happy donors

For this fun of it this time…

Recently read American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier.  Well written, detailed … and it kept bringing fundraising writing to mind in a lot of ways …

– A good Case Statement should take into account all stakeholders.  This document did, too, and like many good Case Statements it involved a little persuasion to push people for participation and ultimately to get everyone aligned around the core mission.

– The stakeholders here needed full engagement for the appeal to move forward.  They ALL needed to buy in enough to create a dramatic change in their circumstances and then to fight a war to assert their new position.

– Consensus in thirteen distinct areas, each driven largely by self interest, all at different levels of buy-in as the program moved toward launch.  Some colonies well on board.  Others opposed at the outset.   Lots of talk of “seasoning” and “ripening” of the revolutionary ideas in townships, then colonial legislatures.

– Once consensus seemed reached, someone had to write to draft Case Statement.   Mr. Jefferson took the lead among an initial subcomittee, did a helluva job.   Then he suffered largely in silence as the entire Continental Congress had their way with his draft.   Ok, he did complain a bit to Franklin.

– The draft was sound at its core, so most of what the editors did was CUT.  They tweaked a number of phrases, but cut the overall draft by about a third.   In my experience, this is about the right amount of editing/tightening to get any copy ready for prime time.

– Like any good fundraising copywriter, Jefferson got good and angry when writing and overstated the positions, pushing the envelope on how aggressively he could argue the case.   I do that too, but unlike Mr. J I fully expect the reviewers to ratchet everything back.   If you don’t overstate some, you end up to watery after editing.

Most nonprofits are now coming off their most productive fundraising season, the “giving holidays” and days leading up to the end of the calendar year.   You’ve sent your most powerful appeals.   Let’s hope you raised a ton of money.  But now what? … What to do in the dry days beginning a new year?

– Remind them why they joined.  A core-mission appeal can work well this time of year.  Donors’ mailboxes are no longer overflowing.  You’re not up against all your category competition.  Consider mailing your recruitment control, or a version thereof.   At least one test has shown that long-lapsed donors will be more receptive to the original recruitment control than to any “Renewal 7″ or “WHYFU” in your toolkit.

– If you haven’t yet, create an appeal that hits right down the center of your recruitment package themes.  Different, but not that different.  A little to one side or the other.  Try it in January to people who are lapsed one year or more.  And then keep it on hand to test as a “Second Gift” appeal to mail newly acquired donors instead of whatever topical appeal might be in any given monthly slot.

– Use your Welcome Kit as a year-starter.   All those who gave in December need a strong “Thank You,” right?  So send your powerhouse Welcome Kit.  (Written about such a number of times on happydonors.  See that Search box?)  You’ll express appreciation, deliver your member/supporter card, and get some donations along with your survey.  Cheap, too, if you print along with a year’s worth of Welcome Kits that can be lasered later?)

This place on the calendar and in your donors’ lives is right where you want an “evergreen” — something you can mail reliably in the first days of EVERY year.  If you don’t have one yet, it’s time to test into it.

Happy New Year!

Long ago, when dinosaurs roamed … the early 1990s, we could mint money by sending donors a hard card — a credit-card weight card with the donor’s name, membership number and year embossed.

The lock was mailing them in a brown Kraft envelope, no organization name, some kind of official stamp, ideally first class.  And no, the card did NOT show through a window.

These were how people received their new credit card each year.  They were opened without fail.  And they got terrific response for annual renewals.

These have largely disappeared over the years, or at least I don’t see them often.  Cost a big issue.  Creating and stamping these by individual is indeed pricey, and seemed to get more costly each year.

I suspect that the technique was also just forgotten.  New people come into the fundraising field who don’t know this work and don’t want to test it because of the cost.  Plus someone higher up KNOWS they would never work, donor’s would scoff or think them a waste of money.

Other recurring concerns had to do with renewal term.  These are great if everyone’s on an annual renewal cycle.  But many organizations moved to mailing acquisition quarterly or even more often.  So not all donors were due for renewal at one time.

Some groups have been troubled with the concept of “membership” for their donors.   Just not comfortable with the term.  Or no benefits of membership = no membership.

All these were nicely navigated in a package I just received from Save the Children.  Things to note and perhaps learn from:

– Closed-face carrier.  Very personal look and feel.  On the flap it says “2011 ANNUAL FUND” so it tips the topic there.  But still very personal.

– Live first-class stamp.  Gets delivered on time and gets recipient attention.  This was not cancelled, so probably dropped pre-sort.  I’d mailer-cancel to further the personal/official look.

– Card tipped on to the top right corner of the letter.  It not as quite as heavy as a credit card, and not heavy enough to make it really clearly “lumpy” when holding the envelope.  But it certainly weighs down the letter corner and demands notice and credibility.

Light-weight cards can work.  Laminating and perfing a card in the corner of the reply card can work.  Save the Children has a large enough donor file that the heavier card gets affordable.

– The card is NOT a Membership Card but instead a “2011 SUPPORTER” Card.  Fine.  I’ll buy that.  My name is embossed, as is my “Donor ID” and, a very nice touch:  “Supporter Since XXXX”, reminding me that I’ve been giving a while.

– The letter is largely assumptive … thanking me for past supporter and asking me to continue, all good.  The ask is for an “Annual Fund” gift, which raises a few issues groups struggle with.

In my experience, asking for an Annual Gift works pretty much like a membership renewal.  People will give sort of automatically.  But this works best with people who think of themselves as members or as people who give an annual gift.

I’ve not given to an annual fund for STC.  I’ve given to the organization quite a few times, but these have been in response to appeals related to relief efforts or fairly well defined programs.   I’d rather give to Save the Children than to any “Fund.”  But the letter does a great job of explaining use of funds, so that shouldn’t get in my way.  But I’m not a donor who’s set up to respond automatically to any annual appeal.

None of these would argue against Save the Children approaching me in this way.  I’ve given multiple times in reasonably good amounts.  I have all the Recency Frequency and Monetary to justify sending me most any appeal.  So they’re on target in all respects.

– With one thing they’re doing, I wish I could track results:  They ask for a one-time gift, MRC/HPC (which happen to be the same), 1.5X, 2X, and Other.  Then they have a section where they ask me to “sponsor a child for $18 a month”.  They quickly disclaim that donations are not given to “my sponsored child” but combined with other gifts to help “projects that benefit many children in the communities receiving sponsorship funding.”

So they’re trying to sign me up for monthly giving.  That’s great, and many organizations are trying to move in that direction as fast as they can.  The shortfalls in this instance are my slight confusion with child sponsorship, plus not knowing how this might work until I turn over the reply form and read copy around the credit card charge.   Worth a shot, though, and I hope they sign up some monthly donors.

From all I hear, though, monthly donors are best acquired with mail that asks very specifically for that kind of giving.  Or by phone.  More on this here.

If you mail a hundred letters asking for donations, and five people send a check, then …

What percentage didn’t read that four-page letter — a letter that’s WAY too long in the opinion of many?

I think it’s safe to say that 94% didn’t read it.  About 95% didn’t even open the envelope.

Of those who responded, I’d speculate that 80% read every word.  And 20% of responders didn’t need to read it, since they were ready to cut a check anyway.

Of those hundreds mailed, how many said “no” to your appeal.

If you had the right list — a group of people who support your organization — NOBODY said “no.”  At worst, a half dozen got into the envelope and said “not right now” … meaning not this month or even not this SECOND … put the letter aside and never got back to it.

When you mail to people who have supported your organization, you’re writing to people who support your cause.  They don’t really need convincing about your mission.  Yet most will nonetheless need a lengthy communication about why you need their help RIGHT NOW.  That’s why longer letters usually work.

If they don’t support your cause, no amount of persuasion will bring forth a gift.  They don’t care!

Prospecting mail is more the crapshoot.  Chances are fair that you’re mailing to lapsed donors, even if that’s not your intent, especially if you’re in animal welfare or environmental action or any other over-crowded giving arena.

Yet even if you’re hitting everything right, people who’ve given to very like-minded causes, you face that 95% who never open the envelope.  Not because they’re not interested.   Not because they’re saying “no” to you.  Instead because it’s been a bad day, they’re in a hurry, kids are eager to get out the door, gotta do this that or the other.

So, if even half of those who OPEN the envelope send a gift, you’re breaking records.  And you must have enclosed a great letter, that persuaded them of your credibility and urgency.

This rambling is inspired by a reflection on one of my own recent donations to a mail appeal.  I became a first-time donor to ANERA when the mail package arrived at the perfect moment.  I’d just seen a presentation by a couple of friends who’d recently returned from a year in Ramallah Palestine.   I don’t want to get into any finger-pointing, but the situation for Palestinians is desperately bad.  And I’d not seen much in the way of targeted relief that didn’t have a political edge to it.

Along comes an appeal from ANERA: “Improving Lives in the Middle East” … a general positioning that seems to dodge all politicization.  The group serves refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan.  All people exiled since 1948.  Ok, I’ll hazard a guess that these are all Palestinians.

The ANERA letter was compelling, taking four pages to explain their mission and build my confidence in their abilities without hitting any sour notes or blaming any group for the situation.  They’re seemingly a wholly non-politicized mission in the most dangerous mess of religious and political animosity.  It all looked great, as did their web site, even their Charity Navigator review.  (I don’t usually check the latter, but did here because the group boasts of their ranking on their gift forms.)

I wonder which of my past donations put me on a list that brought them to me.  I’ve donated to Jewish groups, and there’s a growing contingent of US Jews who find the occupation very disturbing.  That’s a possible.  Beyond that … Gifts to groups like Save the Children?   I’ll probably never know.

Notes from the recent Bridge to Integrated Fundraising and Marketing conference on Monthly Giving:

– More and more US organizations are enrolling donors in monthly giving programs, something long established in Canada, UK, Europe etc, late in the US due to different banking practices.

– Like getting any second gift, the best time to enroll donors in monthly giving is within 4 to 6 weeks after their first gift.

– Recency and frequency of giving are the key predictors for openness to monthly giving.  Not value (highest previous contribution).  Makes sense.

– Credit card giving is a strong predictor for monthly giving.  Also makes sense.  Thus online donors are good candidates.

– Phone is still the best channel to enroll in monthly giving.

– Street intercept monthly giving solicitation works well, but cost per enrolled donor is very high ($150) and donors tend to be young, with little capacity to give, high attrition.

– The best performing monthly giving mail solicitation asks only to enroll in monthly giving, without a fallback to “make a single gift today.”  That said, some orgs have controls with real strong monthly giving asks and a fallback only on the reply form.

– A $150 cost of acquisition of a monthly giving donor can be very satisfactory.   A $10 monthly gift covers that in a year and a half … an acceptable payback time given that monthly givers have high lifetime value.

I came across this useful article while mulling over a project where the client is asking for a strong emphasis on brand.

In” You’re Not Nike — Get Over It”, Jeff Brooks frames the issue very nicely:

“An effective nonprofit takes a different approach:  Instead of a look-at-me brand, it’s a look-at-you brand.”

Exactly.  He introduces this point with a discussion of the difference in “customer payoff” delivered with the transaction.  With iPhone, you get an iPhone.  With XXnonprofitXX, you get some satisfaction, feeling like you’re making something happen that you really want to happen.

So the “brand” doesn’t reside in the organization.  It’s in that experience.

We can argue that this is exactly the same for iPhone or Nike.  But they at least have a deliverable that makes a noise when you throw it against the wall.

Back to the client discussion, hoping the help them understand that this has got to be about the stories, not the PMS or the logo or the visuals that add a lot of cost to a communication but rarely deliver in additional donations … short term or long.