30 Ideas for Fundraising Success, Part 1

[Editor’s note: This is part 1 of a three-part series on the session “30 Ideas in 60 Minutes: Your Hour of Creative Power” held on June 10 at Fund Raising Day in New York.]

One of the best ways to improve your organization and fundraising initiatives is to learn from others in the sector and take ideas that will work for you and your donors.

At the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater New York Chapter’s Fund Raising Day in New York last Friday, three fundraising experts shared 30 ideas in one of the first sessions of the day. Here are ideas 1-10 that Joe Manes, senior vice president of A.B. Data, Bryan Terpstra, vice president of fundraising at LW Robbins, and fundraising and communications advisor Jennie Thompson offered attendees. Check back next week for ideas 11-30.

‘When a customer buys a quarter-inch drill, what he really wants is a quarter-inch hole’
That means you should know what your donors want when they’re making gifts, Thompson said. You must understand the donor’s end goal as much as what appeal made her give.

Let them know you love them
Send your five-plus-year donors a cultivation mailing every year, Manes said, and be sure to continually acknowledge their loyalty. Loyal donors want to be recognized for their continued support, and they’re often excellent candidates to bump up to the next level of giving, i.e., major giving, monthly giving, planned giving, etc.

Audit and then improve your acknowledgments
Terpstra said that over the course of his 25-plus years in the sector, he’s seen a big correlation between great donor service and high donor loyalty.

“One key of donor retention is acknowledgment,” he said. “Donors want to be thanked promptly and treated well.”

For those reasons, it’s vital to acknowledge your donors, but you shouldn’t sound too institutional in your communications.

In order to make sure you acknowledge donors appropriately, Terpstra said you should check your system and ask the following questions every six months:

• How are you welcoming new donors to you organization?
• How fast are you sending out thank-yous — within one week?
• Are you/can you use First Class postage?
• Are you warm, friendly and appreciative?
• Are you showing the donor her gift’s impact in the thank-you letter?
• Do you include another ask and a reply envelope? (Most organizations do!)

To illustrate the importance of acknowledgments, Terpstra said he has seen several organizations raise approximately 10 percent of their revenue through their acknowledgment programs alone.

The ‘why’ is more important that the ‘what’
“Too many of us are talking about our needs instead of donors’ needs,” Thompson said. “We over-worry about small content issues instead of focusing on what really matters to donors.”

All too often, she said, organizations worry about branding when in reality they should worry about building trust with the donor. Donors want to know that their gifts really make a difference. It’s your job to show them.

“Don’t tell me about the needs you have … tell me about the needs you meet.”

Are you prepared for an emergency?
In this day and age, the first thing many people think about in an emergency situation is broadcasting via online communications or even mobile. But don’t forget about direct mail, Manes said.

“I dislike the term ‘snail mail’ because it gives the impression that it won’t get there in time. Lots of organizations don’t think mail when something big happens, an emergency takes place. That’s a mistake,” he said.

Direct mail can seem outdated in a 24/7 news cycle, Manes admitted, but you can move quickly if you need to. You just have to have a strategy in place. Manes suggested that everyone print emergency stock like envelopes and letter templates, draw up emergency appeals, and have a plan in place to get something to your donors within 76 hours of an emergency.

“If you think you can’t reach donors quickly through the mail, it’s time to rethink that stance,” he said.

Show donors the ‘before and after’ in your fundraising letters
Donors love to see the impact of their gifts, Terpstra said. So if you can, show them an illustration/photo of a situation/person before you step in versus after you have stepped in with your work. Think Operation Smile with its before and after pictures of the children whose cleft palates it fixes. Donors respond to visuals.

Even if you don’t have a great illustration to show for your mission, you can get creative by tying a story around some sort of visual and making it personal.

Tell a story in your fundraising communications
Giving is a very emotional act, so you must connect with donors through stories. And as long as the story grabs the reader, length doesn’t matter nearly as much as content.

“Think of your narrative as a skirt … make it short enough to be interesting and long enough to be decent,” Thompson said. “People read what’s interesting to them no matter the length. Length doesn’t really matter. Content does.”

Thompson said you should appeal to all the senses to make your story as stimulating as possible. The more donors are engaged and engrossed with the narrative, the more likely they are to give and support your organization.

Don’t be ‘pillar appeal’ dependent
In 2010, Manes saw old standbys like annual-fund campaigns experience 15 percent to 20 percent drop-offs in gross income while new, project-driven campaigns saw success. That means you may not be able to rely as heavily on those “pillar appeals” as you have in the past. Now is the time to be creative, Manes said.

Step up your recruitment efforts to keep your monthly sustainer program growing
“If you have a monthly giving program — and you should (and probably do) — you should be talking about it all over the place,” Terpstra said.

Here are ways he shared to publicize your monthly giving program.

• Test “hybrid” single gift/monthly gift double reply slips in some renewal appeals.
• Test monthly giving stand-alone inserts in some regular appeals and acknowledgments.
• Try mailing two special recruitment/invitation mailings each year to add more donors to your monthly program.
• Embark on telemarketing campaigns for monthly donor recruitment — they tend to work well.
• Build a unique monthly donor appeal.
• Add a monthly donor page on your website if you don’t already have one.

Show 'em you know 'em (and their e-mails)
Ask your supporters to verify their e-mail addresses at least once a year, Thompson said, because people change e-mail addresses more than they move. Thompson shared these facts about online donors:

• A third to a half of e-mail addresses go inactive in the course of a year either due to bad messaging or donors have changed their e-mail addresses.
• Online is the new acquisition channel, but many online-acquired donors move offline to give.
• Donors are migrating within e-mail and across channels.

Check back next week for the remaining ideas.