Category Archives: Donor acquisition
Win Board Approval for Your Fundraising Budget by Calculating Your Long-Term Donor Value
The ten dumbest words ever spoken in the English language are: “We don’t have money in our fundraising budget for that.” The people who say this most often are board members. Uninformed board members. Timid board members. Board members who … 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
How to Discover How Many Donors You Need to Reach Your Annual Revenue Goal
Does your charity need to double or triple or quadruple its income over the next five or ten years? Are you trying to figure out how to do that? Follow these simple steps to discover how many donors you’ll likely … 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
Invest in Donor Acquisition Yearly, or Die
Read through the diaries of the pioneers who settled the Western parts of the United States and Canada and you’ll discover that the most desperate act of hunger was to eat your seed corn. Eating your seed corn sealed your … Continue reading
Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Tests: Five Ways to Evaluate Your Results
If you drop a donor acquisition package in the mail as a test and it generates a response rate of 17%, can you say your campaign was a success? No. If your donor acquisition test mailing generates an average gift … 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
Twenty Postal Strike Survival Tips for Charities and Non-Profits
What should you do if your charity raises money through the mail but your country’s postal workers are about to strike, or are already on strike? Naturally, you’re troubled. Most charities in Canada that are not places of worship raise … 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
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
FAQs About Trading Mailing Lists with Other Charities in Donor Acquisition
Q1. What is list trading? A. List trading, or swapping, is the practice of exchanging mailing lists with another charity. They mail a fundraising letter to your list and you mail a fundraising letter to their list. —————————————————————- Receive a … Continue reading
Boost Response Rates to Your Direct Mail Fundraising and Special Event Invitations
Will your direct mail package ever produce a standing ovation? It might. When you mail an effective invitation to a seminar, workshop, awards show or special event, you literally move people-out of their seats and into yours. That’s one of … Continue reading
Use Your Donor Newsletter to Acquire Donors
Your donor newsletter doesn’t have to be something that you mail to people after they give you a donation. If your newsletter, business model and board of directors allow it, you can use your newsletter as a way to acquire … Continue reading
Does UNICEF’s Nickel Donor Acquisition Mailing Infuriate You?
UNICEF is mailing a donor acquisition package that is making plenty of recipients furious. I know why. The package is a #10 window envelope that features, peeking through the window, a shiny 5 cent piece. A piece of teaser copy … Continue reading
Direct Mail Donor Acquisition: How to Ask for the Right Amount
My wife and I listed our house for sale last Monday and sold it on Wednesday. The buyer offered us a few hundred dollars more than our asking price, so we accepted. But we have lingering doubts. Maybe you would, … Continue reading
Direct Mail Fundraising Tests: Follow these Eight Rules for Success
The best way to improve your direct mail fundraising program is through testing. Don’t follow fads, board whims, or a gut feeling that turns out to be indigestion. Instead, test. And, to save money and time (and further indigestion), follow … Continue reading
Look for Connection, Not Cash, in Prospective Direct Mail Donors
I received an email the other day that reads as follows: –letter starts– Hello Mr. Raiser, My name is _______. I work for a non profit organization, the ____________. We are in a season of taking the ministry international and … Continue reading
Lapsed Direct Mail Donors are Better than New Donors
One of your best sources of direct mail donations is people who have stopped giving you direct mail donations. We call these people “lapsed donors” and “expired members,” two uncharitable ways of referring to friends who have not given a … Continue reading
Will Direct Mail Fundraising Work for You? Ask and Find Out
Back in 1997, as I sat in the departures lounge at Ottawa International Airport, I didn’t know if Ruth would accept my proposal of marriage. I fidgeted. I procrastinated. Finally, as they announced the final call for her flight back … Continue reading
Five Vital Signs of a Healthy Direct Mail Fundraising Program
I spent last night visiting two hospitals with my four-year-old son, Spencer. I noticed that the staff at each hospital took the same vital signs (pulse, oxygen saturation, temperature, breathing) to determine Spencer’s health. Nurses and doctors miles apart, working … Continue reading
Reduce Direct Mail Donor Attrition in Four Ways
Your non-profit loses 15 percent of its donors every year, if you are typical. What can you do to reduce that percentage? —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week by email. Sign up for Raiser Sharpe Tips … Continue reading
Attract More Donors with Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Fundraising Letters by Avoiding these Mistakes
Woody Allen once said that “80 percent of success is just showing up.” He was wrong, of course. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week by email. Sign up for Raiser Sharpe Tips here Browse Alan’s books, … Continue reading
Build Your Direct Mail Fundraising Mailing List in Three Ways
Your success as a direct mail fundraiser depends on the quality of your list. A mediocre letter mailed to the right list will outperform a terrific letter mailed to the wrong list. How you build that list is up to … Continue reading
How Donor Acquisition Mailings Differ from Donor Renewal Mailings
Your job as a direct mail fundraiser is to make new friends every and keep them for as long as possible. And to do that you need two kinds of letter, acquisition and renewal. Understand the differences between these two … Continue reading
Prevent Costly Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Blunders with Test Mailings
I know a non-profit that mailed a direct mail donor acquisition package to thousands of potential donors and generated a response rate of exactly zero. That’s not a typo. Not a single person responded to the mailing. —————————————————————- Receive a … Continue reading
Look for Tightwads, Not Millionaires in Direct Mail Donor Acquisition
Most first-generation millionaires are tightwads. They aren’t rich because of how much they spend but because of how much they save. If you need to find millionaires who will donate a large sum of money to your non-profit organization, look … Continue reading
In Direct Mail Donor Acquisition, Compare Cost Per Donor with Cost Per Dollar.
The best way to measure your success in direct mail donor acquisition is to examine your cost to raise a donor rather than your cost to raise a dollar. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week by … Continue reading
Are You Too Small for Direct Mail Donor Acquisition?
Some non-profit organizations should not use direct mail as a way to attract new donors. Is your organization one of them? Take this simple test and find out. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week by email. … Continue reading
A List of Direct Mail Fundraising List Brokers and Managers for Your Acquisition or Prospect Mailings.
Nothing is more important in direct mail fundraising than who you mail to. A terrific letter mailed to the wrong list of people will flop. I have a client who mailed a donor acquisition package to people who had not … Continue reading
Why New Non-profits Shouldn’t Use Direct Mail to Raise Start-up Capital.
Be warned. If you’re starting a non-profit and don’t have $100,000 in the bank, don’t use direct mail. You literally cannot afford to use direct mail to raise funds right now. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each … Continue reading
In Direct Mail Donor Acquisition, What You Win Them With Is What You Win Them To.
Want to learn a vital lesson in donor retention? Here’s a tactic from Sunday School to avoid. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week by email. Sign up for Raiser Sharpe Tips here Browse Alan’s books, handbooks … Continue reading
Friend, Get a Friend with Donation Request Fundraising Letters.
New donors are closer than you think. Often they are friends of your donors, or family members. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week by email. Sign up for Raiser Sharpe Tips here Browse Alan’s books, handbooks … Continue reading
Spot Potential Direct Mail Donors Using the 3 Cs of Fundraising.
What does an ideal new direct mail donor look like? How can you spot one in a crowd? Or in a list of potential donors? Look for the 3 Cs. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week … Continue reading
Fundraising Letter Appeals: Where to Look for New Donors.
Have you ever studied your best donors and wished you could clone them all? Maybe you can, with a bit of creative thinking. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each week by email. Sign up for Raiser Sharpe … Continue reading
Need New Direct Mail Donors? Look For These Three Qualities For Fundraising Letter Success.
New donors are a lot closer than you may think. And persuading them to make that vital first donation need not be as hard—or as expensive—as acquiring them in other ways. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this each … Continue reading
Acquisition Fundraising Letters Should Raise Donors, Not Donations
Are you willing to spend $1.25 to raise $1? To lose money to make money? You should be. Most donor acquisition mailings never pay for themselves. They lose money. And rightly so. —————————————————————- Receive a free fundraising tip like this … Continue reading
