To: Geoff Peters
I enjoyed your article in FundRaising Success (“Fundraising and the Economy,” January). Couldn’t have come out at a better time. Your explanation of the two most vulnerable channels is insightful, and your multichannel point is right on target.
This month, as we turn our focus to the international face of fundraising, I’m turning over my column and a large part of the editorial planning for the issue to the charismatic, highly regarded Tony Elischer, who very kindly agreed to act as Guest Editor.
Awards2007 Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards by Margaret Battistelli, February H **2007 Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence by Margaret Battistelli and Abny Santicola, September H **BrandingNet Gain: The Young and the Restless by Nick Allen, February GFundraiser Confidential: The Pursuit of Brand Happiness by Todd Baker, May GTag(line)! You’re It! by Richard Deveau, September…
Airplanes and on-ramps. Talk to Atul Tandon about fundraising, and you get a lot of metaphors about movement. Whether it’s drawing a picture of specific programming as on-ramps to the highway of donor engagement, or comparing the development of an overall donor-centric attitude within an organization while also keeping a variety of strategies robust to repairing an airplane while it’s still in the air, the senior vice president of donor engagement at World Vision U.S. is clear about his point: Fundraising is far from a static endeavor and, to keep up, an organization — even one as venerable and stalwart as the 57-year-old World Vision — has to keep moving.
FundRaising Success: If you were to leave World Vision U.S. now and go to another nonprofit organization, and that organization was bringing in funds and its programs were doing what they were supposed to do, but it felt somewhat static, what would you do? How would you turn that around?
On Branding: “What we are telling our donors in terms of our brand promise, in terms of our communication strategy, in terms of the donor promise we make when we raise money from them — that’s got to make sense to the staff; it’s got to make sense to the beneficiary; it’s got to make sense to the communities we live in — to society in general. The donor promise, the community promise and the beneficiary promise — they have to be mutually understood and have to be mutually regarded as a win-win, and that becomes the single bottom line.”
Editor’s note: This is the third in a quarterly series of stories we’re 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.
Editor’s note: This is the third in a quarterly series of stories we’re 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.
There are a few things that stand out to me about this mailing from World Vision. For starters, it includes its Web site URL on the mammoth 9-inch-by-12-inch, bright yellow outer envelope. Sandwiched below the call-to-action teaser “Urgent. Children are starving” and the address box is a line of copy that reads, “Save lives online at SendFood.worldvision.org.” It’s a great way to drive recipients to a place where they can support the organization, even if they never make it inside the mailing. I also like how World Vision positions its ask in this mailing. The 8.5-inch-by-11-inch letter explains that World Vision has received $14 million
The key strategy to turning direct-mail constituents into major-gift donors is stewardship, says Karen Osborne, president of full-service consulting firm The Osborne Group. Stewardship is “more than sending out a thank-you note,” Osborne says. It is an addition to the suite of things an organization does through direct mail -- such as adding impact statements in a post-thank-you touch that communicate the difference a donor’s gift made. “The thank-you is just, ‘this is what we promise to do with your money.’ Stewardship is, ‘this is in fact what we did with your money.’ It’s the delivery on the promise,” Osborne says. For
