Talking to Your Board About Direct Response

Where can this challenge damage a nonprofit?
I’ve seen otherwise knowledgeable and successful board members:

• advocate that the acquisition budget in digital, mail, DRTV be slashed in order to improve the current year’s net income and fundraising ratios;
• opine that people don’t want to receive letters anymore and the organization should simply email its donors;
• share that someone they know complains about receiving too much email and snail mail, and conclude that the organization should cut back on frequency (and on expenses);
• insist that people want to invest in success, so the organization should emphasize the positive results of its programs rather than showing need; and
• champion “the next big thing” in marketing as a way to attract hipper, younger people to the cause. (Millennials are a vitally important audience to many consumer product companies, but they are not one of the primary, economically viable target audiences for fundraising. They can be effective advocates for nonprofit causes as well as volunteers and event participants. But when targeting for direct-marketing revenue, attracting “younger” donors means trying to get people in their 40s.)

The opportunity
Smart nonprofit leaders recognize that their board members are successful in their own lives and careers because they have the ability to learn and grow. The facts are friendly. Your CEO and chief financial officer can be — in fact, must be — very effective spokespeople with the board to lay out the business case for your direct-response fundraising program. That means you have to make sure your CEO and CFO have all the info and understanding they need. To do this: