Use this excellent checklist when crafting your OnLine annual appeals for the best fundraising results you’ve ever produced.
You’ll definitely want to review this Online Checklist for ultimate year-end fundraising success!
Category: Annual Appeals
What Would You Do With An Extra Week of Fundraising?
Are you aware of the exceptional fundraising bonus you have in 2017? It’s an entire extra fundraising week between Thanksgiving and Christmas! How ill you use this extra 7 days?
You have an extra week this year of 2017 between Thanksgiving and Year-End to fundraise. Learn how can you best make good use of those 7 days to achieve greater success for your fundraising goals!
AWESOME ANNUAL APPEAL IDEAS
Resist surrendering to the good news compulsion in your annual appeal. You have to make people want to help you. Your job is to convince them that you need their help.
Annual Appeal Suggestions and Who better to take annual appeal suggestions from than the Dean of Direct Mail? Jerry Huntsinger from the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration (SOFII) gives these nine great tips for winning appeal letters.
Tip #1 – Good news?
Resist surrendering to the good news compulsion. You have to make people want to help you. Your job is to convince them that you need their help. So if all you talk about is good news, they might think you don’t need their help.
Tip #2 – Talk about yourself
Don’t be reluctant to say “I.” Your donors want a letter from a real live person who is compassionate and cares about their mission. Don’t make it stuffy and institutionalized. Keep it real and personal.
Tip #3 – Surprise!
Don’t let your donors anticipate what you’ll do next. Keep them off balance; keep them guessing. Every fundraising package they receive from you should contain an element of surprise. Check your format and make it unique. You don’t want your donors anticipating your every move.
Tip #4 – Stories
Tell more stories this year about the needy people or animals you are helping. Your donors want to help real people and not an organization.
Tip #5 – Graphic Excitement
Put more graphic excitement in your letters. People are busy and save time by scanning the page and then deciding if the material deserves more of their time. Use bold font and underlining, short paragraphs, more attention grabbing statements, and more headlines.
Tip #6 – Loooong letter
Rethink your prejudice against long copy. This letter has to do a lot of telling and asking so you want to take your time. Make it longer and more compelling.
Tip #7 – No worries
Stop worrying about donors being offended by your fundraising appeals. Worry more about convincing them to send money! They want to hear from you. Don’t be shy. Just write a great letter with great stories.
Tip #8 – Getting to know you
Get to really know your donors specifically. Who signs the checks? Read the positive letters they send in. Every week call three donors at random and talk to them. Tell them you are trying to get to know your donors better.
Tip #9 – Thinking of you
Donors don’t think about you nearly as much as you think about them. They think about you when you call and when they receive a letter from you. So make it good! The better your communication with them, the more fondly they’ll remember you.
Landing the Big Major Gift Now
Major Gift Success Tips In Time For Year-End Success
Major Gifts Success
With only 90 days left in the year, do we still have time for major gifts? Of course! But you need to start now.
Your annual giving program is the primary source of major gift prospects. Five to twenty percent of all donors who give by direct mail really have more than $1 million in liquidity and gift capacity. This means there is a treasure trove of prospects right there on your mailing list. You just need to find them and start cultivating them.
A great source of major gifts information is the book Rainmaking, the Fundraiser’s Guide to Landing Big Gifts by Roy C. Jones and Andrew Olsen.
Here are the steps you need to take now to have major gift success this year:
Step 1: Review
First, review last year’s numbers. Who were your biggest donors? Are there donors on your list who could be giving more?
Step 2: Prioritize
Now you can decide who your best suspects for becoming major donors are. Move these individuals to prospects. This is called moves management.
Step 3: Get on the phone
The next step is to make phone calls! These calls must be important, scripted, and purposeful. Make a calling plan and stick to it. Your goal for these phone calls is to secure a meeting. Likely, it will take a lot of time and phone calls to reach this goal. To simply talk to 10 people, you have to dial the phone over 50 times and leave over 20 voicemails. Talking to those 10 people will yield you about three meetings. Yes, it’ll take you 50 phone calls to get just three meetings. So start calling!!!
Step 4: Meeting preparation
Now that you’ve got some meetings set up, the next step is to attend the meetings, right? Not so fast! You need to seriously prep and plan for the meeting first. Put a customized cultivation plan together for every donor you are going to meet with. Make sure you know what you are going to talk to them about, which of your programs interest them most, and what you are going to ask them for. The more prepared you are, the more likely you are to have a successful meeting.
Segmentation Steps for Year-End Success
The only way to great year-end results is to go over your database carefully and segment your donors into specific groups in order to direct specific communications they really want to see, hear or read. You need to know how to reach them and segmentation is the answer!
Donor Segmentation for maximum fundraising results
First things first: What is segmentation?
Segmentation is the act of dividing your donors into groups based on specific criteria. It is critical that you are able to segment your donors. A donor database with CRM (customer relationship management) technology will help you do this.
So how should you segment your donors?
There are hundreds of ways you can segment your donors: by zip code, gift size, age, and even (if you’ve kept very careful data) what day of the week they have made a donation. Here are some of the most useful methods of donor segmentation.
AFFILIATION AND INTEREST
Segment on how your donors are affiliated based on your mission, organizational structure and community involvement. Which programs and causes is this donor interested in? This will tell you what to focus on in your appeal letter to get the best results.
ENTITY TYPE
What type of entity is this donor? This type of segmentation is critical in creating a strategic plan and forecasting so you can plan for gifts coming from individuals, corporations, government, and foundations.
GIVING CHANNEL
How is your donor making their gift? You want to make sure you are offering your donors the opportunity to make a gift in the manner that is most convenient for them. Know when to use mail and when to use email or social media.
GIVING LEVEL
Segmenting by the annual giving level will help you know what gift amount you should be suggesting to your donor. Make sure you are ethical and courteous but you must also be careful not to insult or disrespect the donor’s ability or capacity. Remember it is imperative not to ask for too much or too little.
GIVING STATUS
Another important segment to look for is giving status. An appeal to a new donor should have a different focus and message than one to a lapsed donors. Retained donors can be segmented too – ones who have increased gifts, decreased gifts, or stayed the same.
Final thoughts
Segmentation gives you creative, intentional ways to engage your donors. It helps you craft your message in a way that your donor will find appealing and personalized. And we all know that the more your donor feels cared for and connected, the more likely they are to make another donation for your cause!
Monthly Giving Magic
Need to get your monthly giving mojo on for 2017 year-end fundraising? Of-course you do and here’s how!
Craft Awesome Annual Appeals With These Tips
As you are preparing now to craft your very best annual appeal possible, blockbuster reviews a ‘best-of-the-best’ appeal it received this summer from Oregon Humane Society. You won’t believe how perfect it is so, watch now and borrow some fabulous tips!