Tagged as ‘Donor Communications’
As predictive analysts and veteran direct marketers will tell you, there’s no crystal ball for really knowing whether your next direct response effort will be stellar or just so-so. But there is a remarkably accurate trick for telling whether your copy is any good before you hit send and, in turn, predicting where you might […]
It’s almost here! The 10th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising Conference kicks off Wednesday July 8. As Co-Chair of this year’s conference along with Deborah Peeples, and humble witness to the extraordinary talent of the committee volunteers and speakers that make Bridge possible, I can assure you there’s no end to […]
In January 1776, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, was first published. It’s reported to have sold 500,000 copies in its first year. Considering that the population of the 13 colonies was around 3,000,000, a book would need to sell over 50,000,000 copies (or downloads) to reach the equivalent percentage of Americans today. Commemorating the publication’s […]
If you’re on track with your year end calendar, it probably feels like November at your office – which means you are BUSY! Here’s a quick list of common fundraising pitfalls to avoid in order to create stellar year end campaigns. Don’t focus an appeal on your organization’s anniversary, or your founder’s birthday. Talk about […]
When have bullet points ever made you think “Wow!”? Or made you stand up and say “I need to do something about this!”? When have they ever made you cry? Never. Bullet points are the blah blah blah of communication. They convey information to our donors but they don’t connect.
Integrated direct response fundraising has long been the pursuit of forward-thinking membership and development directors. But integration remains an ongoing challenge for most organizations – almost always for the same two reasons regardless of an organization’s size, funding, or mission. The channels like to change and organizations … don’t. Still, some organizations are much further […]
Nonprofits have been soldiering through shaky fundraising territory for the past several years. With the addition of “fear index” and “double dip” to the mainstream economic crisis vocabulary in the past few days, we can probably expect those challenges to stay around for a while and maybe even intensify. So what do we do? First, […]
The sixth annual Bridge Conference on integrated marketing and fundraising for nonprofits ended Friday, but the great content will stay with us long after. Here are just a few words of wisdom from sessions I was lucky enough to attend at this year’s conference: “I’ve never regretted taking the high road.” – Jocelyn Harmon, Care2 […]
It’s no secret that our organizations’ donors have been moving and shaking in the last decade. Not a week goes by it seems without a new report on the magnitude of their migration online, social, and mobile. One of the most exciting developments in donor communications as a result of all this has been a […]
“What if we just got 100,000 people to each give us a couple of bucks?” “One percent response in new donor prospecting is terrible! We should accept nothing less than 99%.” “Our donors are too old. We need to get younger donors.” “What we really need to do is focus on major donor acquisition. […]
