You know how it is. You name your price, and your buyer agrees immediately. So you immediately wonder if your price was too low. Maybe that’s why the buyer agreed to your price so quickly.

In direct mail fundraising you’ll find this same challenge. How much should you ask a person to donate if they have never donated before? If you ask for a large gift, they will not give. And if you ask for a small gift, they will give. But maybe if you ask for a gift that’s larger than your small ask but smaller than your large ask, you’ll also get a donation. If you ask for an amount that generates a huge response, you’ll likely agonize that maybe you could have asked for just a little bit more and got it.

Here are three ways to determine how much to ask for.

1. Ask your competitors how much they ask for
Phone a non-profit organization like yours, preferably one that does not compete directly for your donor’s dollar, and ask them how much they ask potential donors to give. If your competitor won’t tell you, or if you are too timid to pick up the phone, get on their mailing list and see how much they ask you to donate.

2. Find out what the average gift is for the people on the list you are mailing
If you are mailing a fundraising letter to people who have never donated to your organization before, you are likely renting a list of those names. Ask your list broker if the data card for that list contains giving levels. Some lists available for rent tell you the size of the average gift that people on that list give to charities.

3. Test a range of asks
If in doubt, test. Some lists have a higher average gift than others. So test lists by varying your ask amount. And test ask amounts over time so that you discover the optimum amount of money to ask for with a potential donor.

Asking for the right amount with a first-time gift is critical. It can mean the difference between earning net income with your mailing, breaking even, or losing your shirt, or your blouse, as the case may be.

Learn more about the art of the ask
Read 101 Compelling Ways to Ask for Donations with Your Fundraising Letters. Visit
www.raisersharpe.com/z/handbook06

Yes, your goal with offering a back-end premium is to boost net revenue. When your mailing is over, and you have subtracted the cost of the premium and the cost of fulfilling the premium from your gross revenue, you certainly want the net revenue that remains to be higher than it would be without offering the premium.

But offering a book or DVD or other incentive affects more than just your short-term bottom line. So, before you drop that fundraising letter in the mail, offering that tantalizing “free” incentive in return for a gift, ask yourself these two questions.

Q1. Will this premium help me avoid my duty as a fundraiser?
Premiums work because they are attractive to donors. Donors want them, and like to receive them at no cost (other than the “cost” of a donation). If you dangle a sufficiently attractive gift in front of donors, they will respond. But you are in the philanthropic sector, not the retail sector. You are a fundraiser, not a used car salesman. Sorry, salesperson. Your duty as a direct mail fundraiser is to attract charitable contributions, not to hawk trinkets.

Q2. Will this premium strengthen the connection the donor has with my charity?
Books written by your founder, DVDs that showcase your success, and beautiful calendars that your donors actually hang in their kitchens are all effective at increasing your donor’s affinity with your organization. These and other back-end premiums strengthen the bond you have with your donors. Return-address labels, decals and other cheap gimmicks don’t.

Stephen Hitchcock and his colleagues at Mal Warwick & Associates discovered long ago that back-end premiums generally work best at upgrading gifts from current donors, particularly if the premium is tied to donor recognition (a plaque, perhaps).

But your data is only useful if you can make sense of it. And many non-profit organizations can’t. For example, I regularly work charities who cannot quickly or easily tell me how many of their donors are individuals, how many are businesses and how many are government agencies. Or they can’t tell me (easily and quickly) how many of their individual donors are also volunteers, or how many of their service club donors have not made a gift in 12 months.

These charities are not exclusive enough in their data entry. They have a field in their fundraising software called “Donor Type” or “Record Type,” and they type into this field whatever they think best helps them identify the donor.

For example, in this Type field they might enter the following codes:

I = Individual
B = Business
S = Service Club
M = Board Member
T = Teacher
V = Volunteer

You can see the problem, can’t you? An individual might also be a board member. A teacher might also be a volunteer. A director of development will never be able to count how many individual donors the charity has by counting all the records flagged “I” in the Type field because these categories are not mutually exclusive. Teachers, board members and volunteers are all individuals.

The type field in your donor management system needs to meet two criteria.

1. It must be a “must enter” field. It must not be allowed to remain blank.

2. It must contain mutually exclusive categories, such as the following:

B = Business
C = Church
F = Foundation
G = Government
I = Individual
S = Service Club

If you want to add supplementary information to each record, create a non-mutually exclusive field. These fields often contain what are called Flags, Sort Codes and Promotion Codes. A Flag Code might contain the letter V for volunteer, or BM for board member.

Thus, a record for Jane Smith might have the letter I in the Type field (she is an individual, not a business or a church), and the letters AL, MD and BM in the Flags field, perhaps separated by commas (thus: AL, MD, BM), since Jane is also an Alumni, a Major Donor and a Board Member.

Good fundraising software lets you sort on any of these categories. You can find out how many Individuals are also Volunteers, for example. When your data entry practices are sound, you can define multiple relationships for each donor record. You have a wealth of possibilities at your fingertips, literally.

Get more help in my new book
If you need help making sense of your donor data, read my new, 270-page book, Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program. Available for immediate download, an, in a few weeks, as a paperback. Details at www.raisersharpe.com/z/book-004

Instead, test. And, to save money and time (and further indigestion), follow these eight rules.

Rule #1: Test things that are significant
Don’t test a blue signature versus a red signature. It’s too expensive of a test. Don’t test Times Roman versus Arial. Test things that are significant. In other words, test a six-page letter versus a two-page letter. Test a full-color package versus a black and white package. These would be significant tests.

Rule #2: Test things you can control
You can control your printing, you can control the length of the letter, you can control the photography, and so on. Don’t test things that you have no control over-for example, mailing during a recession. You could have no control over that in the future.

Rule #3: Make your test large enough to be significant
Mail at least 5,000 pieces to get 50 responses at a one percent response rate. Fifty responses is considered the minimum number you must generate to achieve a trustworthy test.

Rule #4: Test one thing at a time
If you mail a package and it does really, really well and you think, “Oh, we can improve this package,” don’t do a test where you mail a similar package but you change the headline and you change the teaser copy on the envelope and you change the reply device and you change the postscript, because if the second package outperforms the first package, you won’t know what was responsible for the improvement. Was it the teaser copy on the envelope? Was it the headline? Was it the reply device? Was it the postscript? You won’t know. Test one thing at a time to be sure.

Rule #5: Don’t let large gifts skew your results
When you examine your campaign results, you see gifts of $25, $35 and $45, which is typical. But then you see a gift of $15,000 in response to the same campaign. That number will skew your results if you let it. Your spreadsheet for this campaign may tell you that the average gift was $92, but that’s because of this unusually large gift. If you take this one gift of $15,000 out of your calculation, your average gift will likely be closer to $36.

So be careful about large gifts. Remove them when you’re doing calculations to measure what your net income will be. Expect your average gift and your cost to raise a dollar to be skewed by large gifts.

Rule #6: Test acquisition mailings for people, not profit
Concentrate on acquiring loyal donors in the greatest numbers at the lowest cost. Enough said.

Rule #7: If you are starting out in direct mail, aim to acquire as many donors as possible
If you’re just starting in direct mail and you’re obviously starting with donor acquisition, aim to acquire as many donors as possible, not to make as much money as possible. Success in the mail comes after the first gift.

Rule #8: Test every time you mail
If you’re mailing to a large number of people, always test something. Test two asks, test the ask string on your reply device, test the teaser copy, test the length of the letter, test the signatory, test something of significance every time you mail. You’ll learn a lot, and you’ll improve your packages and your approach over time.

Get more help in my new book
These tips are taken from my new, 270-page book, Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program. Available for immediate download, an, in a few weeks, as a paperback. Details at www.raisersharpe.com/z/book-004

–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 also growing and empowering the ministries within. I would like to draft up a professional letter, that will go out to major corporations and empowered people, asking for donations, and for it in return be a tax write off! My goal is to mail/email a donation letter to different large companies and multi-millionaires example Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump. I’m not sure at all as to how to even begin the letter. Please help!

–letter ends–

I cannot give any helpful advice on how to begin a letter like that because a letter like that shouldn’t be started.

The most important quality to look for in a potential direct mail donor is a connection with your cause. You shouldn’t be looking for millionaires, or billionaires.

Direct mail fundraising works by soliciting small gifts from lots of people regularly. Even retired folks can give you a small gift.

Look for connection, not capacity. Donald Trump has capacity. But does he have any connection with an obscure charity with a narrow case for support that wants him to make a donation because of the tax write off? Not likely.

Look for people who have connection, not just cash. A widower on a pension who has been touched by your ministry is a better candidate for a direct mail donation than a millionaire who has no clue what you do, or where you do it, or why. An individual who lives around the corner and believes in you is a better bet for a direct mail gift than an employee in a multinational corporation headquartered in another state who manages corporate donations but doesn’t know you from Eve.

Look for friends, not funds.

Get more help in my new book These tips are taken from my new, 270-page book, Mail Superiority: How to Run a Profitable Annual Direct Mail Fundraising Program. Available for immediate download, an, in a few weeks, as a paperback. Details at http://www.raisersharpe.com/z/book-004

You might think that anyone designated as “lapsed” or “expired” would not be worth soliciting again, but you’d be wrong, if I may say so.

Lapsed donors and expired members are usually better prospects for a donation than cold lists. A direct mail appeal sent to people who have not given a donation in the last 12 months or 24 months or even 36 months is likely to generate a higher response rate and a higher average gift than a similar appeal mailed to a list of non-donor names that you rent.

Donors who have lapsed are a better source for donations than rented lists for a number of reasons:

1. You know they support causes like yours
2. You know they respond to direct mail appeals
3. You don’t have to pay a list rental fee to mail them

What all of this means is that re-activating a lapsed donor is cheaper than acquiring a new donor from an outside list. Your mailing costs are lower. And your cost to raise a dollar is lower.

That’s why you need a lapsed donor reactivation program, a regular series of letters and telephone calls that you make during the year to win back your friends that have fallen away.

And remember, plenty of the folks that you call “lapsed” have done nothing more sinister than move without giving you their new address (20 percent of North Americans move each year). Don’t let their small oversight be the cause of your parting. Ask the post office to forward your appeals to donors who have moved, and to notify you of their new addresses.

If you need help with lapsed donor activation, download a copy of Handbook 22, How to Recover Your Lapsed Direct Mail Donors. Discover the financial rewards, savings and long-term benefits of wooing and winning your donors all over again using direct mail. Details at www.raisersharpe.com/z/handbook22

Postage-paid reply envelopes are a convenience. Nothing more. They tend to boost response because they make giving by mail easier. Your donor doesn’t have to hunt for an envelope, search for a pen, find your address on your letterhead and then copy that address onto the envelope, then hunt for a stamp.

But remember this: your donors and members support your organization financially because they want to, not because you make it easy to.

Some non-profit organizations have this back to front. They think they must include a reply envelope with every piece of correspondence that leaves their office. “Including a reply envelope gives the donor a reason to mail back another gift,” they say.

So their newsletters include one. Open their annual report and there it is, stitched into the gutter. Open the nice thank-you card from the executive director and what drops out? A reply envelope. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

This is a blunder. Including a reply envelope with a thank-you letter is about as tasteful as me in a swimsuit.

Asking for a donation in every single thing you mail your donors (and a reply envelope asks for a donation, however subtly) is wrong-headed. You and I are in the friend-raising business. And friends who are always looking to their friends for money soon find themselves looking for other friends.

If you want to treat your donors with respect, mail them a letter every once in a while that doesn’t ask the donor to do anything but accept your sincere and deep-felt gratitude. Tell them how much you appreciate them. How much you are grateful for their faith in your organization. Don’t ask them to respond. Just end your note with “thank you” followed by a period.

Try this today and see what kind of a response you get.

Ruth said yes. Yes!

That’s the tough part about asking someone to marry you. You have to ask them. You don’t know what their answer will be until you ask, and unless you ask.

Direct mail fundraising is the same. You won’t discover if it works for your organization and your cause unless you ask. And you do that with a direct mail test. You craft your case for support, your write and design a strong donor acquisition package, you rent a list (preferably many lists) of potential donors, and you ask a small group of people on that list to marry you, sort of.

The secret to success in direct mail fundraising is finding people who will mail you many donations over time. You are after a relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship.

The minimum number of names you should mail your test package to is 5,000. That’s because industry insiders, me included, reckon that a test mailing is valid only if it generates at least 50 gifts. Since an acquisition mailing can be expected to generate a response rate of about 1%, you must mail at least 5,000 pieces to receive those 50 responses.

As you can see, your cost for testing direct mail donor acquisition is small. Writing, designing, printing and mailing 5,000 packages, including list rental, will cost you anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000.

If your response rate is adequate, and if your cost per piece is affordable, and if your cost to acquire a donor is within your budget, you can mail confidently to a much larger number of prospective donors and anticipate similar results (provided, of course, that you mail the same package at the same time of year to the remaining people on the lists that performed so well in your test).

Be courageous! Don’t wait until that kindred spirit is ready to leave town before you pop the question. Ask now and find out! You won’t know unless you ask.

If you need help writing, designing, printing or mailing test packages, or choosing lists, we should talk. Call me on my nickel at 1 877 742-7732.

Like every other charity, you want a high ranking on the search engines. Unfortunately, many charity websites appear poorly in search engine rankings-or not at all-because they are not written and designed to take advantage of how search engines work.

So how do search engines rank your web pages?

Among many other things, search engines pay attention to the location and frequency of keywords on each of your web pages. Keywords are simply those words that characterize your mission. If you are the American Cancer Society, for example, then “cancer,” “breast cancer” and “cancer treatment” are some of your keywords. If you are a human rights charity, then “death penalty,” “free speech” and “torture” are among your keywords.

When your potential donors search online for information about you or about the cause you champion, they type into a search engine the keywords that they associate with you and your work.

As far as the search engines are concerned, web pages with these search terms in the HTML title tag are more relevant than pages without them. Pages with these search terms near the top of the page (in the headline and first few paragraphs of text) are more relevant than pages without them. And pages that contain these search terms frequently on the page are more relevant than other web pages.

Your goal is to discover what keywords the majority of searchers type into the search engines when they are looking for information that you can help them with. Then put these keywords into the most strategic parts of your website, which include:

• Domain name
• Page title tag
• Meta description tag
• Meta keyword tag
• Headings
• Sentences and paragraphs near the top of your page

This process is called Search Engine Optimization. It makes sure your web pages are easily found by search engines, easily indexed by search engines, and given a high ranking by search engines, so your site appears at the top of searches.

If you need help attracting donors and potential donors to your website, listen to a recent 90-minute seminar I delivered called, “How to Attract Donors to Your Website.”

I have on my desk a direct mail fundraising envelope that I have never opened. And never will. Perhaps you can learn a lesson from its failings.

The offending article was mailed by the Canadian Red Cross. It is a full-colour envelope, 6.5 inches wide and 5.75 inches tall, with a window. The envelope promotes the organization’s lottery.

This envelope fails most of the tests in my book.

Here’s why.

Test #1: Does the envelope intrigue?
No. This envelope gives everything away. It features no fewer than six photos: a sports car, sailboats, a bunch $100 bills, the Coliseum in Rome, another sports car, and the Taj Mahal. You get the picture. You don’t have to guess at the contents of the envelope.

The headlines are equally blunt:
“More prizes!. . . More Choice than ever before!”
“Big prizes! Big cause!”
“The big red. The New Ontario Lottery!”

This envelope fails the test of intrigue. Outer envelopes must intrigue readers to open them, not give everything away.

Test #2: Does the envelope appeal to noble motivations?
No. This envelope appeals to greed and covetousness. Those are short-term motivators. People who give you a donation in exchange for a chance to win a mansion or Mercedes Benz are not supporting your mission. They are not embracing your cause.

Test #3: Does the envelope give the reader a reason not to open it?
Yes. This envelope gives you two reasons to throw it away unopened. One is a phone number: “Call NOW to order tickets 1 800 850 5090.” Another is a website: www.redcrosslottery.ca. If all you want your recipient to do is phone you or visit your website, mail them a postcard, not a letter.

Your outer envelope has two goals only. Deliver your package contents intact. And persuade the donor to open your envelope. Don’t give yourself away. And don’t send the donor somewhere else.

To see a large sample of this envelope, visit www.raisersharpe.com/z/redcross.htm.

If you need help crafting great outer envelopes, buy 101 Irresistible Direct Mail Fundraising Envelopes. details here.

Direct mail donors are individuals. They donate as individuals. And they read your newsletters as individuals. If you want your newsletter stories to inspire them to donate again, you must write to them as individuals. And write as a human being.

For example, does the following paragraph sound like it was written by a human being or a committee?

“The new Rehabilitation and Geriatric Research Centre will enable fulfillment of the existing potential of the research groups to be local, provincial and national leaders in the areas of rehabilitation and geriatric medicine.”

When your donor reads a sentence like that, she expects to hear a voice saying, “Your call is important to us. Please wait for the next available agent.” Writing like that lacks warmth, lacks colour, lacks humanity. That’s why your donor won’t read it. Not for long, anyway.

Give your donor the choice between deciphering what “enable fulfillment of the existing potential” means or watching Coronation Street to see if Vera and Jack Duckworth have another row and I know which choice will prevail over your donor.

I’m not saying your newsletters need to read like a scene from a soap opera. I’m just saying your newsletters need to speak to your readers one at a time. Here are some tips on making your articles, columns and reports speak to each reader (each donor, that is) as an individual.

1. Avoid formal language
Avoid bureaucratese and institutionalese. Don’t say “the species under investigation exhibited a one-hundred percent positive mortality response” when you can instead say, “the seals died.”

2. Write in a colloquial style
Don’t talk about your leadership as “the hospital management.” Talk instead of “Hospital Chairman Brad Phillips and his team.”

3. Write about people using their first names
Don’t call a client of yours Mrs. Yamadija when you can call her Sonjay. First names are informal. Last names and titles are formal.

4. Avoid high-falutin’ mumbo-jumbo
Consider this phrase from a donor newsletter: “This new environment will facilitate synergy.” What does this mean? The writer knows. Maybe. Your typical donor does not. Enough said.

In the May 2006 issue of its donor newsletter, a non-profit retirement home gives an update on its building project. The headline for the article is, you guessed it: “Building Update.”

The first sentence reads: “Everything on site is proceeding well.”

The story is accompanied by eight full-color photos. One shows a half-built wall. One shows the inside of the building, under construction, with building supplies and debris everywhere, and some scaffolding in the foreground. Another is an aerial shot showing a dumpster covered with a tarpaulin. Only one photo has a person in it. And he has his back to the camera (and the donor reading the article).

There is not a single photo caption anywhere on the page to describe what the reader is seeing. Which is probably just as well. What can you say about a stack of drywall to inspire your donors?

The second paragraph of the article says, “There are many players involved in managing a project of this magnitude: the Board of Directors, Building Committee, Design Committee, Finance Committee, Administration, Consultants, MOH, MOL and the Town of ______.”

The article doesn’t get any better after that, I am sorry to report.

Your donors will not read an article like that. They have no interest in committees. They are not motivated by photographs of excavations or insulation contractors. Your donors want to read about people. To publish a successful newsletter, one that cultivates your donors and gets them enthusiastic about your cause and the people you help, you must give your donors what they want. Behind every story, even a story about a building project under way, there are people. Tell their story and you will inspire your donors to fund your cause and tell others about you. Here’s what I mean.

On my desk is the summer 2007 issue of a non-profit organization’s donor newsletter. It features a story about a young man attending Queen’s University. Nothing unusual about that, right? David is taking engineering. Big deal, right? Except that behind this young man is a story. David has autism.

The headline reads: “Following His Dream: David’s pursuit of an engineering degree despite his autism.” I would have phrased that: “Following His Dream: David pursues an engineering degree despite his autism.” But never mind . . .

The opening is riveting: “There was never any question that our son would go to university. The question was how.” The story goes on to say: “David has no difficulty understanding complex scientific theories, but he couldn’t cross a busy street on his own.”

Compelling stuff! How can a young man with autism possibly take a full course load and end his year with an 82 average? You have to read the story to find out. I did.

Behind David there is a story. The editors found it and told it. It moved me. Behind the story of the building update there are people. The editors didn’t hunt for them. Can you guess which organization would get my next donation?

Photographs are the most important images you can feature in your donor newsletter. Good photos make your newsletter pages more interesting. They help your non-profit organization communicate immediately who you are and what you do and who you help. Photos, more than any other element, help you distinguish one issue of your newsletter from another.

Readers tend to look at photos first, then headlines, then photo captions, then the article. Which means your photographs must grab the attention of your readers. Here’s how to recognize a great photo when you see one (or take one).

The photo has people in it
People give to people to help people. So publish newsletter photos with people in them. If your article is about ending the destruction of Canada’s boreal forest, and your photo depicts a section of clearcut forest, put a volunteer in the picture, witnessing the destruction. If your article is about the 100 new beds your hospital just purchased with donated funds, don’t take a photo of a bed. Take a photo of a bed with a patient in it, or a donor in it, smiling, if possible.

The photo has action
The best pictures tend to be action-packed. A protester is yelling outside the Japanese Embassy in Washington to save whales. A donor is running to find a cure for breast cancer. Capture action with your camera and you will capture readers with your newsletter articles.

The photo arouses curiosity
A photo of your executive director receiving an oversized cheque from the local Rotary Club president won’t arouse curiosity, but a yawn. Same goes for the shot of your campaign chair cutting the inaugural ribbon. Seen that. Done that. Worn the flip flop.

Publicity expert Joan Stewart (a former newspaper editor) will tell you that journalists and editors hate those kinds of publicity photos because they are overdone. They aren’t original. So borrow a tip from The Ellen DeGeneres Show. When Ellen hurt her back, she went on with her show anyway, but from a hospital bed that they wheeled onto the studio stage. She interviewed her guests from underneath a down comforter, propped up by pillows, in front of a live studio audience. Set up similar photo opportunities with your volunteers, donors and constituents and you are guaranteed to arrest the attention of your readers.

Give your readers something interesting to look at, followed by something compelling to read, and they will give you their donations.

Question #1. Am I at the correct place?
What you say on your donation page needs to match what you say in your direct mail appeal. Visually, this means that if you feature in your direct mail package a photo of a homeless man eating supper at your drop-in shelter, you should feature that same photo on your make-a-donation page. If the ask in your letter is for your Tornado Relief Project, then the ask on your donation page needs to match that. Which, by the way, means you should never direct your direct mail readers to your home page to make their gift. You should send them directly to your donation page, preferably one designed specifically for each direct mail campaign.

Question #2. Where is the one thing I’m looking for?
Donation pages, for some donors, have replaced business reply envelopes as the response device in direct mail fundraising. A growing number of supporters like to read your letter offline but make their donation online. Which means your donation page is not so much a webpage as a response device. And Maxim Number One of direct mail response devices and order forms is to make them simple to understand and easy to complete.

So if you have invited your direct mail reader to sign a petition on your site, make that petition form simple to find and easy to complete.

If your appeal letter offers a tote bag in exchange for an online donation, show a picture of the premium and give instructions on how to get it.

If you’re offering a discount that visitors receive by entering a discount code found in the letter you mailed them, make the place on your donation page where they enter that code impossible to miss.

Question #3. Can I trust you?
Trust is the deal breaker in fundraising, both online and offline. Potential donors and members who decide they cannot trust you won’t donate. So if your direct mail piece wins their trust but your donation page loses it, you lose the donation. And the donor. Which means you must avoid the things that create suspicion online, and employ the tactics that increase trust.

Avoid donation page mistakes that arouse suspicion:
1. No street address, just a PO Box
2. No phone number
3. No privacy policy
4. No security policy

Use donation page elements that create trust:
1. Better Business Bureau logo and a link to your online BBB profile
2. eTrust logo, or similar (so donor’s know their privacy is secure)
3. Toll-free customer service phone number
4. Endorsements from trusted, objective, third parties, such as Charity Navigator

Remember that your online donation page is part-two of your direct mail case for support and ask. You’ll convert more visitors into donors when you give them what they expect to find, make the process easy and quick, and avoid the tactics used by spammers and scammers.

That’s also the bad news.

For many non-profits, the quickest way they can scare away donors is to direct them to the organization’s website. Too many non-profit websites are making blunders that discourage donors from browsing, donating, volunteering or referring others to the site. Here are four common blunders, and how to avoid them.

Blunder #1. Obscure website address
What would you expect to find at www.gghorg.ca? Is this address obviously for Guelph General Hospital? How easy is this website address to remember? Is it as easy to remember as www.lenoxhillhospital.org, the address for, you guessed it, Lenox Hill Hospital? If you want donors, volunteers, members, alumni, the media and others to easily find your website, give it an address that’s both intuitive and easy to remember. If your organization’s name is a mouthful, then create a unique website address, as the Arthritis Research Institute of America did with its website, www.preventarthritis.org.

Blunder #2. Donate button on the homepage only
Some visitors will find your website by typing your website address into their browser. But plenty more will find you through a search. Which means they may land on any page of your website other than your homepage. So if you want visitors to donate, put a Donate Now button or link on every page of your site, not just on the homepage.

Blunder #3. No email sign-up
The key to raising money online is not your website. It’s your email. You raise money by emailing folks who have asked to hear from you. But you can only do that if you have their email addresses. A website that does not collect email addresses is not likely to raise much money. So put a sign-up link on every page of your site, offering a free email newsletter, email updates or something else of value to your donors that they will receive from you by email.

Blunder #4. No interaction
I heard recently of a young boy who explained to his father why he didn’t watch television: “It doesn’t do anything. All I can do is watch it.” That explains the beauty of the Internet: it’s interactive. Which means your website visitors expect your website to be interactive. They expect to be able to “do something.” Your visitors will stay longer, and enjoy their visit more, if you offer them online surveys, polls, petitions, quizzes, refer-a-friend buttons, donation pages and other ways for visitors to interact with your site.

Next time you’re out in the boonies, watch as a farmer spreads fertilizer over his field. As he passes over the parts of his field that always produce the smallest yield, he spreads little or no fertilizer. As he passes over those parts of his field that traditionally deliver the highest yield, he pours the fertilizer on thick.

If you’re a city-slicker like me, that doesn’t make any sense. Why doesn’t the farmer fertilize the part of his field that obviously needs the most help? Surely the poor soil needs the fertilizer more than the healthy soil, right?

Wrong.

Farmers know that they should invest their money in the parts of their acreage that always give them the highest return on their investment. Or, to put it the other way, farmers know that they should not spend any more money than necessary on the parts of their fields that habitually deliver poor results.

You should follow the farmer’s lead when you need to save money on your direct mail fundraising program. Invest your money on the people in your house file who promise to deliver the greatest return on your investment. Give them more fertilizer. Spend less money on the people who show little promise. Give them less fertilizer.

The most promising donors are those who give you the most money and who give the most often. The least promising donors are those who give little and give infrequently.

For example, the donor who gives you $250 in three donations each year should get more of your fertilizer than the donor who gives you only one donation of $20 each year. The high-dollar, frequent donor should receive more appeal letters than the low-dollar, infrequent donor.

The secret to reducing your mailing costs (and boosting your net revenue as a result) is to segment your house file. Segment your donors into three groups, high, medium and low. In the high group are those who give the largest gifts and who give the most often. In the low group are those who give you the smallest gifts and who give the least often. In the middle group are those who are in between.

Mail the donors in your high group at least six appeal letters each year. Mail the donors in the medium group at least three times a year. Mail the folks in the low group one fundraising letter a year (Christmas might be the best time).

Inexperienced fundraisers think they should mail their high-dollar, frequent donors less often (since these donors are already giving) and think they should mail their low-dollar, infrequent donors more often, to encourage them to give more and to give more often. No wonder these folks have trouble putting food on the table.

A fundraising letter fanatic, of course, is someone who thinks the only thing you can mail a donor is a fundraising letter. But that’s just one of more than 40 things you can mail to make friends and raise funds using paper and postage.

1. Acquisition package: Designed to attract new donors.
2. Welcome kit: An assortment of informational pieces and a cover letter, mailed to first-time donors, welcoming them to your organization and your cause.
3. Thank-you letter: The most important letter in direct mail fundraising, and it should never ask for a gift.
4. Renewal letter: Designed to persuade last year’s donors to renew their support again this year.
5. Member renewal letter: Mailed by member-based organizations to members whose membership is about to expire and must be renewed.
6. Reminder letter: Mailed a few weeks after your appeal letter, encouraging donors who have not responded to give. Popular at year-end.
7. Lapsed donor recovery letter: Mailed to donors who have not given a gift in 12 months or more, inviting them back on the train.
8. Monthly donor conversion letter: Mailed to annual donors (those who respond to your annual appeals), inviting them to join (convert to) your monthly giving program.
9. Special appeal: Mailed during the year to raise funds for a special cause, often an emergency, such as a natural disaster.
10. Year-end appeal: Letter that capitalizes on the year-end tax advantages and “spirit of the season” of Christmas.
11. Upgrade letter: Appeal inviting donors to increase the dollar amount (and sometimes frequency) of their gifts.
12. Donor club invitation: Letter inviting high-dollar donors to join a President’s Circle or other exclusive donor group.
13. Legacy gift prospecting letter: Mailed to a select group in your house file, asking if they are interested in making a planned gift (bequest, charitable remainder trust, and so on).
14. Special event invitation: A card or letter inviting donors and potential donors to a golf tournament, banquet, concert or other fundraising event.
15. Newsletter: Sent to current donors to inform them of how your organization is using their donations to change the world.
16. Annual report: Usually mailed to major donors, loyal donors and donors with influence.
17. Survey: Designed to solicit the opinions of donors and prospective donors.
18. Petition: Mailed by advocacy organizations (Amnesty International and Mother Against Drunk Driving, for example) to members, inviting them to complete and mail the petitions, usually to a decision-maker in federal government.
19. Member-get-a-member letter: Mailed by member-based organizations, inviting members to recruit new members to the organization.
20. Pledge appeal: Usually sent during capital campaigns, these appeals ask recipients to pledge a larger-than-normal gift (for the donor, that is) towards the campaign, a pledge that is usually honored by the donor by making a number of gifts over a period of a year or two.
21. Congratulatory card: Mailed to donors on the occasion of the donors’ wedding anniversary, birthday or other special event.
22. Testimonial: Written endorsements from clients or donors or others affected by the work of your organization, usually accompanying an appeal letter.
23. Plaque: Sent to faithful or particularly generous donors as a sign of your gratitude for their extraordinary support.
24. Gift catalog: Describes through pictures and text the items that donors can buy from your organization to support your work (a goat for a family in India, for example).
25. Resource catalog: Describes the books, DVDs and other educational materials that donors can order to educate themselves and others about your cause and the people you help.
26. Matching gift appeal: Invites donors to give gifts that, collectively, match a large gift made by another donor.
27. Newspaper clipping: Has your charity received favorable press recently? Mail a copy of the article to your donors (with the newspaper’s permission).
28. Quiz: Do you want to stir the imaginations of your donors, particularly if they are under the age of 12? Mail them a quiz that gets them thinking about a vital subject (climate change, poverty, nuclear war, homelessness, for example).
29. Factsheet: Sometimes you need to give your donors statistics and facts and figures, maybe even a history of your organization. Put these into a factsheet.
30. Special report: Dealing with a hot and timely topic that will galvanize your constituents.
31. Calendar: Special calendar that highlights special events of yours and days during the year that are of interest to you and your donors.
32. Special event teaser: Postcards or other short notices that pique the curiosity of your supporters about upcoming events.
33. Photographs: Mailed to donors to show the before-and-after results of their generosity.
34. Premium: Return address labels, notepads and other incentives designed to persuade the recipients to donate.
35. Freemium: Items enclosed with a direct mail appeal that have no intrinsic value, but help you communicate your appeal in a tangible, memorable way. A hospital, for example, might enclose a facsimile of a patient bracelet once worn by a young cancer survivor.
36. Involvement device: Scratch-off cards, checkboxes and other devices that involve the donor in meaningful ways and encourage a donation.
37. Brochure: Shows in pictures and words what you cannot discuss in the body of your letter.
38. Reprint: Has your CEO just given a speech to the United Nations? Transcribe the speech and mail it to your donors (assuming your CEO is a dynamic speaker, of course!).
39. Progress report: Mailed to donors, usually major donors, who have designated their gifts to a particular project, and who need to be kept informed about your progress with their money.
40. Follow-up note: Mailed after you’ve phoned your donor or made a personal visit, usually to thank the donor.
41. Income tax receipt: The more of these you have to mail each year, the better, right?

You must do the same with your direct mail fundraising program. Here are the five vital signs to watch for to make sure your program is healthy, and remains healthy.

Vital Sign #1: Your donor file. It’s growing.
Death is unavoidable, even in fundraising. Friends die. A healthy direct mail program includes multiple donor acquisition mailings each year to replace donors who die or otherwise “lapse,” and to grow the donor file even further so there is a net gain in new supporters yearly.

Vital Sign #2: Your friends. They are loyal.
Experienced annual giving officers know that the main goal of fundraising letters is not to raise money but to retain donors. Make friends for life and they will donate. A robust direct response fundraising program aims to keep as many donors as possible, and avoids methods (sweepstakes and premiums, for example) that attract too many short-term donors. A well-run program mails original, personal, heart-felt thank-you letters for every gift within 24 hours, and mails newsletters to keep donors informed about how their gifts are changing the world.

Vital Sign #3: Your numbers. You know them.
Successful directors of development know that you can only manage what you can measure. And the beauty of direct mail is that you can measure just about everything. What is your attrition rate? What is your cost to raise a dollar? What is your cost per piece? If you’re watching your numbers, you know the answers.

Vital Sign #4: Your testing. It’s thorough.
Arrive at the emergency department with a high temperature and the nurse will likely give you something for it, such as Tylenol. Medical staff don’t simply measure your vital signs and chart them. They take remedial action. If you’re running a healthy direct mail program, you are doing the same, through testing.

Which of those 11 lists generated the highest response and highest average gift at the lowest cost? Which package generated the highest response, the package with the brochure or the one without? Which ask generated the highest average gift, the one for the new kitchen or the one for the new mothers? If you are testing your lists, your creative and your cases for support, you aren’t going with your gut anymore. And your program is healthier for it.

Vital Sign #5: Your donors. You treat them differently.
Arrive at the hospital pregnant, they take you to obstetrics. Arrive broken, they take you to orthopedics. A hospital treats its patients according to the patients’ needs, not the hospital’s. A healthy direct mail fundraising program does likewise. It solicits and respects the goals, desires and wishes of its donors.

Those who want to give monthly, can. Those who want an annual receipt, get it. Those who want to receive updates on your work in Darfur by email, not by mail, get them. Those who supported your new initiative with a $2,000 gift are delighted that your subsequent appeals cover the same need, acknowledge their support of that need, and speak to them as a partner and not as a paycheck.

One advantage to raising money through the mail is that you don’t have to wait until you see signs of sickness before you seek treatment and watch your health improve. Because direct mail is testable, and because others have gone before you, you can avoid plenty of the maladies that have felled perfectly worthy causes. Watch these five vital signs and you should avoid the emergency department.

See these other resources . . .

• 31 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Ask Anyone for a Donation with a Fundraising Letter. Handbook 9
• Six Insider Secrets of Running a Profitable Annual Fundraising Letter Program. Handbook 10
• Direct Mail Fundraising Arithmetic Demystified. Handbook 16

Success is found not in technique but in truth. The truth of your case for support. That’s why, before you write a word of your fundraising letter you must state your case for why a donor should support you. I am not talking about a “case for need.” In donor-centered fundraising there is no such bird. Your needs are immaterial. What’s important to your donors is why they should support you. Their needs come first, not your’s.

Your case for support is simply the logical case that you make to your donor for supporting your organization with a donation today. The stronger your case, the stronger the response you can expect to receive to your direct mail appeal. An effective case statement meets three criteria. It must be compelling, credible and clear.

Be Compelling
The first goal of your case for financial support is to present a problem that demands a solution. Your donor must see your problem, your challenge, your goal, as one that is, in a word, compelling. The shortfall in your Annual Fund is compelling to your chief financial officer but not to your donors. A good case is not about dollars. It’s about the difference those dollars make in lives changed.

Be Credible
Your donor must believe that the problem that needs funding is solvable. And that your organization has the people and expertise to solve it. Donors must believe that the money they contribute is a necessary part of the solution. They must believe that their gift will be meaningful and worthwhile. Maybe that’s why The Flat Earth Society, which has been “Deprogramming the masses since 1547,” does not rely on direct mail to raise funds.

Be Clear
You must make a clear connection between the need you are addressing and how the donor’s gift will meet that need. Don’t spend all your ink on describing the problem. And don’t use your quota of exclamation points pleading for “support.” Donors need a reason to give. Money follows mission. And the clearer your link is between your mission and their money, the more likely your donors are to respond with a gift.

“There is simply no substitute for a nonprofit having a clear and compelling reason to exist, presented concisely and persuasively,” says Kent Dove in his book, Conducting a Successful Fundraising Program. So spend time and money and effort preparing your case for support. You can’t raise funds without it. Not for long, anyway.

But maybe you should re-think the humble BRE.

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind obviously did. The CNIB, as it likes to be called, mailed an acquisition letter at the end of 2007 that included a unique BRE. The package that the BRE came in included a mailing envelope, letter, credit-card-size plastic magnifying glass, and a sheet of more than 100 return address labels. A premium with my name printed on it always gets my attention, but what really caught my eye in this package was the BRE.

In the upper left corner of the BRE, where you normally write your name and address, is a rectangular box the same size as the address labels included with the appeal. Printed inside this box is this imperative: “Use Your First Label Here!” That’s what I call a creative use of a BRE. Suddenly the boring BRE becomes an involvement device, and not a frivolous one, either, but an involvement device that encourages a donor to make a donation.

There’s more.

The CNIB even makes good use of the return address. Here’s what it says:

CNIB - SERVING YOUR COMMUNITY
DONATIONS PROCESSING CENTRE
PO BOX 32002 STN BRM B
TORONTO ON M7Y 5R2

As you can see, even the return address on your BRE gives you an opportunity to communicate with your donors and say something positive about the work you do and the people you help. I salute the folks at the CNIB for their creativity.

If you’d like to see what this BRE looks like, visit http://www.raisersharpe.com/z/cnib/

If you need help making your direct mail fundraising letters more creative, why not give me a call? That’s 1 877 742-7732.