Acquisition

Three fundraising professionals shared their "20 Big Ideas for Small Nonprofits" at the 2012 Washington Nonprofit Conference. Here are ideas 11-15.

To acquire a large number of new donors quickly, nonprofits often turn to direct mail. It's cheap (well, compared to an option like direct-response television); you can target a specific geographic area or demographic; and over time you recoup your costs, identify potential major donors and planned-giving prospects, and build a loyal — and profitable — group of supporters.

A look at the 2011 DMFA Acquisition Package of the Year, Center for Urban Community Services NYC Note Cards Package: Scenes of the City We Love.

A look at the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association Package of the Year winner: the Fountain House Flying Cat Pads and Cards renewal campaign, with Amy Tripi of Tripi Consulting.

Once in a while, get out of the office. Don't go visit your family or fellow laborers in the fundraising profession. Talk to people who could be donors to your organization and who don't know their way around a direct-mail package. Find out what they are reading and doing. They may just give you a hint about a new place to look for donors.

Working with a list broker can be the best "cure" for a lackluster direct-mail donor acquisition program if you choose the right partner for your project.

At a time when for-profit theaters may be feeling the pressure to cave in to the economic pinch and roll out the revivals, nonprofit San Francisco-based American Conservatory Theater is still taking chances.

At the sixth annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising Conference held in National Harbor, Md., last week, two fundraising professionals shared 11 best practices and discussed how implementing them helped the Coast Guard Foundation (CGF) and Lighthouse International achieve tremendous results.

The stores are full of spiral notebooks, No. 2 pencils and laptops, so it must be “back to school” time. This is also when many nonprofits begin to think about acquisition again and wonder how they can profitably add new donors to their files.

Unfortunately, organic growth is usually not enough to offset attrition, and online acquisition may not be enough to grow your donor file. So, rather than calculating when attrition will leave you with only one remaining donor (though from experience, I assure you that presenting your board with a graph showing that startling statistic is quite effective), here are four ways to stretch even the smallest direct-mail acquisition budget for maximum impact.