Donors always wanted to know they were making a difference. What’s been added is a sense that they are entitled to an immediate and detailed sense that they are making a difference. There is also an increasing demand for a simple, direct, route from cash to result. In other words, make it simple, and let the journey of my dollar from wallet to changing the world be short.

This appears to pose problems for complex charitable goals – say, international development. It’s a complex field. But tough: donors want specifics. They want results that matter, not a a generalized “we used 80% of your donation for the stated goals”. If organizations can’t be specific about results they will succumb to the appeal of those that can.

I’ve heard mutterings that huge effort goes into preparing statistics and reports of results, and placing them online, only to find that donors don’t look at them. This misses the point. They will donate if you are open and detailed in reporting. They may rarely look, but they know they can – and that’s what counts.

I read an article last year (which I wish I could cite but can’t find) which indicates that even campaign feasibility studies have this flaw. When asking donors what they will do – donors answer what they “think” they will do but when an ask is actually in front of them they do something completely and altogether different. Most often leaning on the side of giving when they thought they wouldn’t and/or giving more than they thought they would.

I have said this for years and continue to fight tooth and nail with fundraisers who want to offer donors mailing limitations proactively. Donors say they only want one letter a year or no mail and “I’ll just remember to give” then what happens in reality – they all start to lapse and you are stuck with the mailing restriction they gave you. I 100% believe in honoring mailing restrictions asked for but would never include a survey of mailing preferences to every donor. My fundraising would tank!

Email solicitations are too quick. People are busy. A piece of mail has a longer “shelf life” sitting in your entry hall, on your coffee table or on your kitchen counter than email which after 6 hours is piled on top of by 20 other emails from Kohls, Facebook and Great Aunt Sally’s newest email joke (which you saw 5 years ago but she is still new to email). But people love paying or giving online (as do I) so I 100% agree that an option to give online should ALWAYS be included in the mailer.

So far this fiscal year my September donor renewal mailing is beating last year’s September mailer by 20% in number of donors and by 33% in revenue. I have no reason to suspect that by continuing to apply best practices that this will not be a similar scenario (and definitely not a decline!) in November when I send my next mailer.

Thanks Alan!

I tremendously respect Penelope’s work…it has brought fundraising back to focusing on donors as people rather than statistics. Since I haven’t seen the research report you are referencing, I question if the response you are referencing is not an indication of whether folks like recieving appeal letters in mail, but rather how they wish to complete the transaction. It is two very different conclusions between recieving a request in the form of a letter vs preference for the process of completing (transacting) a gift. Personally, for irregular and fluctuating bills, I would rather recieve a hard copy in the mail so I have a reminder to go in the “bill pile”, but I get irritated if there is no option to pay online requiring me to write a check. Depending on how that question was asked, I would have likely responded that I “plan to give less this way…”

WE MUST GET the request in front of the donor and direct mail is still the best method beyond meeting face to face.

Robert Croft, CFRE

This would work for a a Year-End (aka Christmas) appeal.

It’s hard to believe that non-profits are still opening letters with, Dear Friend. But I received one only yesterday! It annoyed me so much I wrote a scathing blog post about it. But resisted the temptation of publicly naming them. Just.

Jules