Creative Direct Response

Since day one, I’ve held that those of us who are responsible for putting out FundRaising Success learn more from our readers than our readers learn from us. And this year’s Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards have served to punctuate that belief. Each year, we send out nominating forms that are nice and neat, with perfectly balanced categories that cover what we think are all the bases. And each year, we name winners in those respective categories. But this year, the nominations weren’t so cut and dry, and we were reminded that there are thousands of fundraising pros out there who toil in

The “balanced scorecard” has been a corporate management buzzword for about a decade. Like many management movements before it, the balanced scorecard is migrating from corporate management into the offices of nonprofit management and development staffing.

Editor’s note: This is the last in the year-long, quarterly series of stories we’ve been calling “The Leadership Series,” where leaders in the fundraising sector speak to big-picture issues fundraisers need to think about, over and above the day-to-day details of their jobs. Not one to mince words, Geoff jumps right in with these “Five Thoughts About Integrated Fundraising.”

Every day we see between 1,500 and 3,000 advertisements. That’s upwards of 125 in-your-face fliers, billboards, commercials and print ads per hour — or 2.08 per minute. Which makes perfect sense considering the average American debt per credit-card carrying household is $8,500 to $14,000, according to Federal Reserve Board of Governors statistical releases and the U.S. Census Bureau. As much as we’d like to think that our decisions to buy, buy, buy are independent choices based on personal preference, price, etc., we’re wrong. Advertisements influence our purchases — nearly all of them — whether we like it or not.

Ah, whimsy. It really is my thing. So I was totally tickled when Convio President Sheeraz Haji walked into a session being presented by Scottish fundraising powerhouse Bernard Ross at the Bridge Conference in D.C. last month. Sheeraz is quite the nice guy, but it wasn’t his mere presence that gave me the giggles.

What makes top fundraisers and fundraising consultants successful? Two weeks ago we ran the first installment of our Q-and-A with winners of FundRaising Success’ 2007 Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards in which some of them answered this and other questions. Here, our second and final presentation of their responses: What are your keys to success? Katya Andresen, vice president of marketing for Network for Good and one of our Fundraising Professionals of the Year: The key to all marketing — and fundraising — is simple: always, always, appeal to the perspective of your audience, not your own. As a mentor of mine [Sharyn Sutton, founder

Keeping tasks fresh and exciting can be a struggle no matter what job you do. Here, stars of the fundraising sector and winners of FundRaising Success’ 2007 Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards share how they keep fundraising new and exciting. How do you keep fundraising fresh? Michael Knipp, chief copywriter/editor for Creative Direct Response, Rising Star: By always pushing myself to be innovative. There’s no point in getting up for work every day if I’m not proud of what I’m putting my name on. Kim Ruotsala, director of development for Food Bank of the Rockies, Top Women in Fundraising: You can’t rely on what worked in

The winners of FundRaising Success’ 2007 Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards are individuals in the sector — on both the nonprofit and consulting side — who enrich the sector in some way and/or embody important trends in fundraising. We asked our award winners to share some things about themselves: where they come from, geographically and professionally; where they want to be in the future; who inspires them; and examples of some challenges and accomplishments they’ve had. Below are Q-and-A’s with five of our winners: Ted Kohnen, assistant director of Planned Parenthood Online and a Rising Star; Tim Burgess, co-founder of Merkle/Domain and a

As we gathered information for last month’s special section on e-philanthropy, we spoke to a number of folks whose comments didn’t make it into print. Following is a sampling of those comments. Some came from our own interviews, while others (marked accordingly) were in response to Katrin Verclas’ request for comments from members of the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network, of which she is the executive director. — M.B.

It’s through constant testing that we’re able to separate the winning packages from the losers. But with so many ideas, what truly constitutes effective direct-mail creative? And why does one package soar while others sink? The answer to effective creative is always in the results. The stats of any particular package will reveal whether a concept worked or not. Across the board, however -- no matter the package -- premiums generally seem to give packages a boost. Here are two tried-and-true premiums that work continuously, while others have come and gone. 1) Name labels. Name labels consistently perform well for one main reason: It’s