#TBTFundraising: Rekindle Your Passion

• A 9-inch-by-12-inch brown kraft with a double window — printed with the flap on the side instead of the top. A simple teaser, “Your signature here can help convince 2 key men that we want the ERA now!” seems irresistible. The package includes two “Citizen Petitions” — one to Ron Brown (chairman of the Democratic National Committee) and one to Lee Atwater (chairman of the Republican National Committee) — and an ask string that is a control for many organizations still today: __ $25 __$35* __$50 __$75 __$100 __ Other $______
• Would any of us have the nerve to go with a teaser today as edgy as this classic from Handgun Control (now the Brady Campaign)? “Enclosed: Your first real chance to tell the National Rifle Association to Go To Hell …”
• It is interesting to see that many of the issues from our archives are still the issues of today. There are many packages urging donors to help keep abortion safe and legal — with an eye-catching teaser on a NARAL Pro-Choice America package that says, “WHO DECIDES? YOU OR THEM?” This envelope is full of the things that make mail great — a bumper sticker, a pledge for the donor to sign that is part of the reply device, and strong activist language that includes: “The battle is raging. And all of us who believe this most personal decision must be ours, not the politicians’, must mobilize. That’s why the National Abortion Rights Action League — the political arm of the pro-choice movement — has launched the next phase of its massive NATIONAL ACTION MOBILIZATION CAMPAIGN.” Powerful language and a bumper sticker. What fun!
• Another letter begins: “Dear Friend: I urgently need your help in writing a full-page ad that will appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today.”
• I found letters with Johnson boxes that take up the top third of page one and are so compelling you don’t even need to read the letter to go straight to the reply device. (Oops, I can’t give to something that was mailed in the 1980s, can I?)
• There are letters signed by Robert Redford, Jacques Cousteau, Millard Fuller, Molly Yard, Ellie Smeal, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Coretta Scott King, Morris Dees, Kurt Vonnegut, Ira Glaser, Ted Kennedy, Susan Sarandon, President Jimmy Carter, Geraldine Ferraro, John Anderson and so many more. We have framed some of the original signatures — relics of the old days. I recommend you do the same; it is a nice reminder of the folks who cared enough to lend their names and signatures to the cause(s) you care about and the missions you work to further.

Please join us each week on Facebook and Twitter and post your #TBTFundraising packages. Many of our fundraising successes of the past can teach us about good donor communication today. The personalization, the passion, the inserts, the simplicity and the basics are never old-fashioned when it comes to good fundraising. (And thanks to Roger Craver, Jerry Huntsinger, Bob Levy, Barry Fishler, Barry Cox, Kimberly Seville, Pru Bovee, Rusty Varney, Jake Koenigsberg, Dalton Fuqua and so many others whose motivational packages fill the archives at CMS.)