Category Archives: Donor retention
How Angry Are Your Donors With You? Take this Quiz and Find Out.
Have you upset one of your donors recently? Just how mad do you suppose they are at you, on a scale of 1 to 10? Take this quiz and find out. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each … Continue reading
Why Average Lifetime Donor Value is the Most Important Metric in Fundraising
Nothing says more about the success of your fundraising program than the lifetime value of your average donor. Average lifetime value, of course, is the gross income you receive from your typical donor during the time the donor is giving … Continue reading
Five Indisputable Laws of Direct Mail Donor Acquisition
I am not a prophet, I am not the son of a prophet, but I do serve on the board of a non-profit. And I’ve discovered through the years that charities who succeed at acquiring donors through the mail obey … Continue reading
How to Get a Second Gift from a New Direct Mail Donor
If your charity is at all typical, you will lose 65% of the donors you acquire by direct mail in the first year alone. In other words, only 35% of the donors you acquire through direct mail will give you … Continue reading
Four Fundraising Benchmarks You Must Monitor (or Else)
Know how to boil a frog? You don’t just drop him into a pot of boiling water. He’ll jump out. Instead, you place him in a pot of cool water, then warm the pot gradually to a boil. The frog … Continue reading
Fundraising Letters: Casanova Never Mailed One Love Letter a Year, So Neither Should You
The worst thing you can do in direct mail fundraising is mail only one appeal a year. Direct mail is part of your annual campaign, yes. But that doesn’t mean you should mail only one fundraising letter every 12 months. … Continue reading
Know Your Six Fundraising Numbers or Die
If you appeared on the reality TV show Dragon’s Den (or Shark Tank), pitching your charity to investors, would they give you any money? Watch a few episodes of either show and you’ll quickly discover the most common mistake wannabe … Continue reading
Why You Will Lose Donors Today, Guaranteed
What does your charity have to do to guarantee that some of your donors will stop giving today? Nothing. You are going to lose donors today whatever you do. Or don’t do. Donor attrition is a fact of life at … Continue reading
In Direct Mail Donor Acquisition, Ignore Your Initial Results
The secret to success at acquiring donors through the mail is to ignore your initial results. The results you generate in the first few months of your direct mail acquisition campaign might delight you or they might distress you, but … Continue reading
Should a Donation Thank-You Letter Ever Ask for a Donation?
I got a big surprise the day I closed my direct mail fundraising consultancy and started working for a national charity. I discovered that my new employer used its gift acknowledgement letters as a way to raise funds. With every … Continue reading
Is Your Returned Mail Costing You $481 a Piece?
You have a costly problem with returned mail. All non-profit organizations do. You mail perfectly nice letters to donors who have supported your cause for years, and then, one day, without so much as a by-your-leave their mail comes back … Continue reading
Reduce Undeliverable Fundraising Appeals by Acquiring Phone Numbers and Email Addresses Before Donors Move
Stephen Hitchcock makes a wise recommendation on how to keep your mailing list clean. In his article, Keeping Your Donor File Clean, in Contributions Magazine, Stephen recommends the following step: —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week … Continue reading
