What Aretha Franklin Can Teach Fundraisers About Direct-Mail Response and Online Giving

Online giving, specifically in response to your direct-mail appeals, is a quickly evolving phenomenon that can no longer be ignored. In fact, it’s a big part of the reason we’ve been hearing over the past couple of years that direct-mail fundraising results are declining.

If your prospects, donors and members respond to your mail by donating, joining and renewing online (and they are, more and more each day), and your organization has no commitment to tracking these responses and crediting them as “mail response” — then yes, you will see a decline in your direct-mail results. Online gifts are perhaps simply tracked as and credited to “online fundraising,” and your mail appeals — as well as your mail program overall — become a victim of circumstance.