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On Monday, Dane Grams, director of direct response and monthly giving at the Human Rights Campaign, led a Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association Brown Bag Luncheon on year-end appeals at HRC headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Recent tweets from FundRaising Success Target Marketing Group sister brands.

Here’s the truth: I don’t know a lot about the technical end of planned giving either. And I don’t need to know it. But I do know this: I know who the best planned-giving prospects are. And I know what to do with them. And that’s all YOU need to know too. So here’s a quick and dirty plan you can implement right now. And I can’t imagine a greater return on your effort!

Nonprofits can learn from e-mail campaigns corporate marketers are sending. Corporate e-mail programs have focused on delivering value. They test offers, messaging and more. They send relevant content based on subscriber interests, preferences and actions. Think about what’s in your inbox. Daily deals, airfare price alerts, offers from favorite retailers and social media alerts. Add in family and friends and the inbox has become a competitive place.

So, how can your e-mail campaigns stand out? Here are three ways: use personalized messaging on different audiences, test subject lines and calls to action, and follow up.

Blackbaud released findings from its Next Generation of American Giving study that explores charitable-giving trends and engagement behaviors and attitudes across four different generations — matures (68+), boomers (49-67), Gen X (33-48) and Gen Y (18-32). Baby boomers are emerging as the dominant force in charitable giving, responsible for 43 percent of all dollars donated. The study also revealed that multichannel engagement is the new normal, but the ideal mix varies from generation to generation.

The ability to manage and measure response is what sets direct marketing apart from advertising. Make the most of that difference.

Welcome to Part 2 of yesterday's post. Modeling: The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know what the experts were thinking — so I decided to just ask! For the most part, what is in this article are direct comments/quotes from the folks that I believe are the brightest and the best in our industry around this topic.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know what the experts were thinking in this area — so I decided to just ask! For the most part, what is in this article are direct comments/quotes from the folks that I believe are the brightest and the best in our industry around this topic.

Since spring is now officially here, what better time of year to clean out the virtual dust bunnies that have accumulated in your donor database? Your nonprofit is probably well into executing on its strategic plan for 2013, and you may have a good sense of your outreach needs as you gear up for the year-end giving crunch. Ensuring that your database is thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed is a critical, but often overlooked, success factor for nonprofits.

As with every evolutionary process, it's time to go to the next stage — moving from focusing on all the data to focusing on the right data. That's where the confusion comes in — what exactly is the right data to measure?