Fundraising Lessons Learned From Haiti

One of the things we constantly stress is the importance of follow-up, especially to people who are new donors to an organization. To do that, after the Haiti earthquake some organizations have taken their traditional monthly e-newsletter, where it would have information and news about the organization, they've been leading with more, "Hey, here are things we're doing in Haiti post-earthquake," and follow-up information. Following up with those new donors and using some different communication strategies, different messages with those episodic donors as opposed to what you would send to traditional donors, is important. It kind of goes without saying that if you're sending the same message to every single donor whether they're an existing donor or new donor, that's bad; you're doing it wrong if that's your approach.