Fundraising letters are about people. People talk. So your fundraising letters should include the voices of people. In a novel, the characters come alive only after you hear them talk. What they say, how they say it, when they say...
Your direct mail fundraising program should have three goals. Goal 1: Acquires donors If your organization is typical, you lose around 15% of your donors each year. They simply stop responding to your appeals. Fifteen percent is average, but it's...
This week's cover story is the final installment in a series of articles to help nonprofit organizations see the world from another perspective. The series also includes what funders, volunteers, consultants, and the media would like the nonprofit sector to...
A proven way to reactivate lapsed donors is to ask them why they have stopped giving. You can do this with a survey that you enclose in your mailing. Or you can leave space on the reply device for a...
The most important letter in direct mail fundraising never asks for a donation. Thank-you letters increase donor loyalty, strengthen relationships and increase your chances of receiving more gifts in the future, including major gifts and legacy gifts. But only if...
Do you use your phones to reactivate lapsed subscribers, appeal to your high-end donors or upgrade giving levels? If you do, you are one of an increasing number of non-profit organizations that have realized that telefundraising can play a key...
While so much of our daily lives is now conducted online, one vestige of our paper past - a remnant of fundraising days of yore - still holds strong. Direct mail, in all its varied and colourful incarnations, continues to...
One of the shortcomings of direct mail fundraising is that donors are usually thought of as numbers and not as people. Each donor or member in the database has a unique donor number that identifies that individual. You and I...
Have you thought about internal fundraising campaigns at your organization? Fundraisers spend a great deal of time, energy, and money to raise dollars for their organization from external donors. As they should; it's part of their job to maintain and...
Direct mail fundraising is a numbers game. A game that changes all the time. Who could have predicted the advent of online giving? Or the popularity of sweepstakes? Or the rise of a generation of young donors whose primary method...
