Keeping Donors Engaged in Tough Times

 

We’re all seeing it right now.  The economy forces donors to take a second – even third look at their budgets before making that next gift.

Donors are more selective about their giving choices right now.  How is your organization stretching the dollars you do have?  What are you doing to contain costs?  Is your mission the main focus, or your balance sheet?  Are your people continuing to make serving your clients the priority, even in these difficult times?

These (and I’m sure a host of other) questions are preceding charitable gifts right now.  Donors want proof that you are going to spend their hard earned dollars just as wisely as they would.

And recently, I found an organization that is absolutely living up to that donor expectation.  Youth Frontiers, a Minnesota-based nonprofit organization that partners with schools to create more positive school communities recently reported a record year for fundraising.

Their success didn’t come from mega-gifts from the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.  Their success came because they were honest and transparent with donors.  And because they put their mission and the kids they serve before everything else.

I had lunch recently with Erica Ulstrom, Director of Development at Youth Frontiers.  Like many other nonprofits in this economy, Erica shared that things started out rough for Youth Frontiers this year.  It didn’t look like the organization would make budget.  Giving was down, and many donors and community supporters had personal financial concerns that kept them from making the significant commitments they had in the past.

A lesser organization might have started to cut programs at this point.  But not Youth Frontiers.  These people don’t understand the meaning of can’t.  It’s just not in their vocabulary.  Their staff met and decided that one way for the organization to continue providing their vital community service would be for each staff member to take one week of unpaid vacation.  Leading by example, the organization’s management team agreed to each take two weeks without pay.  And both executive leaders – President and CEO – took a month without pay. 

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not advocating that we all go without pay until this economic mess recovers.  But everyone at Youth Frontiers decided this was best for their organization and their clients – and as you’ll see, it appears to have paid off for everyone involved.

But they didn’t stop there.  They also looked at other ways to control costs.  They even go so far as to restrict how much air conditioning and heating can be turned up and down and operate out of an office space that has only one small conference room and no private office spaces.  This sounds petty and small – but trust me, these little costs can add up to real dollars over the course of a year.

So Youth Frontiers’ staff and leadership sacrificed a lot of perks this year to keep their programs running.  But they did something else too.  They shared these sacrifices with donors.  Over the course of several months, they shared the choices they made with board members, close supporters and their entire donor base.

And that’s when donors rewarded them for the sacrifices they were willing to make for the greater good.  Erica reported to me that, in spite of all the worry and the early fundraising numbers this year, Youth Frontiers has just closed the books on the BEST fundraising year in its history!  For the first time ever, this relatively small organization raised more than a million dollars in charitable support.

Trust me when I tell you that their donors stepped up big time when they realized what great stewards of donor dollars the team at Youth Frontiers was. 

Again, I’m not saying you have to personally go without in order to achieve success in this economy.  But when you’re willing to be crystal clear with donors about how important they and their gifts are to your organization and the people you serve, and when you can account for absolutely every dollar received and spent, and the way in which you used it to further your organization’s mission, it’s likely that your donors will respond in a positive way.

I was also excited to hear from Erica that the year ended so well that Youth Frontiers’ leadership expects they’ll be able to make sure employees are rewarded for the sacrifices they made to ensure the organization’s success this year.

There must be 50 ways . . .

. . . to net more dollars — even in the worst economic times . . .

This article by Pamela Barden originally ran on July 7, 2009 in Fundraising Success. 

Remember the story of the boy in Holland who noticed a hole in the dike? Fearing a leak could flood the entire town, he shoved his finger into the hole, potentially avoiding a major disaster.

As fundraisers, our challenge is not unlike that boy’s. Every day, we look for leaks — places where we’re not maximizing our investment, little holes that, if left unplugged, can cause our donors to abandon us and our income to plummet.

In today’s economy, it’s even more critical to not miss any opportunity. To that end, here are 50 possible leaks you can plug today.

General fundraising
1. Test everything — including what you read in this article — and only make changes that improve net income. Don’t simply react to the economy or change because “everyone else is doing it.”

2. Look for untapped opportunities; direct mail should be your core source of income, with radio, TV, face-to-face, planned giving and online fundraising bringing in the balance.

3. Question everything. What are you doing because it makes you (or a board member) feel good and not because it raises money? Now is the time to make tough calls and eliminate things that drain your budget without increasing income.

4. Offer choices when donors say, “You mail too much!” Have step-down options — rather than “all or nothing” — that reduce direct mail to quarterly, semiannually or annually. Be sure to schedule when to contact donors with mail restrictions, so they aren’t forgotten.

5. Call and thank former monthly donors; just saying a simple “thank you for all you’ve done” can encourage former donors to start giving again.

6. Acknowledge milestones. Call and thank donors who give over a number of years or reach a certain accumulated giving threshold. Showing genuine appreciation is an unbeatable retention strategy.

7. Look for your trouble spots, and develop strategies to address them. For example, when are ongoing donors most likely to stop giving? At one organization we work with, it was after three years of giving, so we began a recognition program at that point and saw amazing improvement in retention.

8. If you rely on premiums for donations, think continuity. A desire to receive the entire series can encourage ongoing giving.

9. When donors call, start building a relationship by letting them tell you the reason they called before you ask them to verify your computer records. Especially if a donor calls in to vent, making him jump through your hoops first only adds to his frustration.  

10. When you make a mistake that affects donors, the best strategy for dealing with it is to simply say, “I’m sorry.” For example, a nonprofit I support
double-charged a donation to my bank account; the woman I spoke to was so genuinely sorry I told her to keep the extra gift.

Receipts
11. Get receipts out quickly — in days, not weeks. Donors want to be assured you received their gifts, you’re using them wisely and you’re grateful.

12. Write custom copy for first-time donors, special offers and major programs, if possible. “One size fits all” seldom works for T-shirts or receipt copy.

13. Don’t let donor remorse set in; include stories that show how effective you are in using donations.

14. Encourage repeat giving by enclosing an easy-to-use coupon and a return envelope. A three-part receipt — letter, receipt and return form — is a proven strategy for increasing additional gifts.

15. Maximize your First Class postage costs by adding inserts on giving opportunities, planned giving, special events, etc.

16. For gifts larger than a predetermined level, mail a very personal, closed-face letter one week after the receipt to reaffirm your gratitude. Don’t include any reply device. You’re strengthening the relationship; additional giving will follow.

Newsletters
17. In each article, show how you achieved results, but gently remind the reader that the job is not yet done and you still need her help.

18. Repeat those opportunities on the reply form so it’s easy for the donor to designate a gift to meet each specific need.

19. Put your newsletter in an envelope with a loose reply form and reply envelope; the extra cost usually is much less than the additional income you’ll receive.

20. Save money without sacrificing quality or interest. For example, a No. 10 envelope with a large window on the nonaddress side allows you to use the same envelope for every issue and creates interest when a compelling photo shows through.

21. Survey donors to find out which regular articles they enjoy. Eliminate the ones that aren’t popular, and use the space for articles that better resonate with your audience.

Direct mail
22. Test frequency; don’t let donors forget you. You probably can add a mailing (or two) and net more dollars.

23. Nothing says “junk mail” quite like an indicia. Test a live, bulk-rate stamp; it adds only a small amount to your production costs but could significantly lift response and net income. For higher-end donors, test a First Class commemorative stamp.

24. Develop a monthly giving program; donors who are committed to give monthly are your most loyal donors and usually stay with you even in tough economic times.

25. Reuse winning packages. Donors don’t remember the appeals you sent a year ago. Freshen up the copy as needed.

26. The outer envelope serves two purposes: to hold the contents together and to get opened. Teasers, closed-face, live stamps, four-color, hand-addressing all work sometimes, but not always. Test!

Major donors
27. Be sure you aren’t neglecting your major donors. Too often, they are moved out of the direct-mail file for “special treatment” that never really happens.

28. Rethink donor clubs. Don’t hesitate to cancel them if they aren’t improving net income. Reabsorb the members into your main mailstream, but honor their commitment with closed-face envelopes, personal letters, etc.  

29. Find the contact methodology that meets the donor’s needs and is most likely to result in continued partnership. For example, a major donor to an organization we work with sent $50,000 every January when she received the direct-mail piece with a matching-grant offer. Instead of a visit, the representative started calling her to give her a “heads-up” that the mailing was on the way.

Planned giving
30. Promote planned giving in your receipts. A simple insert can spark interest and bring in leads.

31. Ask participants for endorsements you can print. We all like additional confirmation from people just like us.

32. Test before including planned-giving messages in fundraising appeals. Sending mixed messages could hurt response.

New donors
33. Thank them with special receipts. Be as warm and welcoming as possible, and reaffirm that supporting you was a wise decision.

34. If possible, have a separate welcome mailing. It’s another opportunity to say “thank you” and provide information about your charity.

35. Consider a small, mission-appropriate premium (a bookmark, for example) for donors who give second gifts within 60 days. Promote this with a small insert in the first receipt.

36. Receipt the first gift, no matter how small.

37. At a predetermined threshold, call just to say “thank you.”

Lapsed donors
38. Test sending a postcard with a special need. Make the front of it colorful and exciting. Drive responses online or to a toll-free number.

39. Survey to find out why they stopped giving. Use the information to improve your program.  

40. Be aggressive; start re-upping before they lapse. Calls and letters reminding them it’s been almost a year since they last gave are proven ways to keep donors from lapsing.

41. Monitor the results of all lapsed efforts, and know when to stop. At some point, move them into an acquisition-only file.

Acquisition
42. Love your control. No one else is bored with it. Don’t discard it unless it’s no longer working and you have something else consistently working better.

43. Test a variety of outer envelopes with the same package content. If your envelope isn’t getting opened, it doesn’t matter how great the contents are.

44. Mail acquisitions to your prospects and deeply lapsed donors. It’s a low-cost way to activate them.

45. If you rent lists, remail the names that show up on multiple lists (with permission from the list owners) a few weeks later. These are usually the most responsive names.

Online
46. Have one person — with solid fundraising experience — own your total e-mail experience. Don’t let everyone in the company dictate when and what to e-mail.

47. Avoid the temptation to over-e-mail. If your e-mails start to feel like spam, you’ll become a permanent resident of the “deleted items” file.

48. Maximize your Web site for search engines; learn how by going online and searching for “SEO” and “SEM.”

49. Promote reasons to go to your Web site in your newsletters, receipts and other communications.

50. Make sure online giving is secure, easy to find and easy to use. Printing and mailing a form is not a substitute for secure online giving.

In good times or bad, always be looking for leaks you can plug. Several small improvements in your fundraising program can add up to significantly more net income — and greater opportunities to carry out your important work. FS

Pamela Barden is a vice president and group director at Russ Reid. Reach her at pbarden@russreid.com 

Using Telemarketing to Reactivate Lapsed Donors

Back in March I posted 10 Ways to Reactivate Lapsed Donors.  One of the recommendations in that post was to use telemarketing to increase your lapsed donor reactivation results.  The following post will expand on that and provide additional details about our organization’s experience reactivating lapsed donors by phone.

Like many nonprofits, our organization has struggled to improve our lapsed donor reactivation program for several years.  It seemed that the more we tested, the more our results suffered.  We’d used every tool in our toolkit.  Different offers.  Different creative.  Different seasons.  Bouncebacks.  Freemiums.  Matching challenges.

Our strategy was such that we weren’t losing tens of thousands of dollars in our lapsed program.  But unfortunately, we weren’t reactivating thousands of donors either.  As you can see in the snapshot below, our lapsed reactivation efforts were hardly scratching the surface when it came to re-engaging lapsed donors.

That’s when our telemarketing partners at Strategic Fundraising suggested we test a lapsed reactivation phone program.  We couldn’t have been happier with the results.

Taking what we knew worked in the mail (matching challenge offer, and strong calls to action asking donors to provide life-changing medical care for children), we built a program that far surpassed previous results on almost all metrics.

This chart shows three years of lapsed donor results (2006/2007 are direct mail, while 2008 is telemarketing):

As you can see from the chart above, even though our lapsed investment more than doubled when we deployed telemarketing, the increase in reactivated lapsed donors and net revenue made up for it — and then some!  And because our raw count of new donors and our revenue increased, our cost per reactivated donor was actually cut by almost 40%! 

Another exciting difference is that because of the very sophisticated predictive modeling used in telemarketing, and the ability to cost-effectively test and change course immediately, we were able to go much deeper into our lapsed list than we had been able to do in the mail.  We were actually able to reactivate donors from as far back as 2000 at positive net revenue. 

I know that some organizations and some fundraisers are adamantly opposed to telemarketing.  It’s invasive.   It’s expensive.  You hear bad things about it from others.  People say they don’t like it.  But a lot of people still give when you call.

If you can get past the potential negatives, you can make a serious positive impact for your organization.  Even if you don’t outsource your program to a professional fundraising firm, you should consider using in-house phone-a-thons to reactivate your donors.  

We all have our opinions of fundriasing phone calls, but you can’t argue with the data.  And the data shows that for all it’s faults, telemarketing is a valuable tool for reactivating lapsed donors. 

Boosting direct mail revenue by phone: a case study

This article on integrating phone and mail efforts from Strategic Fundraising originally appeared in Mal Warwick’s April 2009 e-Newsletter.   Strategic is one of Gillette’s fundraising partners, and has done some amazing work for us as well. 

By Corey Gordon

What influence, if any, does telephone fundraising have on the results of concurrent direct mail appeals?

Do direct mail results vary depending on the outcome of the telephone call (i.e. pledge vs. refusal)?

Are results relatively consistent across the entire file, or are there segments that defy the overall trends?

Does the interval of time between the telefundraising call and the estimated in-home arrival date of the mail appeal have a material impact on either channel?

These were the questions we set out to answer in a test of integrated fundraising, adding telephone contact to ongoing direct mail programs.

Our client was a large, national organization. Its donorfile had been built almost entirely by direct mail using labels and other modest upfront premiums. Donors on the file had been exposed to little-to-no prior telefundraising, and they were largely an older audience averaging 72 years of age. The segment carved out for the test consisted of 13-36 month lapsed donors, with highest previous gifts in the range of $15.00 to $49.99.

All in all, as you may be well aware, this was not an optimal file for telefundraising.

The test was undertaken during the first half of 2008, during which six mailings were sent out and over 200,000 contacts made by phone.

Donors in the control group received the same mailings, but were not contacted by phone. There were no premiums associated with the phone appeals, while the direct mail appeals had the normal offerings.

The gross revenue per piece mailed (GPPM) was the standard by which results were measured.

In the following chart you can see the overall picture:

As you can see, the telefundraising program appears to have had no negative impact on any of the direct mail results. Gross Revenue Per Piece Mailed was actually higher among the households contacted by telephone than those where no contact was made. These findings were consistent across nearly all key sub-groups as defined by Recency, Frequency, and Monetary Level (RFM).

For another perspective on this test, take a look at the following chart:

Interestingly, donors who made pledges when contacted by telephone generally responded significantly higher to the direct mail appeals than those who refused. And even the donors who refused when contacted by phone demonstrated a higher level of response to the mail than those where no telephone conversation took place.

Once again, the positive lift created by the addition of the phone channel was consistent across nearly all RFM segments of the file.

The direct mail results were highest when a phone call was completed plus or minus one week of the maildate, as you can see here:

Summary

1. The direct mail results were positively influenced by the concurrent telefundraising effort, erasing the fears of cannibalization or overlap.
2. The phone and mail channels were clearly complementary, strongly supporting a multi-channel approach to fundraising.
3. The client actually resulted in a better overall positive net revenue position, even with the addition of a second channel of fundraising expenses.
4. A substantial number of lapsed donors were reactivated, helping to offset the overall decline in direct mail response in 2008.

Corey Gordon is Chief Marketing Officer, Strategic Fundraising, 7591 9th Street North, St. Paul MN 55128, phone (651) 233-5009, Web www.strategicfundraising.com, email cgordon@strategicfundraising.com.

The Small Advantage

I received this today from TalentZoo and had to share.  Several weeks (maybe a month) ago I had the opportunity to hear Linda Kaplan Thaler speak at the Maximum Impact Simulcast.  She’s an amazing speaker, leader and inspiring writer.  And given that the current economy is hitting nonprofits just as hard as it’s hitting the commercial world, I think this particular article is worth all our time.The Small Advantage

by Linda Kaplan Thaler/ Robin Koval June 2, 2009

To say that looking for a job in this economy is difficult is like saying Bernie Madoff likes money. No kidding. With over 3.3 million jobs lost in the past five months alone, and unemployment rates the highest in over 25 years, finding a job is right up there with finding the Madoff money. But we are here to offer some “small” advice on how to stand out among the fray, to help you land that big, elusive job.    As we share in our upcoming book, The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference, we are big believers in sweating the small stuff in our lives and in our careers. Our smallest actions and gestures often have an outsized impact on our biggest goals.  As the saying goes, “If you think small things don’t matter, think of the last game you lost by one point.”   “Small” actions often determine who gets the job and who doesn’t versus a stellar résumé. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, early birds don’t necessarily get the worm. Something as “small” as arriving too early for an interview can sabotage your chances before the interview begins. It can imply that you are desperate. It also makes people uncomfortable to have you sitting in their lobby for too long. Experts say arrive no sooner than 10 minutes before the scheduled interview time. Another example is what top-flight corporate recruiter, Paul Gumbiner, calls “The Starbucks Rule.” He tells job candidates, “Never show up for an interview with a Starbucks cup, unless you have one for the person you are meeting with.” Strolling in with your own coffee in not only overly casual, it suggests that you presumed your host would lack the manners to offer you anything. If you come with an unexpected treat for the other person, like a latte and biscotti, you’ve proved you know how to think about making clients happy before the interview even begins. With one “small” gesture, you send an important message about your natural abilities to anticipate the needs of others and take initiative. We have our own “small” rule at the Kaplan Thaler Group. Of course, we expect candidates to be on their best behavior when they meet with us, or another senior member of our team. But before we would ever consider hiring someone, we find out if they were nice to our security guard, Frank, upon entering the building or if they were respectful to our receptionist and said “thank you” when offered a drink. Without fail, these little things paint the big picture on most candidates.   Here are just a few “small” tips from The Power of Small to help you find that new job, or keep the one you have during these tough times:   Make “Small” Talk: We are all so busy IMing or FBing that we forget to speak to the person standing next to us. Yet, the person you are behind in line could be your next boss. Additionally, “small” talk could lead to big ideas that make you stand out at work.   Go the Extra Inch: Everyone expects to receive an e-mail thank-you after an interview, and well within 24 hours. But take the time to go that extra inch and send a hand-written thank you note too. It will make your prospective employer think about you again as they make their final decision. Same holds true after a meeting with a prospective client.    Add a Minute: Take a breath and add a minute to proofread that résumé, or client proposal. One “small” typo speaks volumes about you. And once it is e-mailed, there is no delete in cyber space. You’ll enter the “spell-check hall of shame” for all eternity.   Take Baby Steps: Finding a job can seem like an overwhelming, arduous task. So break it down into “mini-tasks” you can accomplish on a daily basis. Call three people you know to let them know you are looking for work one day, and identify five companies in your area that you would like to work for the next. Celebrate the “small” accomplishments along the way to keep you motivated.   Remember to focus on the pixels instead of the big picture to get ahead in good times and in bad.

Is Direct Mail Really Dying?

The following article was posted yesterday at Chronicle of Philanthropy.  It’s an interesting tidbit on the future of direct mail as a fundraising medium.  The original premise is that sometime in the next five to 10 years, direct mail will cease to be relevant as a revenue generating channel for nonprofits.

Wouldn’t that be great?  Nonprofit organizations across the board would see huge drops in fundraising expenses, the environmental impact of fundraising would be hugely positive, and all of us (myself included) who prefer to conduct business over the web would flock to nonprofit offers more readily.

There’s only one problem.  I just don’t see it happening (at least not that quickly).  Don’t get me wrong.  At some point in the future, the online channel will likely overtake direct mail and telemarketing for fundraising.  But the world doesn’t change as quickly as many of us would like it to. 

And given that most nonprofit organizations have built their files in the mail, I can’t see them simply giving up those files (even as the upper age-level segments age off the file) in favor of the “new.”  I wouldn’t recommend my organization or any others just make this shift anytime soon.  Moving away from an effective, established funding stream in favor of new media is an incredibly costly proposition.

The data still suggests that unless  you’re  a major national brand with significant media exposure (Red Cross, World Vision, ASPCA, etc.), your online revenue isn’t going to overshadow your mail revenue (and I’m betting that if we polled these orgs, we’d find that their mail revenue is still significantly greater than their online revenue).  For some niche programs this might not be the case — but for most organizations, it’s just the reality we live with. 

Therefore, I gotta throw my support behind Mal in this conversation . . . Feel free to share your thoughts on the issue too!

June 01, 2009

The Future of Direct Mail:Dueling Opinions

Predictions that direct-mail returns will drop by up to 40 percent over the next five years have prompted a spirited debate on Frogloop, a blog about nonprofit online marketing.

Allyson Kapin, a nonprofit marketing consultant, interviewed a handful of charities, including one environmental group that has eliminated its direct mail entirely, to test theories that direct mail is about to disappear.

Her conclusion is that charities should “start preparing now for a younger generation of donors who strongly prefer the online medium — not the mail — for managing their lives, including for donating money to their favorite organizations.”

But not so fast, writes Mal Warwick in a response to Ms. Kapin.

“My, my,” he writes. “Isn’t it curious how people who are young and enthusiastic about online communications are so firmly convinced that direct mail is dead or dying — while professional fund raisers, that is, the people who are responsible for bringing in the bucks, think the young critics are living on another planet?”

Many thousands of charities have raised billions of dollars, year after year — by direct mail — from millions of new donors, notes Mr. Warwick. His own conclusions about whether direct mail is on the way out? “Hogwash.”

What’s your take on the future of direct mail? — Holly Hall

The upper limit of asking frequency

The upper limit of asking frequency was originally posted at Donor Power Blog earlier today. 

This conversation of how many asks are too many is one that I’ve had with nearly every nonprofit client I’ve ever worked with.  And in my current role, working at a large nonprofit, I’m shocked at how frequently this issue comes up.  I’m amazed how frequently I hear we can’t ask again right now, we just asked last month (or last quarter or last year), or  they just gave two months ago, we should give them a rest.

With the exception of the example of 52 impacts below, I’d say the assertions above are nearly always wrong.  Case in point — my organization formerly mailed four direct mail appeals and four mail newsletters.  In 2008 we ramped up to five mail appeals, four mail newsletters, four telemarketing passes and a monthly e-mail program.  Year-over-year, our net revenue is up 25%, and new donors are up by 300%.  Donor retention is up almost 10%, and our ROI is steadily increasing over 2007.  So I’d agree with the good folks at Merkle — unless you’re in the mail every week already, you’ve probably got room to add an appeal or two without risking a drop in revenue or ROI.

The upper limit of asking frequency

Yesterday we noted that there are only a few reasons not to ask your donors to give. The lesson is this: “ask and you will receive.”

Up to some point (which I have yet to witness) every appeal you add will produce more net revenue. So why not just mail all the time?

For one thing, there’s the threat of insanity. Direct mail is tough work, and getting it right takes a lot of concentration and energy. Then there’s the question of relevance: How many distinct, meaningful, relevant appeals can you make before you’re either over-repeating yourself or getting irrelevant? (The answer to both of these lie within, as they say.)

But for the sake of argument, let’s put all that aside and say you were to mail 52 direct mail impacts a year.

52 impacts would probably produce more net revenue than one appeal — or than 51. But at the cost of efficiency. Appeals generally have a suppressing effect on appeals mailed before and after them. The closer they are, the stronger the suppression. So while your net might be higher, your ROI would go down, getting closer to 1:1 as your expenses rose faster than your revenue.

How much asking, then, is too much? I’m pretty sure 52 is too much. But I’ve seen programs that were mailing around 35 impacts a year that raised impressive net revenue with only minimal impact on ROI.

The answer for your organization is: Unless you’re already in the 30+ ballpark, you can probably mail more.

Just be aware that sudden, radical increases in frequency are counter-productive — you’ll see a surge of complaints, and not the corresponding increase in response. It works better to grow your revenue by increasing slightly each year until you reach your right frequency.

If you’re mailing quarterly now, add one or two impacts. If you’re mailing, monthly add two or three impacts during high-response seasons of the year. That’s how you maximize revenue through frequency.

Charitable Tax Deduction in Congressional Crosshairs Again

From the Direct Marketing Association’s Nonprofit Federation earlier today . . .

The Senate Finance Committee is discussing how to fund health care reform today.  Regrettably, one of the administration’s proposals to obtain funding is reducing the charitable deduction from 35 percent to 28 percent for those who earn more than $250,000 per year.  The DMA Nonprofit Federation does not support any proposal that would make it more difficult for charities to raise the crucial funds they need to keep their programs alive.

Please take a few minutes TODAY and contact the Senate Finance Committee.  Let them know how much lessening the charitable deduction would hurt our community.  Here is a sample letter for you to use.  If you opt to send a letter or communicate with the committee, please keep us apprised of your efforts by phone or e-mail (202.861.2410 or CQuinn@the-dma.org).

Contact information for the Senate Finance Committee and each of the individual members is located below.  Thank you in advance for your efforts to protect our community.

Senate Committee on Finance
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-6200
P: 202.224.4515
F: 202.228.0554
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/committee.htm

Committee Members:

1. Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman, Senate Finance Committee: P: 202.224.2651   F: 202.224.9412
   Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): P: 202.224.6472   F: 202.224.7665
   Kent Conrad (D-ND): P: 202.224.2043   F: 202.224.7776
   Jeff Bingaman (D-NM): P: 202.224.5521    F: 202.224.2852
   John Kerry (D-MA): P: 202.224.2742   F: 202.224.8525
   Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): P: 202.224.4843   F: 202.228.1371
   Ron Wyden (D-OR): P: 202.224.5244   F: 202.228.2717
   Charles Schumer (D-NY): P: 202.224.6542   F: 202.228.3027
   Debbie Stabenow (D-MI): P: 202.224.4822    F: 202.228.0325
   Maria Cantwell (D-WA): P: 202.224.3441   F: 202.228.0514
   Bill Nelson (D-FL): P: 202.224.5274   F: 202.228.2183
   Robert Menendez (D-NJ): P: 202.224.4744    F: 202.228.2197
   Thomas Carper (D-DE): P: 202.224.2441   F: 202.228.2190

Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee: P: 202.224.3744  F:202.224.6020
Orrin Hatch (R-UT): P: 202.224.5251    F: 202.224.6331
Olympia Snowe (R-ME): P: 202.224.5344    F: 202.224.1946
Jon Kyl (R-AZ): P: 202.224.4521    F: 202.224.2207
Jim Bunning (R-KY): P: 202.224.4343    F: 202.228.1373
Mike Crapo (R-ID): P: 202.224.6142    F: 202.228.1375
Pat Roberts (R-KS): P: 202.224.4774    F: 202.224.3514
John Ensign (R-NV): P: 202.224.6244    F: 202.228.3364
Mike Enzi (R-WY): P: 202.224.3424    F: 202.228.0359
John Cornyn (R-TX): P: 202.224.2934    F: 202.228.2856

Easier Said Than Done : 25 Random Things About Fundraising

The following article recently ran in Fundraising Success.  

Here’s some stuff you might not know about an old friend. By Jeff BrooksMay 1, 2009

If fundraising were a person, and he or she was on Facebook, I’d tag her/him with the nasty “25 Random Things” meme. We’d learn some surprising things about fundraising. But since fundraising itself is a mute nonentity, I’ve taken the job upon myself …

1. The oldest recorded fundraising appeal was written by St. Paul around A.D. 55. It’s an appeal to a group of church members in Greece to help impoverished church members in Jerusalem. The appeal is a masterpiece of donor-centered fundraising, spending most of its words describing the benefits of giving.

2. Race and ethnicity are not good predictors of charitable giving. Age and sex, however, are strong predictors: Women give more than men, and older people give more than younger people.

3. Someone who regularly attends a house of worship is twice as likely to give to charitable causes as someone who seldom or never does. The churchgoer gives 100 times as much to charity per year — including 50 times as much to nonreligious causes.

4. Measuring by percentage of gross domestic product, the United States gives more to private charity than do any of the world’s nations. The U.S. is followed by Israel, Canada and Argentina. The most generous European nations — Spain, Ireland and the U.K. — give less than half of what the U.S. gives on a percentage basis.

5. The most read part of a fundraising letter is the P.S. That’s why the professionals always use the P.S. to restate the letter’s call to action, rather than for the traditional afterthought.

6. Mail recipients spend more time looking at the back of the envelope than the front. Think about it: You have to face the back toward you in order to get the envelope open. A tricky way to take advantage of this is to put the recipient’s address (or the window that displays it) on the flap side of the envelope.

7. A pleasant orange scent applied to a direct-mail package does nothing to improve fundraising results.

 8. More often than not, an envelope with no message on the outside gets better fundraising results than one with a message. I don’t think this is because nothing is better than something, but because most teasers are so lame we’re better off without them.

9. Most enclosures added to direct-mail packages suppress fundraising results. One of the smartest tests you can do is to remove enclosures. It not only lowers cost, but very often also improves response.

10. Direct-mail testing does not yield universal principles. It only tells you specifically what happened in your test. Only a fool or a charlatan will claim otherwise.

11. The more recently a donor gave, the more likely it is she’ll give now. “Resting” donors from opportunities to give for some period after they’ve given is one of the most revenue-negative strategies around.

12. When donors are offered choices — about how you communicate with them, where their money goes or almost anything else — their giving measurably increases. Even when they don’t exercise any of the choices offered (as most don’t), their giving is greater than the giving of those not offered any choices.

13. Typos improve fundraising results. I’m sorry, but I can’t prove that. Seriously, I can’t count the number of times we discovered an egregious typo, then waited in horror for donors to voice their wrath and confusion by not responding in droves … only to experience instead an unusually high level of giving. My theory: Once someone finds a typo, she pays a lot more attention — and that dramatically improves the chance she’ll be moved by your message and give.

14. The working poor are the most generous Americans, giving the greatest portion of their incomes to charity of all U.S. economic groups.

15. Wealthy Americans follow in generosity, giving slightly less than the poor do on a proportional basis.

16. The rest of us? We’re way behind. But there are so many of us that the bulk of charitable giving comes from middle-class donors.

17. Donors are all-around excellent people. They are significantly more likely than nondonors to give blood, help the homeless with food or money, give up their seats to others, give directions to strangers, or return mistaken excess change to cashiers.

18. Donors also are more tolerant and open-minded than nondonors. They are less likely to be prejudiced against members of other races and religions. Compared to nondonors, they have a more favorable opinion of all kinds of groups, including labor unions, big business, environmentalists, feminists, welfare recipients, Congress and the military.

19. There is no objective evidence that there is any such condition as “donor fatigue.” Donors give extraordinarily in times of extreme need, like the Indian Ocean tsunami or Hurricane Katrina. “Fundraiser fatigue,” however, is all too real. Fundraisers routinely grow tired of urgent messaging and drift away from it, then blame the resulting drop in response on the donors. This unfortunate habit costs the nonprofit world billions of dollars a year.

20. The return on investment for charitable giving is $3.75 to the dollar. That is, for every dollar a donor gives to charity, she eventually becomes $3.75 wealthier. It’s not clear whether the dollar given directly causes the $3.75 return, but the correlation between the two is so strong and consistent that it’s obvious they are connected.

21. A dollar given to charity doesn’t just enrich the donor; it also adds more than $19 to the gross domestic product. That’s an almost unbeatable level of economic stimulus. Giving is patriotic!

22. Givers are more happy than nongivers. They’re 43 percent more likely to say they are “very happy.” Nongivers, on the other hand, are three and a half times as likely to say they’re “not happy at all.”

23. Givers are more healthy than nongivers. They are 25 percent more likely to say their health is excellent or very good than are nongivers.

24. Being a donor can transform your life.

25. So can being a fundraiser.

(Author’s note: Most of the demographic and sociographic facts given here are from the book, “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism,” by Arthur Brooks.) FS Jeff Brooks is creative director at Merkle and keeper of the Donor Power Blog. Reach him at jbrooks@merkleinc.com

Franklin Forum: Nonprofit Professionals Stress Face-to-Face Contact is Key to Major Giving

As corporate and foundation funding wells continue to dry up, it’s more important than ever that we in the nonprofit sector get back to basics — the individual relationships that for so long have helped to build organizations, serve people in need and create radical life-changing opportunities.  Following is an article originally posted at Fundraising Success by Abny Santicola that addresses some key success factors in individual fundraising.

Though we’re in a recession, philanthropy is alive and well. The key to weathering the downturn is having a solid fundraising program with diversified sources of giving.

One of the key sources nonprofits need to continue to cultivate are major gifts, Mary Lizzul, president of MCL Consulting, said in the session “Major Gift Trends, Tactics and Techniques” at the Franklin Forum sponsored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Philadelphia Chapter in Philadelphia in late April. Case in point: The top 5 percent of constituents give 95 percent of the dollars donated to charity, she said.

The session presenters discussed how they approach major giving at their respective organizations and shared best practices they’ve gleaned from experience. But all stressed the need to cultivate major-donor relationships through face-to-face interactions.

R. Robin Austin, interim vice president for development at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said donations to the hospital are down a bit, with a lot of people delaying big gifts until the economy gets better. In light of the economy, he and his team are focusing on the basics of stewardship. They’re looking to engage past board members, families of children the hospital has helped who’ve given in the past, or grandparents of current patients.

Austin said going back to basics means a renewed focus on mission in solicitations. He also has encouraged his staff to pick up the phone and talk to prospects.

Betsy Deisroth, director of development at American Friends Service Committee, said major giving is all about partnerships with people. AFSC considers anyone who gives $1,000 or more a major donor.

The organization’s direct-mail program is an important feeder system for major gifts, Deisroth said, and then those people who demonstrate interest in the organization are given more attention.

The organization conducts proactive and reactive research on prospects, and while paper research plays a role in that, Deisroth said there’s nothing like human research, so she stressed the need to connect with donors face to face.

Cultivation to get a gift is important, but after you get a gift stewardship is crucial, as you don’t want the donor to feel like he was getting tons of attention from you leading up to the gift and then none after he gave.

Frank Guthridge, vice president for development and communications at Elwyn, an organization that provides a range of services to people with special needs, advised attendees to follow their hearts and instincts, and do what they think is right when fundraising.

“Fundraising is integrity, ethics and transparency,” Guthridge said.

His organization deems anything in excess of $100 a major gift. While he said this presents a challenge because even though $250 is a major gift, you can’t spend the same amount of time on these donors as you do on a $1,000 donor, he added that the goal for his organization is to get the $100 donor to be a $250 donor, the $250 donors to be a $500 donor, etc. This requires taking the time to listen and figure out what donors want.