by donors in automatic payment systems that make it easy to give donations on a fixed schedule, reports The Wall Street Journal.

One company, ParishPay, allows churchgoers to replace cash offerings with a regular credit card charge or electronic withdrawals from a bank account. Approximately 2,500 churches are using the approach and the average family has increased its annual donation by 75 percent once it has begun using the service.

Network for Good, a nonprofit organization, allows people to schedule multiple regular online payments to schools, religious institutions, and charities, as long as each contribution is more than $10. Network for Good says that the number of people who schedule recurring payments has grown substantially in recent months, the newspaper report."