Direct Mail

By ELIZABETH KORSUN and ERIN DOLAN Even in the face of diminishing returns, fundraisers tend to stick with a “safe” group of prospect lists — in other words, donor files. But these days, if you’re only working with primary-market data to grow your membership, you’re fighting a war of attrition. What an organization really needs to flourish is new blood, an infusion of new people excited to learn about how it’s making the world a better place. Americans already have shown how spontaneously charitable they can be. A tremendous outpouring of support for tsunami victims came from a staggering number of American households,

Premiums can take many forms, from traditional address labels and calendars to the more unusual seed packet or even piggy bank. What they all have in common is the ability to get the mail opened, generate higher response rates (than non-premium efforts), and drive us all crazy with worries about their up-front cost and the value/renewability of the donors they acquire.

Everyone likes a premium. But as it turns out, if it doesn’t tie into an organization’s mission, donors won’t respond as well as if it did.

At least that’s how it turned out for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which works to preserve the legacy of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., and educate the public about the impact of the Vietnam War.

It’s safe to say Benjamin Hart is a fan of direct mail. In his book, “Fund Your Cause With Direct Mail: Secrets of Successful Direct Mail Fundraising,” Hart takes a comprehensive look at the benefits of direct mail and how they can be harnessed to capture more funding for nonprofit organizations, tracing everything from the role direct mail had in the American Revolution and in strengthening democracy, to the importance it plays in conjunction with the Internet.

Debra Neuman is on intimate terms with the tsunami that devastated southern Asia in December 2004. Just as you would never refer to a friend as “the Bill” or “the Mary,” she calls the killer storm simply “tsunami” — no preceding article — as though the word should be spelled with a capital T.

The pumps are working again, belching putrid water out of New Orleans and back into Lake Ponchatrain. There was even a parade on Bourbon Street. But at this writing, America was still falling asleep to nightly images of bloated corpses, starving animals, armed patrols floating on boats through rivers that once were the streets of this country’s most joyous and charmingly decadent town, and the weary, misguided people who wouldn’t leave it.

What a grand time. FundRaising Success ventured into the tricky awards arena for the first time this year. And even though it was all new to us, it was a terrific experience from start to finish. We had a better-than-expected showing — 33 packages in all, submitted by 10 agencies and two organizations — a small but enthusiastic group of judges and a lot of fun.

My fundraising package for the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America doesn’t have a lot of copy. There’s no informative four-page letter, no glossy brochure, no carefully crafted lift note highlighting BSA’s programs and good works.

Everyone knows the Boy Scouts. If you love them, you probably contribute. If not, this mailing reminds you what Scouting is all about.

For nonprofit mailers, knowing what your donors want is paramount. That’s why DOROT, a New York City-based charity providing Kosher meals to homebound Jewish elders in the tri-state area, tested, tested and tested some more to pinpoint how best to attract new contributors.

Its current No. 10 control package is simple in design and approach, and contains just three elements: a four-page letter, donor form and BRE. For all the flashy, four-color brochures and glossy inserts available, it often is the plain, white printed letter and envelope that carry the most impact — and cost the least — in the mail stream.

Folks who do direct mail fundraising for nonprofit organizations can -- and should -- take a lesson or two from commercial copywriters. Among them is the use of the guarantee. Practically every piece of commercial direct mail carries some kind of guarantee, yet what can a nonprofit letter offer? If the donor doesn’t like what we do with his money, we’ll refund every penny? Hardly. But you can adapt the guarantee to offer another kind of protection that reassures the donor his money is put to good use. One way is to tell how each dollar will be spent -- what