List Management

Not all email lists are the same. You may have an e-newsletter list that includes all donors and supporters, another list specifically for repeat donors, and another list for supporters who have not yet donated. Your ability to segment your email lists will depend on your CRM and your email communications software, but having multiple lists can help your nonprofit better craft your messages and fundraising requests...

What could you do with a bigger email list? More donations? Volunteers? Capacity? Impact? Probably all of the above. After all, according to a recent M+R Benchmarks report: In 2015, on average, nonprofits received $44 in donations for every 1,000 fundraising emails sent. Nonprofit email revenue grew by 25 percent, faster than the overall rate of…

By definition, a constituent relationship management (CRM) system helps you better understand supporters’ habits and preferences by tracking and collecting data. But when multiple team members are entering information into the same system, your data is subject to the risk of human error. Whether it’s a typo or that half of your staff enters “Street”…

I’ll never forget the first time I came across an organization using Excel as a database. I’d taken on a part-time position as grant writer for a mid-sized agency working with women and children. Although I’d been hired to write grants, within weeks, the organization engaged me to write its annual Mother’s Day appeal...

When it comes to our communications, we all have good intentions, don’t we? And then that thing intervenes. You know, life. You know you aren't communicating with your donors often enough, and you’re probably right. You aren’t using direct mail to its full potential. Identifying your problem is the first step. Figuring out how to solve it, though, ultimately will be an ongoing endeavor. You need to start now...

When you convert from another donor database you will have a lot of questions: How long is the process? Who will I be working with? How can I clean up my data? Will I be trained? Can I apply filters? The most common question asked during a conversion is “what do other organizations do?” in…

At this time of year, many major gift officers (MGO) are evaluating their caseloads. Great MGOs understand the donors on their caseloads are really not theirs. They understand that in order to grow the major gift program, sometimes they have to “sacrifice” some of the donors they have been cultivating and “give” them away to another MGO who is building their caseload...

The entries for the 10th annual NonProfit PRO Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence have started to arrive in our offices. So, let’s take a look back at one of the winners from 2010: “Trash Poster Test” from Ocean Conservancy. Designed by Mal Warwick Associates, this Gold Awards winner for Direct Mail: Acquisition (Fewer Than 50,000 Mailed) impressed for two big reasons...

Datacards offer a wealth of information. These examples just scratch the surface. Digging in to the data can take you way beyond what you learn from glancing at surface demographics and assuming you know your prospects.

Datacards are the one- or two-page crib sheets your account executive and list broker use to determine which lists to test. And they are your friends.