Raiser Sharpe Tips » Fundraising letters

Answer the Only Question Donors Have and You’ll Raise More Money Fundraising

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 22:07:43 +0000

Your donors have only one question that bothers them.

If you want to acquire more donors, you have to answer it. If you want to raise more net revenue, you need to answer it. And if you want to increase the lifetime value of your donors, you must answer it.

Here’s their question: “How will my donation change the world?”

Donors are confused
Donors ask this question for a number of reasons. For one thing, they’re confused. If they live in Canada and want to support an organization that helps children with cancer, for example, should they donate to the Childhood Cancer Foundation, Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian Research Society, Cancer Recovery Foundation of Canada, Coast to Coast Against Cancer, Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation, Terry Fox Run, or someone else?

Many donors don’t know. Or can’t decide. So given that your non-profit organization has competitors who do similar work, you must tell prospective and current donors exactly how you will use their gift to transform lives. Otherwise your donors may donate somewhere else.

Donors have limited funds
There’s another reason you must tell your donors how their gift will make the world a better place. Some of them are on a fixed income. Others just retired. More than a few have student debt. Or other kinds of debt. Some are broke. Either way, they can’t support as many charities as they’d like, so they give their money to the few causes that promise to make the biggest difference with their gifts.

Donors fund specifics, not generalities
Given the choice between donating to “End Hunger in Your City” or giving a donation that buys “Thanksgiving dinner for $1.73″ for a man at the local homeless mission, you know what the donor will choose. And so does the donor. “How will my donation change the world?” is a question that demands a specific answer, not a general one. Supply the answer and your donor will supply the donation.

Don’t ask for a single donation until you can answer this question. That goes for every campaign, every appeal, every ask throughout the year. And make sure your answer is clear, concrete and compelling. Your donors demand it, no question about it.

Need help with your direct mail program?
Download this book now.
Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program.

Need help?
If you need help raising money through the mail , give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

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Direct Mail Fundraising Still More Effective than Email

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:27:28 +0000

Yes, grandma tweets daily about her arthritis and buys her cat food on eBay, but how does she prefer to donate, online or offline?

Yes, mailing a fundraising letter costs more than sending an email appeal. But which method brings in the most net revenue for most non-profits?

Yes, you prefer to communicate by email than by mail, but which method do your most profitable donors prefer?

The answers to these questions are best settled by the facts. The debate between direct mail fundraising versus online fundraising is settled, at least for the next 10 years. Here’s why.

Fact #1: The majority of donors give their first gift by direct mail
Direct mail is responsible for 75% of new donors. Only 16% of new donors make their first gift online. Source: Blackbaud 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report.

Fact #2: The majority of donated revenue arrives by mail
The typical nonprofit in North America receives more than 75% of its total donated revenue through direct mail but only 10% online. Source: Blackbaud 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report.

Fact #3: The majority of North American donors give through only one channel — direct mail
Most donors give by direct mail as their only vehicle for donations. Source: Blackbaud 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report.

Fact #4: Canadian donors prefer to donate by mail, not email
Forty percent of Canadian donors prefer to mail a cheque, followed by donating in cash or by a cheque made in person. Only 17% prefer to donate online. Source: Marketing Research Group Fact Sheet: Nonprofit and Voluntary Associations. Canada Post, 2007.

Fact #5: Canadian donors prefer to be solicited by mail, not email
The most preferred method of receiving a donation request is through printed mail
addressed to the donor. This method is also the most commonly used, with
two thirds of donors reporting to have received this kind of solicitation in the last year. Source: Marketing Research Group Fact Sheet: Nonprofit and Voluntary Associations. Canada Post, 2007.

Fact #6: Canadians have a higher opinion of direct mail markers than email marketers
When asked for their overall opinion of companies that use direct mail and email advertising, 31% of respondents said they had a positive opinion towards companies using addressed direct mail, while only 15% said the same for email. Source: Consumer Attitudes Towards Direct Marketing, 2008.

Fact #7: Canadians pay attention to direct mail more than email
In response to the question, “To which direct marketing advertising method do you pay the most attention?” 24% of respondents said addressed direct mail but a mere 4% said email. Source: Consumer Attitudes Towards Direct Marketing, 2008.

If you still want to argue about the effectiveness of direct mail fundraising versus email fundraising, look me up in a decade. By then, things may have changed. For now, I’m putting my money where today’s donors put it, on direct mail.

Need help with your direct mail program?
Download this book now.

Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program.

Need help?
If you need help raising money through the mail , give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

Win Board Approval for Your Fundraising Budget by Calculating Your Long-Term Donor Value

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:14:39 +0000

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 don’t understand that charitable organizations live or die by their donors, and that you and I must spend money to acquire, steward, upgrade and retain our donors.

The surest way to win board approval for your donor acquisition and stewardship budget is to know your long-term donor value.

Long-term donor value defined
Long-term donor value is simply the gross amount of income you expect to receive from a typical donor during a given timeframe. When you know how much a typical donor is worth to your organization long-term, then you know how much you should be willing to invest to acquire, steward and upgrade that donor.

For example, if you know that your typical donor will donate roughly $1,998 to your charity during the first five years following that donor’s first gift, you should be willing to spend a fair amount of money to acquire and cultivate that donor.

The key to winning board approval is knowing how quickly a typical donor will break even, and how much that donor will give you over time.

How to calculate your long-term donor value

1. Decide on the time period you want to measure following the donor’s first gift. The period could be ten years, five years, three years–any period you want to measure. For the purposes of this illustration, I’m using a period of five years.

2. Choose an acquisition channel. Long-term donor value varies greatly depending on how donors are acquired. So don’t mix up your results. Pick just one channel of acquisition. In this example, we want to know the long-term value of donors acquired through direct mail.

3. Run a query on your donor database to find all the donors who gave their first gift to your organization five years ago in response to a direct mail donor acquisition mailing.

4. Run a report on these donors to find every gift they have ever given to your charity, through every channel (direct mail, phone, monthly, special event, online, bequest and so on).

5. Include the following fields in your report for each gift:

* Donor ID
* Date of gift
* Size of gift

6. Export the results of the report

7. Create a spreadsheet

8. Down the left side of the first column (Column A), create the following rows:

1. Donors Acquired
2. Cumulative Gifts
3. Cumulative Revenue
4. Cumulative Average Gifts Per Donor
5. Average Annual Gift
6. Long-Term Donor Value

9. In the columns to the right, create one column for each year. Our spreadsheet will look like this: Column B is Year 1, Column C is Year 2, Column D is Year 3, Column E is Year 4, Column F is Year 5

10. Populate Column B with the results for Year 1, the year of acquisition. It will look like this:
1. Donors Acquired, 6,856
2. Cumulative Gifts, 10,912
3. Cumulative Revenue, $3,002,975
4. Cumulative Average Gifts Per Donor, 1.6
5. Average Annual Gift, $275
6. Long-Term Donor Value, $438

To see a sample of this spreadsheet, click here.

11. Let’s look at Column B.
Row 1 is the number of donors you acquired in Year 1: 6,856

Row 2 is the total number of gifts these donors gave you in Year 1. Gifts given is larger than donors acquired because some donors gave more than once in Year 1.

Row 3 is the total dollar value of all the donations these donors gave in Year 1, through all channels.

Row 4 is a formula field that divides the Cumulative Gifts (Row 2) by the number of Donors who gave this year (Row 1).

Row 5 is a formula field that divides total revenue received that year (Row 3) by the number of donors (Row 1).

Row 6 is a formula field that multiplies Average Annual Gift (Row 5) by Cumulative Average Gifts Per Donor (Row 4).

To see a sample of this spreadsheet, click here.

13. For the remaining four years, you populate the columns in the same way and end up with a spreadsheet that looks like this (each column is separated by a comma):

Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5
Donors Acquired in Year 1, 6,856
Cumulative Gifts, $10,912, $19,227, $26,553, $33,286, $38,376
Cumulative Average Gifts Per Donor, 1.6, 2.8, 3.9, 4.9, 5.6
Cumulative Revenue, $3,002,975, $4,877,466, $7,051,333, $10,781,172, $13,695,731
Average Annual Gift, $275, $254, $266, $324, $357
Long-Term Donor Value, $438, $712, $1,029, $1,573, $1,998

As you can see, the long-term value of a donor acquired by direct mail is $438 in Year 1 and $1,998 in Year 5. Your results may differ.

To see a sample of this spreadsheet, click here.

Remember this for the long-term
The longer the period of time you choose to calculate long-term donor value, the more important it is that you include every gift ever given by every channel. A new donor acquired by direct mail will likely give you only direct mail gifts for the first few years. But a donor acquired by direct mail who stays with your charity for 20 years may eventually give monthly gifts, contribute to your capital campaign, give at a special event, participate in your walk-a-thon, give online, respond to an email appeal, join your Legacy League, and leave you a sizeable bequest when she passes away.

The key to understanding your long-term donor value is always knowing which donor acquisition channel you are referring to and which gifts you are referring to. In the above example, the long-term donor value calculation is based on all donors acquired by direct mail five years ago and includes all the gifts they ever gave during those five years. Naturally, if this calculation included only their direct mail gifts in that time period, the results would be different.

Now approach your board of directors well-armed
As you can see, when you know what your average long-term donor value is, in other words, when you know how much money a typical donor gives to your charity in a given timeframe, you can approach your board with hard, persuasive evidence for investing in donor acquisition, donor stewardship, monthly donor conversion, bequest marketing, gift upgrading, mid-level-donor stewardship and much more.

To see a sample of this spreadsheet, click here.

Need help with your direct mail program?
Download this book now.
Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program.

Need help?
If you need help raising money through the mail , give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

Give Your Donors What They Want so You Get What You Want

Alan Sharpe — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:55:22 +0000

Thank your donors promptly and personally every time they mail you a gift.

Describe how you are using the donor’s last gift the way the donor intended. The majority of long-term, faithful donors give to make a difference, and many will not give again until they know their last gift was put to good use the way they wanted—so show ample proof.

Treat your donors as thoughtful investors who care how their money is spent.

Don’t appeal to short-term motivators, such as fear, that raise plenty of short-term funds but not enough long-term friends.

Give your donors enough information to make an informed opinion about giving. Anticipate the questions and objections that thoughtful people will raise about your organization, your mission and your ask, and answer them in your letter.

Help your donors solve a problem. Donors will not throw money at an impossible situation. They need to have hope that their donation will meet a need. So offer hope.

Don’t promote future tax benefits alone. Instead, stress the difference a donation makes in lives changed and problems solved today. You want donors who believe in your cause, who want to help others more than they help themselves.

Instead of asking for funds that your organization needs, invite donors to accomplish their goals by making the world a better place (by mailing you a gift) .

Think long term. Raising money with mail is a long-term commitment that you need to make to your organization and to your donors. You and I could put together a tear-jerking, guilt-inducing package that manipulated donors into parting with large sums of money, but those kinds of appeals are not sustainable year after year. Take the long-term view.

Remember that your donors are people. And people give to people to help people. This basic fundraising truth means that you must state your organizational needs in human terms whenever possible. “Human interest sells,” as Mal Warwick puts it. You must translate your case for support from non-profit-speak into flesh and blood. Donors want to know how their gift will help people. So give your donors what they want—heart-warming stories about people in need, and how you help them thanks to your donors’ generosity.

Questions to Answer Before Requesting a Quote from a Direct Mail Fundraising Consultant

Alan Sharpe — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:47:25 +0000

If your charity wants to retain the services of a direct mail fundraising firm to conduct your next mailing, answer these questions before you pick up the phone. You’ll save yourself a lot of time, and give the firm everything they need to give you an accurate quote.

Your organization

What is the name of your charity?
What does your charity do?
Is your charity local, regional, national or international?
What is your address?
What is your phone number?
What is your website address?
What is the name and job title of your primary contact person for this mailing?
What is this person’s phone number and email address?
What is your annual budget from all sources (fundraising, government grants, product sales, membership fees, and so on)?
How much money do you raise each year through direct mail?

Your donor database

How many donors, of all kinds, current and lapsed, do you have in your donor database?
How many of those donors give a donation in a typical year?
In a typical year, how many donors stop giving?

Direct mail donor acquisition

Do you acquire donors through the mail?
If yes, how many acquisition mailings do you mail each year?
How many pieces do you mail for each acquisition mailing?
How many donors do you acquire per mailing, on average?
Do you use premiums in your acquisition mailings?
What is your average net cost to acquire a donor?

Donor renewal

How many times do you mail your donors each year, asking for a donation?
How many pieces do you mail each time?
What is an average response rate for a renewal mailing?
What is your average gift for a renewal mailing?
Do you have a donor newsletter that you mail?
If yes, how many times a year do you mail your donor newsletter?

Monthly giving

Do you have a monthly giving program?
If yes, how many monthly donors do you have?
How do you acquire your monthly donors?
What is the size of an average monthly gift?

If your mailing is to acquire new donors

What is your case for support for this mailing?
How many pieces do you want to mail?
Is your charity able to trade names with other charities?
If yes, how many names can you trade?
How many names do you want to rent?
Do you have any rental lists in mind (ones that have worked well in the past)?
What do you want to test with this mailing?
Do you have a control package?
What are you imagining this package will consist of (size of outer envelope? size of letterhead? length of letter in pages? reply device attached or detached? business reply envelope?)
Will there be a premium in this mailing?
Will there be an insert, such as a donor survey or a petition?
What is your budget for this mailing?
Which of the following are included in your budget?
Strategy
Writing
Design
List rental
Printing
Premium (front-end or back-end)
Lettershop
Postage
Taxes

If your mailing is to renew current and lapsed donors

What is your case for support for this mailing?
What are you imagining this package will consist of (size of outer envelope? size of letterhead? length of letter in pages? reply device attached or detached? business reply envelope?)
Do you want to segment your letter (new donors, current donors, lapsed donors, monthly donors, for example)?
If yes, what are the segments?
Will your letter or reply device suggest donation amounts based on the donor’s last gift, or some other criteria?
What do you want to test with this mailing?
What is your budget for this mailing?
Which of the following are included in your budget?
Strategy
Writing
Design
Printing
Premium (front-end or back-end)
Lettershop
Postage
Taxes

Learn More
Read Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program.

Need help?
If you need help writing, designing or mailing your fundraising appeals, give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

Five Indisputable Laws of Direct Mail Donor Acquisition

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:49:55 +0000

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 five immutable laws of direct mail fundraising. These laws aren’t carved in stone. But they should be.

Law #1: You Will Mail at Least One Campaign a Year
The only way to consistently grow your donor database and increase your revenue is to acquire new donors every year. If you go a year without mailing a donor acquisition package, you will experience a drop in current donors, a drop in new donors, and a drop in revenue.

Law #2: You Will Establish a Control Package
The key to success in direct mail donor acquisition is to acquire as many donors as possible at the lowest cost. The key is to establish as quickly as possible which direct mail package generates these results for you. Mail different packages to the same lists and see which package pulls in the most donors for the lowest cost. The winner becomes your control package. Mail that control package every year, and test other packages against it (test letter length, case for support, premiums, package design, inserts and so on), until a test package eventually outperforms your control package. Some control packages are so successful they are still in the mail after a decade.

Law 3: You Will Test Lists
The most important factor in your success at acquiring donors through the mail is not what you mail or when you mail but who you mail. You can mail a terrific letter to a lousy list and it will bomb. You can mail a mediocre letter to a terrific list and it can deliver acceptable results. The only way to discover which lists generate the most donors at the lowest cost is to test lists.

Law #4: You Will Interpret Your Results Correctly
Don’t get distracted by your Average Gift, Response Rate, Net Income, Cost Per Piece or Cost to Raise a Dollar. The only number that matters in acquiring new donors with paper and postage is Net Cost Per Donor Acquired.

Calculate your Net Cost Per Donor Acquired by dividing your net income (income minus expenses) by the number of donors acquired.

The biggest mistake you can make is thinking that a donor acquisition mailing is a failure if it loses money. Direct mail donor acquisition mailings almost always lose money. But they gain donors. The key metric is not how much money you gained or lost, but how much money you had to spend to acquire each new donor. Don’t look at costs, but cost-effectiveness.

Law #5: You Will Focus on Lifetime Value
You can acquire hundreds of thousands of donors cost-effectively every year but still fail at donor acquisition. That’s because the success of each acquisition campaign depends on how many new donors go on to make a second gift, a third gift, a fourth gift (you get the idea), and how many of these same new donors eventually increase their giving, join your monthly giving program, contribute to your capital campaigns, give a major gift and leave a legacy in their wills.

The key to donor retention, subsequent gifts and increased lifetime value is stewardship. Thank your new donors promptly (with a thank-you letter), welcome them to your organization (with a welcome kit), demonstrate how their gift is making a difference (with a donor newsletter), and ask them for a second gift (with a fundraising letter) sooner rather than later.

Learn More
Read Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program.

Need help?
If you need help acquiring donors through the mail, give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

Dramatize Your Fundraising Letters with Client Testimonials

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:24:25 +0000

A reader of my newsletter asked me:

“How do I most effectively integrate a participant story into an annual campaign ask letter? What effective ways do you see participant stories being told in a letter? Could a story/profile be attached separately after the letter? I really believe that the stories of the participants who are served by my agency should be highlighted front and centre in our annual direct mail campaign. They are stories of life change, personal courage, and perseverance. At a recent fundraising conference, I heard how donors build their most lasting commitments with agencies when their hearts/spirits are touched by the cause of the organization. Speaking to hearts wins over speaking to “heads” almost every time. In my mind, there is no better way to speak to hearts than to present a participant success story.” Brian

Well, Brian, there are four ways to include what you call “participant stories” into your direct mail fundraising appeals. I call these stories “client testimonials.” A client testimonial is either a statement made by someone, or a story told by someone, who has benefitted from the services your charity delivers. Here’s how to use testimonials in your direct mail appeals.

1. As a short quote, incorporated into a paragraph. Used for quotes that take up no more than two lines. Example: “Alison and Edgar Whalin are grateful to you for your support of Habitat for Humanity. ‘Since moving into our home two years ago, our quality of life has improved by leaps and bounds,’ they say.”

2. As a block quote. Used for quotes that take up somewhere between three and eight lines. Example:

“Since moving into our home two years ago, our quality of life has improved by leaps and bounds. We are now planning things that only seemed like wishes before, and our faith in all things possible has been restored . . . . We’ve gained a new respect for our neighbourhood, we take pride in ownership and best of all we can extend an invitation to “come to our house.” These things might seem foolish to some people but we are bursting with pride and joy at what we like to call our “Little piece of Paradise.” ― Alison and Edgar Whalin.

3. As a lift note. Used for lengthy testimonials. Usually a sheet of paper, roughly eight-by-five inches in dimension flat, and folding to form a booklet measuring four inches wide and five inches tall.

4. As a letter in itself, where the author of the letter essentially gives one long testimonial, and requests a donation as well. Testimonial letters that are written by the client are particularly powerful when the story is emotional, riveting and told well.

The main drawback of these letters is that the writer, being a client of your charity and not a person in leadership, cannot speak authoritatively on behalf of your organization. The client cannot speak about organizational needs or strategic plans or your case for support, for example, or thank your donor for her last gift.

The easy way to overcome this challenge is to include with the client testimonial a supplementary letter written by your executive director (or the person who usually signs your fundraising letters). This extra letter introduces the client, says something about the client’s relationship with the charity, describes why the charity has sent the donor the client testimonial letter, requests a donation, and says what they donation will be used for.

—-
Learn More
Read “How to Use Testimonials to Inspire and Persuade Your Direct Mail Donors.” Find, feature and format other people’s words to overcome donor skepticism, prove your point, build trust and attract donations. www.raisersharpe.com/handbooks/H25-Testimonials.htm

Need help?
If you need help crafting effective direct mail letters, give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Tests: Five Ways to Evaluate Your Results

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:18:16 +0000

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 of $125, can you say without fear of contradiction that your test was a success? No.

So how do you know if your direct mail donor acquisition test mailing was a feat or a failure? Answer enough of these questions in the affirmative to satisfy your boss, board, or banker.

1. Is your net cost per donor acquired acceptable?
Back in the day, which is to say, in the 1970s, charities mailed donor acquisition packages that generated a net profit. In other words, the revenue that the campaigns generated not only covered the costs of the campaign (writing, design, printing, list rentals, lettershop, postage), but also generated a profit. In those days, new donors more than covered the cost of their own acquisition.

Today, you should expect to lose money acquiring donors through the mail. How much you’re willing to “lose” is up to you and your board. After all, the “loss’ is really an investment. Your net cost per donor acquired is the investment you have to make to grow your donor database.

You calculate your net cost per donor acquired by subtracting your expenses from your revenue, and dividing the result by the number of donors acquired.

For example:
Number of pieces mailed: 50,000
Cost of the mailing: $50,000
Responses (donors): 500
Response rate: 1%
Revenue (total gifts): $34,000
Average gift: $68
Net Revenue: -$16,000
Net Cost Per Donor Acquired: $32

In this example, the charity suffers a net loss of $16,000. Some board members will look at that number and say the mailing was a failure and is never to be repeated. But look closer. The charity also acquired 500 donors. Many of whom will donate again. Each of those donors cost $32 to acquire. The charity will both break even and make a net profit with these new donors, assuming at least 48% of them give another gift of $68.

The safest way to pick an acceptable cost per donor acquired is to calculate the lifetime value of your average donor acquired by mail. If the amount of money you receive from your average direct-mail-acquired donor is many times greater than the cost of acquisition (four times greater, for example; the ratio is up to you), you can justify the cost of acquisition.

Another consideration is time until you reach break-even. How many months do you have to wait before your average direct-mail-acquired donor gives you enough money in donations to cover the cost of their acquisition? In other words, how many months from date of acquisition must you wait until your new donor starts giving you donations you can use for mission?

You can measure this in months and number of gifts. For example (using the figures from the above example), “Our typical donor acquired by direct mail must subsequently donate at least $32 to cover the cost of their acquisition so that we break even. Our new donors typically cover the cost of their acquisition and generate a net profit of $36 with their second donation, which they typically make within four months of date of acquisition.”

2. Is your average gift acceptable?
Some acquisition methods, such as premiums and trinkets, tend to generate a lower average gift than other methods. Are you happy with the average gift that your test generated? Just remember that your goal in donor acquisition is not to raise money. It’s to acquire donors. Money raised is secondary.

3. Is your response rate acceptable?
If you’ve conducted tests before, you know what your average response rate is. Did this test beat that average, or come under? If you have a goal for how many new donors you want to acquire this year, can you meet that goal with this response rate, and by mailing these lists again, or lists just like them? Remember that your goal is to acquire as many donors as possible (at an acceptable cost, of course). So the higher your response rate, the better.

4. Did enough of the lists you tested generate acceptable results?
In your test, you likely mailed at least 50,000 pieces to 10 or more lists. Some of those lists performed better than others, right? Measure your net cost per donor acquired, response rate and average gift for each list. Did enough of the lists generate the results you were after, so that you can confidently mail those lists again?

5. Did you beat your control?
In your test, you likely mailed two or more packages, each one with a different look, message and case for support. One of those packages was likely your control package (the one you’ve been mailing over and over because no other package can beat it). Did any of the packages beat your control? If one did, figure out why, repeat your test to be sure, and your test will have been a success.

Each of these metrics helps you discover, to a point, if your direct mail donor acquisition test was a success. No single metric tells you everything. You must exercise good judgment. But pay particular attention to your net cost per donor acquired. That’s the most useful metric. After all, your response rate, even if it’s in the double digits, doesn’t tell you if you made a net profit. And your average gift, even if it’s $200, doesn’t tell you if you made a net profit. But your net cost per donor acquired tells you two things: (1) if you made a net profit, and (2) how much you had to spend to acquire each donor.

Learn More
Read Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program.

Need help?
If you need help acquiring, renewing or upgrading direct mail donors, give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

How to Get a Second Gift from a New Direct Mail Donor

Alan Sharpe — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:05:47 +0000

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 a second gift. Most donors acquired through the mail are acquired at a net loss (you must spend money to acquire each donor), so you can see how important it is for you to do all that you can to encourage first-time donors to give again.

Here are the main reasons new donors do not give a second gift:

1. You acquire the wrong kind of donor
Donors acquired with premiums, trinkets and lotteries tend to fall away at a higher rate than donors acquired with a simple ask.

2. You ignore them
If you do not thank your new donors soon enough, or tell them what you are doing with their gift, or welcome them to your organization, they will not likely mail you a second gift.

3. You write them too often
If all you do with new donors is add them to your mailing list and then bombard them with an appeal letter each month, you will likely lose them.

4. You do not ask again soon enough
The key to securing a second gift is to ask early and ask often. Your enemy is the calendar. For every week that elapses after you have received the donor’s first gift, and where you do not ask for a second gift, your chances of losing your newly acquired donor increase. The worst thing you can do is delay four, five, six months or longer before going back to your new donor for a second gift. By that time, many will have forgotten that they even made the first gift.

To increase your percentage of new donors who go on to give a second gift, do four things:

1. Thank them promptly, personally and particularly for their first gift.

2. Send them a welcome kit. Tell them why they are a valuable part of your organization. Include anything in the welcome kit (brochure, newsletter, welcome letter, FAQs, testimonials) that draws donors closer to your mission and the people you help.

3. Show them how you are using their gift to change the world. You can do this most effectively with a donor-centred newsletter filled with pictures and stories that show donor dollars at work.

4. Ask for a second gift within eight weeks of receiving the first gift. The single largest factor in determining if you receive a second gift is how long you wait before asking for it. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to secure that all-important second donation.

Learn More
Read Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program.

Need help?
If you need help acquiring, renewing or upgrading direct mail donors, give me a call at Harvey McKinnon Associates, at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212

Twenty Postal Strike Survival Tips for Charities and Non-Profits

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:04:50 +0000

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 a substantial portion of their operating budget using fundraising letters. Many charities also rely on the mail to recruit new donors, keep their donors up to date with newsletters, invite donors to special events, conduct donor surveys, and issue charitable tax receipts and thank-you letters. So a strike by postal workers isn’t just an inconvenience. It threatens a charity’s very existence.

Here are some ways to survive a postal strike.

In the weeks before the postal workers go on strike, write to your donors. Tell them that a strike is imminent, and give the anticipated strike date if possible.
Describe how the strike will affect your donors’ ability to communicate with you, and your ability to communicate with your donors, by mail.
Warn your donors to expect delays in receiving their gift acknowledgement letters, since their mail gifts, and you thank-you letters, will likely be delayed in the mail system.
If the labour action involves rotating strikes in cities across the country rather than a nationwide general strike, warn your donors to still expect delays, since the location and duration of each strike is unpredictable.
Give your donors a way to keep current on the status of the strike by showing them where to sign up for email bulletins, text alerts and media releases issued by the postal labour union and the postal service. Direct donors to the websites of each party in the strike.
Encourage your donors to make their donations using other methods, such as email, phone, online, text and in person.
Before the strike begins, make contingency plans for sending your appeals by email, provided you have the technical ability and sufficient email addresses to do so profitably.
If you are going to solicit gifts during the strike by email, write to donors whose email addresses you do not have on file, and invite them to give you their email addresses. Give donors an incentive, such as a gift certificate, for doing so (you’ll acquire more addresses this way).
If you anticipate that the strike will be prolonged, consider phoning your high-value donors and asking for a gift. Mention the impact of the strike and encourage them to either phone your charity or give online. Do this throughout the duration of the strike.
If you anticipate that the strike will be prolonged, write to your donors before the strike and invite them to join your monthly giving program. If some are reluctant, invite them to give a gift each month, however small, for the duration of the strike only. Stress your need for daily funds to continue helping the people you serve.
Before the strike begins, invite your most frequent and generous donors to mail you a series of post-dated cheques.
Before the strike begins, invite your donors to add your charity as an Internet banking payee so that they can donate to your cause when they pay their bills online.
Ramp up your homepage so that it makes a clear, compelling request for donations (perhaps even mentioning your inability to receive donations in the mail, and stressing the need for visitors to donate online or by phone instead).
Revise your Twitter homepage so that it stresses your need for funds during the strike, and then solicit donations in some of your tweets.
Post a provocative, viral video on YouTube that shows the predicament your charity will be in if you stop receiving gifts during the postal strike. Make a strong request for funds, and direct viewers to your donation page, or even better, to a special landing page dedicated to the strike.
Post regular status updates to your Facebook page so that your fans, friends, donors, advocates, members and everyone else is reminded regularly of your need for funds.
While the strike is on, email your gift acknowledgement letters, charitable gift receipts, newsletters and special event invitations.
If your charity has to cancel a fundraising event because of the postal strike, host the event online instead as a creative, fun, tongue-in-cheek non-event. (“Our Black Tie Non-Event will NOT take place on (date). Cocktails will NOT be served at 5:30 p.m. Dinner will NOT be served at 7 p.m. NO program will be held at 8:30 p.m.)
When the strike is over, and you have a backlog of gift acknowledgement letters to mail, mention in each letter that you are sorry for the delay in thanking the donor.
When the strike is over, don’t be tempted to persuade as many donors as possible to start giving online instead of by mail. The majority of today’s donors prefer the mail. Gifts made by email and online still make up less than 10% of the revenue for most charities in North America.

Avoid Photos in Your Fundraising Letters

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:06:38 +0000

In today’s mail you receive two pieces of mail, a letter from someone you know, and a brochure.

Which one will you read first? Which one will you read all the way to the end? Likely the letter, right?

A letter is a piece of correspondence sent from one person to another. It’s personal.

Fundraising letters are no different. They communicate on paper what the sender would say if she was talking with you face to face or over the phone. The difference between a fundraising letter appeal and a face-to-face appeal is that you read the former but listen to the other.

This is the main reason your direct mail appeal letters need to look like letters and not like pages taken from a newsletter, brochure or annual report.

I’m talking in particular about photographs. Photographs have their place in your marketing and communications literature, and on your website. But they do not belong in your fundraising letters. Not in the body of the letter, anyway.

You can put a photo at the top of the letter as part of the letterhead. That’s often effective. But you must leave photos out of the rest of the letter. Photos placed in amongst the body copy, with the text wrapping around the images, immediately make your letter look informational rather than urgent.

That means your donors will be more likely to lay them aside after reading a paragraph or two. Letters that look like they are designed to inform can be put down. But letters that read like they are urgent demand to be read.

Images give your letter the look of a newsletter story, or a description of your services, the kind you’d find in one of your promotional brochures.

Photos tend to distract your readers. Photos take your reader’s eye away from the letter and slow the reader down. And since the goal of every letter you mail is to persuade the donor to read the letter and make a donation, anything that gets in the way of that aim is a bad idea.

I realize the temptation you face. I know how tempted you are to include a photo or two on page one, and another on page two, photos that present your case for support visually, photos that show your staff and volunteers hard at work making the world a better place. These photos belong in your donor newsletters, not your fundraising letters.

The final problem with photos and images in the body of your appeal letters is that they make your letters look like they are being mass-mailed to thousands. Which they are, of course. But you must avoid emphasizing that. A “Dear Friend” letter filled with photos and signed by a committee looks impersonal. But a “Dear Alan” letter with no photos, signed by someone I admire and trust, looks personal.

And the more personal your appeal letters are, the more money you’ll raise.

If your charity needs help acquiring, renewing and upgrading donors with direct mail, give me a call at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212. The team at Harvey McKinnon Associates can help you.

Learn More

Read my book Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program. Learn the proven, step-by-step process for raising funds and friends cost effectively, year after year. Available in paperback and as an e-book.

Does Asking for a Gift in Thank-You Letters Help or Harm? Test and Find Out

Alan Sharpe — Sun, 15 May 2011 00:36:04 +0000

Don’t listen to fundraising consultants like me who say you should never ask for a gift in a thank-you letter.

That’s what I used to say before I was hired by a non-profit that did ask for donations in its gift acknowledgement letters. I wanted to axe the practice. But then the director of finance showed me that including a reply device and business reply envelope with every thank-you letter raised over $150,000 annually for the charity. After that I wasn’t so quick to condemn the practice.

I still think thanking a donor and asking for a gift at the same time is crass. That’s what my gut says. And I agree with Penelope Burk, Michael Rosen and other fundraising practitioners when they say the practice is likely to drive away donors.

But does asking for a gift in a thank-you letter help or harm your charity? Test and find out.

Testing is the only way to settle this controversy. Those who advocate soliciting gifts in thank-you letters say it raises money. Those who deplore the practice say it drives donors away. Testing is the sure way to discover who is right.

Here’s one way to conduct your test.

1. Starting from today, assign every new donor you acquire, regardless of channel (phone, mail, face-to-face and so on) to Group A or Group B. Divide the new donors evenly between each group. For donors currently in your database, continue mailing them the kinds of thank-you letters you have been mailing up until today.

2. Mail Group A thank-you letters that ask for another gift. Make the ask explicit and obvious, easy to find in the letter. Include in a reply slip and business reply envelope. Do this for three years.

3. Mail Group B the same thank-you letters that you mail to Group A, except remove any requests for a donation. Simply thank the donors. Do not even hint at another gift. Do not include a reply slip and do not include a business reply envelope. Do this for three years.

4. After three years, measure the following for each group:

A. Second Gift Conversion Rate: Which group has the highest percentage of donors who made a second gift?

B. Number of Gifts Per Year: Which donors gave the most gifts per year, on average, those in Group A or those in Group B?

C. Gross Revenue: Which group generated the most money?

D. Gross Revenue Per Donor: Which group has the highest gross revenue per donor?

E. Attrition Rate: Which group has the highest percentage of donors who fell away each year?

F. Lifetime Value: Which group has the highest lifetime value per donor?

Run this test for three years and you’ll know for cash (literally) whether asking your donors for a gift in your thank-you letters hurts your charity or helps you. Then become a fundraising consultant. Everyone will listen to you.

If your charity needs help acquiring, renewing and upgrading donors with direct mail, give me a call at (416) 537-2904 ext. 212. The team at Harvey McKinnon Associates can help you.

Learn More

Fundraising Letters: Casanova Never Mailed One Love Letter a Year, So Neither Should You

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 06 May 2011 14:45:05 +0000

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. Annual doesn’t mean annually in direct mail fundraising. Here’s why you must ask for gifts by mail more than once a year.

Donor’s Move
In North America (where I live and work), one in five (20%) businesses and individuals move each year. You can discover who plenty of these people are, and get their new address, by using the postal service’s National Change of Address service. But it only tells you who has moved during the past six months.

So if you mail your annual appeal in December, you’ll get the new addresses for everyone in your database who moved during the six months before December only. Everyone who moved during the six months since last December you’ll lose. And if you lose a donor you lose the donation.

Direct Mail Donors Give from Discretionary Spending
When your direct mail appeal arrives in the mail, your donors decide to give or not to give based on how much cash they have on hand. If they have money to donate, they give. If money is tight, they don’t.

If you mail only once a year, and if your appeal lands when money is tight, you lose. But if you mail four times a year, or six times a year, more than one of those appeals is likely to arrive when your donor has money to give away.

Other Charities are Asking Even if You’re Not
Your donor, if she is typical, supports 13 charities besides yours. These charities are writing to your donor throughout the year, asking for donations. If she hears from them often but hears from you seldom, who do you suppose will receive her donation?

Fundraising is All About Relationships
You can’t have a close, rewarding relationship with someone you hear from only once a year. Healthy relationships require healthy communication. Not too much, or you become a pest. And not too little, or you become a stranger.

Your direct mail fundraising program needs to mail at least four appeals a year to maintain strong donor relationships and get the most from your donors. Generally speaking, the more often you ask, the more money you’ll raise. Naturally, you can ask too often and drive away your donors. But you can also ask too seldom, and lose both revenue and donors.

Learn More

Boost Direct Mail Fundraising Response Rates Three Ways

Alan Sharpe — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:25:18 +0000

What percentage of your donor base sends your organization a gift each year? If you are at all typical, less than half of your donors at any given time are active. So how can you increase the percentage of your donors or members who participate in your fundraising? Here are some ideas.

Offer more than a reply device
Donors like to give in different ways. So offer as many ways as possible for your donors to send you a gift. Consider these:

special donation page on your website
toll-free number
special Donate Now button in your email newsletters
payroll deduction by employer
remittance envelope with your newsletter
automatic monthly gift from bank account or credit card
reply device and postage-paid return envelope

Keep donors and members informed-and motivated
Why do annual donors stop giving? Many quit because they feel unappreciated. In her book, Thanks! A Guide to Donor-Centred Fundraising, Penelope Burke cites the findings of The CPP Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, which shows that around 45% of donors “stop giving or give less than they could have . . . for reasons that are tied to lack of meaningful information or to a feeling that their giving is not appreciated.”

Wise stock market investors read the stocks page in the business section. They want to know how well their investment is performing. They attend annual shareholder meetings for the same reason.

Today’s donors are the same. They mail your organization a gift that pays no interest and returns no dividend but they still think of it as an investment. What they want in return is news from you on how well their investment is performing. Next to receiving no thanks at all, nothing infuriates donors more than being asked for another gift without knowing if the last one they mailed made a single bit of difference.

So keep your donors informed-using newsletters, updates, photos, email bulletins, annual reports, phone calls and more.

Write a longer letter
Tests show that longer letters often pull a higher response rate than shorter letters. You’ll need to test this with your organization. If you generally mail one-page letters, go for two pages. If you usually write two pages, try four. Just make sure your longer letters remains factual, informative, compelling and donor-centred.

Learn More

Handbook Number 13
How to Increase the Size and Frequency of Donor Gifts with Fundraising Letters.
Tested, proven tactics for raising more money from your current direct mail donors (with their cheerful participation).

Help Donors Read Your Fundraising Letters Quickly

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:35:54 +0000

Your donor is busy or in a hurry. Or both. That means your fundraising letter is an interruption. Your donor is doing something else when your appeal arrives.

Busy donors in a hurry are unlikely to read your letter word for word from the Dear to the Sincerely. They skim. They read the P.S. They read the opening line. They dance about.

So what can you do to help your donor read your letter and respond with a donation?

Help her read quickly.

Start with a short opening sentence.

Make it so provocative, intriguing and compelling that your donor simply has to continue reading.

Then make your sentences shorter than normal. But don’t make them all the same length. Otherwise your letter establishes a cadence like this. One that is sure to lull your reader to sleep.

So stop. Grab your donor’s attention with short interjections. Two-word sentences. Like this.

And feel free to start your sentences with connectors (and, but, so, that’s why, in other words). Because they give your letter momentum and keep your reader reading. Write the way you talk. Which is to say, informally. Conversationally. Friendly-like.

Use contractions liberally on paper the same way you do in person. Don’t be like one charity I wrote fundraising appeals for, who edited my letters by committee, and who were persuaded that contractions were inelegant and vulgar. I couldn’t say couldn’t. I wasn’t to say wasn’t. They reversed all my contractions, making the letters sound formal and official instead of informal and friendly. Don’t.

Fill your letter with active verbs. The passive voice is to be avoided. Don’t say, “children in the IDP camps are being fed emergency rations.” Say, “We’re feeding the children in the IDP camps emergency rations.” Use the active voice.

And while I’m on the subject of IDP camps, don’t call them that. The majority of your readers don’t know that an IDP is an Internally Displaced Person. They don’t even know what an Internally Displaced Person is.

So spell out acronyms and initialisms.

Avoid jargon.

Translate your NGO-speak and sociologese into English. Today’s English.

Your donor will thank you for it, with a donation.

Learn more
Read Breakthrough Fundraising Letters. Now available in paperback and for immediate download as an e-book. Learn how to write direct mail donation request letters that attract more donors, raise more money, and build stronger relationships.

In Public Speaking, Use Eye Contact to Show You Honestly Care

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:28:30 +0000

Want to learn a vital lesson in public speaking from the CIA? Make eye contact with your listeners.

Failure to make eye contact is often a sign of deceit, says Lindsay Moran, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and author of Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy. Another expert, Derrick Parker, who served with the New York Police Department for 20 years, agrees that shifty eyes are evidence of a shifty nature. So make eye contact with your audience, frequently and sincerely.

The most important time to look your audience members in the eye is when you begin your talk. Your mother isn’t the only person in the world who insisted that you look at her when she was speaking to you. Looking your audience in the eye is common courtesy, around the world. Someone looking you in the eye deserves a look back.

I know this is difficult. I have been speaking before large audiences for decades, yet, just recently, I had a battle looking at my audience. I had to stand in front of a group of people and make an apology. As I shuffled my notes, preparing to start talking, I noticed that I was reluctant to look anyone in my audience in the eye. I was ashamed, and my shame showed. I had to fight my fear and raise my head and look my audience in the eye before I could hope to have them accept my apology.

Another important time to look individual audience members in the eye is when one of them is asking you a question. Look at them for the duration of their question. Show them your undivided attention. Then direct your answer to the whole group.

Also, when you are about to make an important point, pause, look up from your notes, and make eye contact.

Make sure you look at your whole audience, from the left to the center to the right, and from the front to the middle to the back. Each person in your audience should know that you are speaking to them individually, because your eyes say so.

I once sat through a sermon delivered by a preacher who directed his message to the clock on the wall at the back of the hall. His message literally went over my head. He spoke as though I wasn’t there. What he said to me that day I cannot remember.

How Long is a Long Fundraising Letter?

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:39:03 +0000

How long should your direct mail fundraising letter be? One page? Two pages? Six pages?

If your charity is typical, over the years you’ve had board members and executive directors who’ve never allowed your organization to mail long letters. Visit their gravesites and their tombstones bear the same epitaph: “Donors won’t read long letters.”

But what is a long letter?

Any letter that is uninteresting is long.

Any letter that talks about the organization instead of the donor is long.

Any letter that is written by a committee is long.

Even a short letter can be long. A short paragraph can be long. Even a short first sentence can be long if it fails to grab the donor’s attention, appeal to the donor’s self-interest, and motivate the donor to continue reading.

What’s important in direct mail fundraising isn’t how many words you use but how well you use those words. Will people read a book with 870 pages? Ask any of the millions of folks who’ve read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Will anyone sit through a three-hour movie? Ask anyone who has watched Avatar, the most successful movie of all time.

Give me a compelling case for support, the right audience and the right ask and I’ll make an eight-page letter pull a higher response rate and higher average gift and more net revenue than a one-page letter.

But give me a boring case for support, the wrong audience, the wrong ask and nothing of value to say and I’ll write a one-page letter that seems longer than eight pages of donor-centred, interesting material.

Don’t fear superiors who say donors won’t read long letters. Instead, write with your donor in mind, and, when you have finished making your case, stop writing.

To Write Better Fundraising Letters, Attend AA

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:35:57 +0000

Some of the most gripping and moving stories I’m ever likely to hear, I heard at AA meetings. You see, at every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a man or woman in recovery is invited to tell their story. Every story is different, but follows a simple formula. That formula is what makes AA meetings so powerful, and memorable. Incorporate that formula into your fundraising letters and you’ll touch hearts. Donations will follow.

I don’t suppose any alcoholic wants to stand up in a crowded church basement, clutching a Styrofoam cup of bad coffee, and have to tell a group of people how the bottle wrecked their relationships, their job, their family, their life. For many, they don’t know where to start, or where to end.

So AA long ago devised a simple formula to help their members tell their stories so that each story would have the greatest positive influence the hearers. To this day, before they stand up to speak, AA members are encouraged to describe three things: what life was like, what happened, and what life is like now.

Which means that, whether you attend an AA meeting in Ottawa or Glasgow, as I have, you’ll always hear a unique story that follows a familiar pattern. Each speaker describes what their life was like under the influence. Then they recount how they came across a solution to their addiction in the people and program of AA. Then they draw a picture of what life is like today, sober.

I’ve heard stories that made me weep, others that made me spill my coffee I laughed so hard. What you hear about in AA meetings is usually an unvarnished saga of pain, anguish, helplessness and despair, a sudden and unanticipated turning point, followed by hope, redemption, recovery.

You can follow this same formula in your direct mail fundraising letters. Start with what life was like for those you help, describe how you intervened, and then show what life is like now. Your donors will thank you for it.

Learn more
If you need help writing fundraising letters, read Breakthrough Fundraising Letters. Learn how to write direct mail donation request appeals that attract more donors, raise more money, and build stronger relationships.

Top Five Ingredients of a Successful Fundraising Letter

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:52:01 +0000

Direct mail fundraising will be harder in 2011. Postage rates are increasing. Attention spans are decreasing. And discretionary income, which is to say, the money your donors use to support their favourite causes, is tighter. So, if you want to succeed at raising funds with direct mail letters, follow these five timeless tips.

1. Write About a Person, Not a Problem
Take your case for support and translate it into flesh and bone. Give it a name. People give to people to help people. Your donors don’t want to change the world. They want to change lives. Show them how to change lives by featuring one person in each fundraising letter. Tell your story through one person.

2. Tell a Story
The quickest way to grab (and keep) your donor’s attention is to tell a story. Follow the method novel writers employ: conflict > development > resolution. Start with conflict. Develop the conflict. Resolve the conflict.

3. Write as a Person, Not an Institution
At the bottom of your letter is a signature of a person, not an institution. That’s because fundraising letters are written by individuals, not by committees. Write your appeal letters so that they sound as though they are coming from a person. Don’t write “we, us, our.” Write in the first person. Just as I am doing right now.

4. Write to an Individual
Don’t write to donors, plural. Don’t speak in general terms about “our supporters” or “our alumni.” Treat your letter as a piece of warm correspondence between one person and another, not between an institution and a group of donors. Always address your donor as an individual. Which means using the word “you.” A lot.

5. Show what a Donation Buys
Make your case for support concrete, not abstract. Tell your donor, as specifically as possible, what you will do with her donation. Don’t write, “support our Thanksgiving Drive” when you can instead write, “buy a Thanksgiving dinner for a family of four with your donation of $23.”

Treat these tips as a checklist in the coming year. With every letter you write, run it against this list to make sure you are following the top five ingredients of a successful fundraising letter.

Boost Fundraising Letter Response Rates by Making Responding Convenient

Alan Sharpe — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:39:34 +0000

I had a client who wanted to drive prospective customers to his online store using a postcard. Great idea, I thought, and cost effective.

He had a terrific product, a compelling offer, and a sound business model. He had just one problem. He wanted to make all website visitors register before they could browse his product catalog. Big mistake.

So I, along with his business partner, managed to talk him out of the idea. And he was glad that we did.

That’s because one of the fundamental requirements of direct mail is that you make it easy for your prospects, customers and donors to respond. The word to remember is “convenience.” You must make responding as convenient as possible. Here are some ways to do that with your donors.

REPLY DEVICE

Print your donor’s name and address on it so the donor doesn’t have to.
If your donors must complete part of the card, give them enough space (most direct mail donors are over 60 and can’t read or write without glasses).

REPLY ENVELOPE

Pay for return postage so your donors don’t have to hunt for a stamp.
Print your return address on the return envelope.

TEAR-OUT COUPONS

Place coupons at the outside corners of the page (not in the gutter or the middle of the page), where they are easy to tear out.
Perforate the edges of tear-out coupons with a fine perf, not a coarse one, so they are easy to tear out.

PAYMENT

Offer as many payment options as possible without paralyzing your reader.
Accept all the major credit cards.
Accept cheques.
Accept recurring monthly donations.
Accept donations by telephone (toll-free, of course).
Accept donations by mail.
Accept donations on your website.

One of the beautiful things about donating by mail is the convenience. But that is only true if the direct mail donating experience is convenient. Use some of these methods to improve your convenience quotient and your donors will thank you for it—with their gifts.

Learn more

Handbook Number 12
How to Write
and Design Effective Direct Mail Fundraising Reply Devices.
Attract the gifts you need by making the donation process quick and painless for your donors (and you).

Handbook Number 13
How to Increase the Size and Frequency of Donor Gifts with Fundraising Letters.
Tested, proven tactics for raising more money from your current direct mail donors (with their cheerful participation).