Fundraising Predictions 2012

The Atlas of Giving is different than Giving USA in that it gives you PREDICTIONS when your fundraising is most likely to do well. It tells you when you can expect the best results, and when you should hold back.

Really. Isn’t this exciting?

Check out the whole report on Scribd.

Here are some highlights of the Atlas of Giving report for December 2011.

1. Giving was up in 2011, and you can expect it to be up again in 2012 because

• The DOW is up
• Consumer confidence is up
• Unemployment is trending downward
• Consumer borrowing increased
• CEO confidence is up
• Winter weather was nonexistent in much of the US, so people didn’t have huge heating bills. (I swear I am not making this up)

2. The Good and the Bad: Fundraising results will go up in Alaska, but down in Illnois, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida and California.

3. April is the cruelest month:
Apparently April is going to be a slump month this 2012, so don’t try to do your appeal or an event in April. Do it in March or May instead. (Unless you’re fundraising for the arts or the environment. Then go nuts!)

4. Religious giving is now lagging behind other sectors, which is shocking, usually they do the best! So, if you’re fundraising for a religious or spiritual institution, try doing direct mail, e-appeals, etc and bust out of your business as usual thing.

5. September should be an exceptional month for fundraising, so try to plan your events and appeals for then.

Those are the main things I got from the report.

What did YOU get out of it?

Are you as excited as I am about the possibility of being able to do a broad sweep and make predictions based on what’s come before?
 

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What are you planning for? Fundraising Predictions for 2012 originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on January 19, 2012.

Image Creative Commons "Money" by Stuart Dootson)

I’m so excited to share this interview with you! I interviewed Jules Brown! He is a professional direct response copywriter specializing in the creation of highly persuasive fundraising campaigns for charities and non-profits. Over the last four years his work has raised more than US$16 million worth of funds for leading charities, NGOs and community groups worldwide.

His blog, Dear Joan, is dedicated to helping smaller nonprofits write truly donor focused appeals that get better results and raise more money for your cause.

Mazarine: How did you get involved with copywriting for direct mail fundraising?

Jules: I’ve always worked in advertising and marketing. I migrated towards direct marketing pretty early on, influenced by the likes of Drayton Bird and John Fraser-Robinson.

I spent the early part of my career as an account handler but always had a secret desire to work on the creative side. Specifically as a copywriter.

During the 90s I became very disillusioned with the commercial agency world. Eventually I left my job, sold up, went to live in France for three years. I came home determined to a). write for a living, and b). do my bit to make the world a better place.

Initially I worked as a freelance journalist, writing mainly for national Sunday newspapers. Then an opportunity in fundraising came along when I pitched for and won the role of lead freelance copywriter for an excellent not-for-profit DM agency in Dublin, Ireland. At that point, you could say, I found my calling.

Mazarine: You’ve written fundraising campaigns for nonprofits in several different countries, how does fundraising direct mail in other countries differ from the US?

Jules: By and large direct mail fundraising is no different from one country to the next.

I’ve written copy that’s run in the USA, the UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand the Middle East and South East Asia, and one thing shines through: no matter where you go, donors are much the same — people who care.

Of course, someone in Thailand may well give for different reasons to someone in Tennessee. But then a cat rescue supporter in Tennessee will probably be giving for different reasons to a medical research supporter who also lives in Tennessee.

The key point is that the fundamentals of good direct mail copywriting hold true no matter where you are: understand your donor, craft appeals that make your donor the hero, and connect your donor with your beneficiary.

Mazarine: Do people in some counties give more than others?

Jules: I’m fortunate enough to do most of my work in some of the most giving counties in the world. According to the World Giving Index produced by the Charities Aid Foundation, the most philanthropic nations are:

1. Australia & New Zealand (joint 1st)
3. Ireland & Canada (joint 3rd)
5. USA & Switzerland (joint 5th)

But again, I don’t think too much should be read into this kind of research. For any non-profit, large or small, the only group of people that really matters is your donor base. It’s how responsive they are to your fundraising communications that counts, nothing else.

I have found that non-profits in smaller countries enjoy better response rates and ROI figures. I don’t have any quantitative data to support the reasons for this, but I think it’s a function of market and database size.

I believe that smaller nonprofits with smaller donor bases enjoy a closer relationship with their donors. A small local charity is more relevant, more immediate, and closer to their individual supporters, than say a global organisation with hundreds of thousands of donors. And consequently, they can achieve very impressive results.

Mazarine: Do you think this can help smaller non-profits?

Jules: Yes, I believe being local, being specific, being relevant, presents smaller charities with a special advantage — if they apply the fundamentals well.

Sadly, because smaller non-profits often don’t have the money to buy top quality direct response fundraising advice — they are often not applying the fundamentals very well.

Often they try hard too hard look or seem ‘different’ to the big players, when what they should really be doing is learning from them.

My advice to the development directors of small non-profits would be to stop looking for something brand new to turn your fundraising around — look instead at the fundamentals. Are you applying the tried, tested and proven techniques that successful direct marketers and fundraisers have been talking about for decades?

If not, make a start.

There’s a wealth of information out there on the web to help you do this and do it well. Including of course, websites like Wild Woman Fundraising.

(Aw Thanks Jules!)

But my top five recommendations would be to make sure you do the following:

1. Ask well, ask strong and ask often
2. Don’t write short copy — long copy pulls better results
3. Don’t try to tell your donor about everything you do in one go — tackle one issue at a time, and repeat your winners.
4. Find a strong case study that demonstrates your work well for every appeal send out.
5. And don’t talk about yourself — talk about your beneficiaries and how your donor is the key to changing their lives.

Mazarine: Would you follow up a direct mail piece with an email and if so, why?

Jules: Absolutely. If you have an email address — definitely use it for a follow up appeal. As to why, the main reason is that your donor may well be more responsive to email than printed mail. The only way to find out is to use it. Additionally, appealing via two different channels spreads your chance of catching your donor at an opportune moment, or in the right frame of mind.

Mazarine: Do you advocate buying mailing lists or do you counsel nonprofits to grow their lists organically?

Jules: I’m not a great fan of cold lists. Experience has shown that there are other more cost effective recruitment channels than cold mail.

Part of the problem is the quality of the data you’re buying. There’s nothing worse than becoming the Nth appeal sent to a tired old list of people fed up with charitable solicitations.

That said — the golden rule applies: if you test it and it works for you, keep doing it. And keep trying to do it better.

Thank you Jules for agreeing to be interviewed for my blog, I’ve certainly learned a lot, and I hope my readers have too! If you have a question for Jules, please leave a comment below, or ask him on Twitter @dearjoannet.

REMEMBER! Follow Jules Brown at @DearJoanNet on Twitter, and visit his excellent blog, DearJoan.net. He’s a good writer!

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How You Can Get More Money Through Direct Mail: Interview with Jules Brown of “Dear Joan” originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on December 12, 2011.

What's the time orientation or sense orientation in YOUR appeal letters?

Are you getting towards the end of the year and just totally scratching your head on what you’re going to write to make people want to give to you?

Once I saw a book on the shelves in a bookstore that was called, I believe, “How NOT To Write a Novel” and I picked it up out of curiosity. It was full of horrible examples and not a single good one. I put it back quickly and ran away from the shelf. I could FEEL my writing getting bad just by reading a couple of pages.

Don’t listen to anyone who says you can learn to write better by reading bad writing. If this were true, the world would be full of incredible writers, when we know that incredible writing is actually the exception, not the rule.

So, in service to you, writing your appeal, please read an excerpt from SOFII’s file on the marvelous copywriting of Indra Sinda, for Amnesty International in 1992. (He was voted one of the top 10 copywriters of all time).

Sinda writes:

Should we give up?

The pictures on this page are upsetting.

Normally, we wouldn’t publish them. Our advertisements purposely stay away from violent or horrific pictures.

When we publicized the murders of street urchins by Brazilian and Guatemalan police, we spared you the sight of children with their tongues ripped out and eyes burned from their sockets.

When we wrote about Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians, we deliberately did not use the photographs that make our volunteers cry.

We at Amnesty have no choice but to look at these pictures. and hear the stories that go with them.

A million failures.
Were we naive to imagine we could make a difference?

In the last thirty years, things have not got better, but worse.

In 1961, we believed, didn’t we, that the world would never tolerate another genocde? Since themn we’ve had Suharto, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein.

We’ve had Emperor Bokass who stocked his fridge with human heads. For every prisoner freed, thousands are still in prison. For every person plucked from the torturers, thousands suffer agonies beyond our imaging. For every life saved, hundreds of thousands have been lost.

Between then, Suharto, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein have executed and tortured to death more than a million people. For Amnesty that’s a million failures. All we’ve done in the last thirty years is bail a few buckets from a sea of human misery.

Should we give up?

—————————————————-

Is your Mindset Negative? Certain? Extrovert?

This is just a small excerpt of his writing, but I want you to pay attention to two things.

He starts his title of the article/ad in the newspaper with “Should We Give Up?” and if we’re honest, we’ve all thought that at one time or another, but none of us reading it, anyway, actually DID give up. We still keep striving.

He writes in short paragraphs. He shows terrible pictures. And he admits failures. Most nonprofits are too afraid to admit their failures, too afraid to say, Yes, the problem DOES seem unsolvable. Yes, we have had a couple of successes but MILLIONS more people are suffering than we can deal with.

That’s powerful.

It almost makes you root for the organization because they seem like an underdog, trying to right injustices against an ever-streaming wave of tyrants.

I typed this letter up in a website called “750words” which analyzes the word choice, the mood, time orientation and other things and came out with these results to show you.

Why not try this with YOUR appeal letter?

Why not put your appeal letter to the test at 750words?

And if you’re REALLY serious about getting one hundreds checks in the mail a day for this December appeal season, then check out my CharityHowTo webinar called “Tons of Money in the Mail” where we delve into writing more persuasively and MUCH MUCH MORE.

Look! Anatomy of an Effective Annual Appeal originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on December 5, 2011.

Have you ever been thrown into an appeal process and not known where to start? When you’re fundraising for a cause, you want to make sure you don’t waste any time. You’ve got ten more things to do and you need to get this mailing out, FAST.

Enter the Wild Appeals Fundraising App, based on The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising book, by Mazarine Treyz. This App helps you make sure that you never forget another appeal mailing step. Works for annual report mailings too!

Fundraising Android App

How much is peace of mind worth to you? This app will ensure that you have that peace of mind. This easy to use checklist will make sure that you get your cardboard sleeves, strapping, bulk mailing permits and more all in the correct order. No more fumbling for little pieces of paper. No more scrambling because you forgot one key step!

It’s all in your phone!

This app will make you more productive, and more successful. You will have more time to raise more money, because you will be more organized. Buy the Wild Appeals! Fundraising App today!

Who is # 3 in the Android fundraising app marketplace? That would be us!

Do you make direct mail happen for your nonprofit? This App’s for you! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on August 22, 2011.

Recently I was leading a webinar for CharityHowTo called “Tons of Money in the Mail” and a person asked this question:

“What should we include in our direct mail? Would a sticky note or brochure dramatically increase or decrease our money raised via appeals?”

This was at the end of the webinar, and I really did not know the answer to this one. But I asked some lovely people on Twitter, and Gayle Gifford of http://www.ceffect.com responded. Here’s what we came up with.

Adding things to your mailing can either help OR hurt you. Results are MIXED, according to both Mal Warwick and Stephen Hitchcock.

With all of the different things you can add to a mailing, (post it notes, pens, bookmarks, magnets, postcards) what is the most effective thing?

Try a yellow piece of paper, about a 3 1/2 x 8 1/2 sheet. This is called a Buck slip. You might want to include this when there’s an emergency or urgency around your appeal, like all of your arts funding is being cut from the government, or something. Here’s an example buck slip from Democracy NC.

You can include other things like postcards and bookmarks, but you have to test and see if these work for YOUR donors, not just take someone’s word that they work for ALL donors. It’s a case by case thing.

Creating a call to action aside from “Send Us Money” like, “Send this postcard to your representative and ask them to continue to fund the arts” can also work.

For example, several weeks ago I received an Amnesty International appeal in the mail, and it included a card to send to someone imprisoned, and a pen too. Did I use the pen to write on the card? You bet I did! Did I actually mail the card back? No… I got distracted. But it made me remember it, and maybe the next time I’ll give, right? Well, maybe. But give people too many choices of things to do, and you’ll won’t get as many donations.

What about using special paper or envelopes?

Believe it or not, using white paper and standard envelopes works better than anything else.

(@kathyhowrigan also responded, and she said it could go either way.) What is YOUR experience?

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Reader Questions: Does adding extra stuff to your appeal mailing work? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on August 11, 2011.

“The easier it is for people to understand, the better it is, I think. If you can capture something that you feel is real and express it in a way that a lot of people can understand, that’s rare and there’s something about that that makes a piece have a certain kind of life. And if it enters into popular culture and it’s not just about popular culture, then from a writer’s point of view, that’s a satisfying achievement. ” -Paul Simon

So how can you write something simultaneously real, and lively, and on a level that most people can understand? How can you, in short, create the appeal letter version of a hit song?

Well, let’s start with your story. It’s going to be ONE STORY, and it’s going to be a good one. Look at your anchor. Maybe it’s a crayon from a girl in your program for developmentally disabled children. Think about a good story that comes from this girl, and perhaps a couple of other children. Anonymize it. You want to respect her privacy. Start with the conflict. Make it visceral. If you work at a nonprofit for developmentally disabled people, how can you engage your donors and make this story compelling, even if they don’t know anyone who is developmentally disabled?

Give the protagonist a name. Say,

"Sally"

“Sally was excited. Today was a special day. She was going to graduate from elementary school. She started out the day, tied her shoes, put on her jumper, and went down to breakfast. But instead of mommy and daddy, a new person was in the kitchen, talking to her about the home. The home she had to go to, because mommy and daddy couldn’t take care of her anymore. Sally has Halal syndrome. This is a rare disorder characterized by microcephaly, cleft palate, and other medical challenges. Because of enormous medical bills, her parents can no longer afford to have only one parent working with one parent staying home to take care of her.”

And ask your readers to put themselves in her shoes. Describe her shoes. Is she carrying a doll? Describe the way the stranger acted towards her. Describe her feelings. Open up all of your senses. Can you talk about the way things looked? The sensations on her skin? The smell in the kitchen? What sounds came through her ears?

Your story is about a life-changing day. What happens next to Sally? Does she find a new home with your nonprofit? Or does she go to an institution and fail to thrive? It doesn’t have to be like a choose your own adventure, with donations equal she thrives and no donations equal she is in trouble, but it should be poignant. Make us feel your pathos.

If you have favorite writers, and they can make you cry, think about how they do it.

Do you have a way you get yourself in the space to write? Do you have special techniques that you use to write your appeal letter? I would love to read about them in the comments!

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The Inner Game of Writing Your Appeal Letter: Part 2 originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on June 23, 2011.

So, how do you get in the groove to write this thing?

What does Leonard Cohen say about this?

Leonard Cohen

“The mental physique is muscular. That gives you a certain stride as you walk along the dismal landscape of your inner thoughts. You have a certain kind of tone to your activity. But most of the time it doesn’t help. It’s just hard work.” -Leonard Cohen.

You have to cut through the voices in your head that might say, “That’s not a good line” or “Why don’t you go back to your old admin assistant job? You’re obviously never going to make it in Development.” You know, THOSE voices. Screw ‘em.

You can start by breaking up your writing into chunks.

You know your first paragraph has to be about the URGENCY of your story

Your second paragraph can give more details.

Your third paragraph can be a bit about your nonprofit. This can be the easy part. Write for people who don’t quite know you yet. Say how you’re different than other nonprofits. Show your impact.

And your fourth paragraph can be ways people can give, with a quote from someone who has been helped by your program saying thank you.

The back of your letter could be pictures of community leaders, and quotes from them saying nice things about you.

“I have to penetrate this chattering and this meaningless debate that is occupying most of my attention. I have to come up with some one thing that really speaks to my deepest interest. Otherwise I nod off in one way or another. So to find that urgent…(thing) takes a lot of version and a lot of work and a lot of sweat.” -Leonard Cohen

So you’re having a hard time starting your appeal letter. Hate to break it to you, but most writing in the world happens because of a deadline, not because of a magical inspiration process. This is what Leonard Cohen knows. It’s about hard work. It’s not about fairies flitting around your head and whispering ideas into your ear. So don’t worry if you feel completely uninspired as you sit down to write. The important thing is that you start.

Once you’re writing, you have to keep yourself interested. How do you keep yourself interested? Start by visiting your program site for a day. Talk with people who are doing the work. Go through each program and do this and start to understand why your volunteers are there, why your program staff are there, and feel what a person who goes through your program feels. Talk with people who are in a position to feel grateful for the presence of your nonprofit. if possible, take back to your desk a token from one of these people. Maybe it’s a crayon they had. Maybe it’s a shoelace. Something to remind you of that day, of that time, and to anchor your writing.

How do YOU first sit down to write your appeal letter?

Do you have a separate process for your e-newsletter appeal than for a physical letter? Please share your experience in the comments!

Check out this sample appeal letter that really works! Thanks Gail Perry for the link!

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The Inner Game of Writing Your Appeal Letter: Part 1 originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on June 22, 2011.

Mary Cahalane

Mary Cahalane is currently development manager at Riverfront Recapture, a Hartford, Connecticut based nonprofit that is reconnecting the area to its riverfront by building beautiful public parks and creating programs, performances and events that are free for all to enjoy. Prior to that, Mary spent many years fundraising for nonprofit theaters. In more than 20 years of fundraising, she’s done a little of everything but admits to being geeky about direct mail. She is most happy when working with individuals – the amazing people who support our organizations. Follow Mary on Twitter at @mcahalane.

I’ve been a fundraiser for more than 20 years now. I’ve worked for small and small-ish organizations, mostly in the arts. I’ve done a little of everything, but most of my focus has been in individual fundraising.

When I first started, it was easier to grasp the analytical side of things. Numbers were safe. Data entry, collecting information, reporting on information, new ways of looking at the information… it did need to be done, after all. Appeals were a challenge. Thank you letters were scary. How do you stretch “thank you for your gift” into a whole letter?

I took a deep breath and jumped in. Did some research, and learned what to do. Soon, we no longer hired a freelancer to write our appeals. I got better the more I did, and the more I did, the more I enjoyed it.

But… thank you letters were still tough. I did my best, official job of it, and dutifully got them out.
Sound familiar?

I was just avoiding the emotion. That’s why I had nothing to say: giving is an emotional experience and so is gratitude.

But Enough About Me
Unfortunately, most of the acknowledgements I get are still lacking emotion. They’re official, even officious documents, devoid of feeling and, frankly, selfish.

You too? Frustrating, isn’t it? A little sincerity, a little gratitude, would go a long way, right? (You see where I’m going here, don’t you?)

Can I share a story?

There was a man, we’ll call him Henry, who suffered from alcoholism. His disease stripped him of everything he had counted on in his life: his job, his possessions, even the respect of his loved ones. He hit absolute rock-bottom.

That was Henry’s turning point. His recovery began.

Though he was in recovery, he hadn’t regained most of what he’d lost. He was still mostly unemployed. He didn’t have much money. And relationships take time to heal.

The strange thing was Henry was also the happiest person anyone had ever met. Consistently, joyfully, contagiously happy.

Someone at the soup kitchen finally asked: “You’ve lost everything, yet every single time I see you, you’re happy. Why is that?” And he shared his secret:

Gratitude.

He spent every moment of every day focusing gratefully on what he did have; on the blessings he’d been given. And that made him happy. Very, very happy.

I’ve remembered the story for years because it just made so much sense. That’s the way we ought to feel about our donors.

It’s OK to be emotional. In fact, it’s mandatory!

Think about it. We’ve got a really amazing job – we get to help marvelous people do really useful, world-changing things.

So, here’s my advice:

Take the drudgery out of it.
You want to thank each donor personally, warmly – send them a hug.

I know, I know: lots to do, little time. Here’s where a little planning and a little technology can be your friend. Spend a chunk of time writing thank you copy for every type of gift you can anticipate in the year ahead. I stick all of it into one giant bear of a nested merge document. Once it’s done, every person gets a letter that’s properly addressed, that talks about exactly the gift they gave and why they gave it, and that gets to them – fast.

Come up with a system of your own, but just do it. Sure, you’ll probably have to spend a little time eating your spinach, but then it’s all dessert!

I Love You This Much
Don’t be afraid to be emotional. Donors give from their hearts more than their heads. Don’t leave them out there alone! You really can’t be too effusive, so long as you’re being sincere about it. (And if you can’t be sincere about it, then maybe you’re in the wrong line of work.)

Getting To Know You
Meet your donors. Call them. And then listen to them – every chance you get. Even if you’re a little shy, as I am, you soon realize this is the most rewarding part of your job. Remember that in a way, your donors aren’t supporting you; you are supporting them – it’s all about their wishes and dreams, their priorities. You, and your organization, are a means, not the end.

What a Donor Really Wants
Ask them. Try a donor survey. I did that just last year, and it was so much fun! People were happy to be asked for input on what really is their organization. And we learned really important things.

In this case, one of those important things was that many of our donors weren’t able to see our work first-hand due to age or distance and didn’t have computers, so they couldn’t see our website or receive email. They were among our most loyal supporters, too.

If they couldn’t come to us, we needed to come to them…

Show and Tell
So we created a print newsletter. It’s nothing fancy: lots of pictures, some stories, and lots and lots and lots of gratitude. Judging from the gifts that came in after the newsletter was mailed, they loved it.

Just Because
This year is an anniversary year for my organization. We asked people to mark the celebration with a special gift. And they did. People were quickly and gratefully thanked, of course.

But weeks later, it still didn’t feel like enough. So we wrote a brief, but heartfelt letter to these amazing people. Not to ask for a thing, just to say thank you. Just because.

I can’t tell you what a kick it was to hear “that was the nicest letter I have ever gotten!” Made my day.

Practice some gratitude. It will make your donors happy. And it will make you happy, too – I promise!

Thank You
I’m very grateful to Mazarine for allowing me to share her space for the day, and to you, for reading this. Thank you!

———————————————————————————-
Mary, thank you for giving me a chance to practice gratitude, right here and now! Thank you for such a fabulous guest post!

If you have ever been interested in guest posting, but were all, “Well, what do I really have to say?” let me paraphrase Madonna and tell you, EVERYONE is entitled to your opinion. So, if you’re interested in guest posting, let me know.

In the meantime, what are some direct mail strategies that have worked for you?

Guest post: Mary Cahalane on Thank You Letters! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on May 19, 2011.

This last week, Katya Anderson wrote about the numbing of our compassion when we have heard lots of statistics and lots of stories.

I was just reading about this trend in “Half the Sky” and it frankly shocked me, that people could care less and less about greater quantities of people, the more stories that they read in an appeal letter.

Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn write: “Frankly, we hesitate to pile on the data, since even when numbers are persuasive, they are not galvanizing. A growing collection of psychological studies show that statistics have a dulling effect, while it is individual stories that move people to act. In one experiment, research subjects were divided into several groups, and each person was asked to donate $5 to alleviate hunger abroad. One group was told the money would go to Rokia, a seven-year-old girl in Mali. Another group was told that the money would go to address malnutrition among 21 million Africans. The third group was told that the donations would go to Rokia, as in the first group, but this time her own hunger was presented as part of a background tapestry of global hunger, with some statistics thrown in. People were much more willing to donate to Rokia than 21 million hungry people, and even a mention of the larger problem made people less inclined to help her.” -Half the Sky, page 99

However, we are still bound by our biology, and it seems that people can easier wrap their heads around one person who needs help, rather than countless faceless thousands.

How incredible.

All of this time you’ve been trying to put giving to your nonprofit in a bigger social context, show the scope of the problem, you’ve been leaving money on the table.

I do hope every nonprofit fundraiser reading this blog will consider putting just ONE story in their next newsletter or appeal, sans statistics, and track those results as compared to previous appeals where several stories and statistics were mentioned.

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How many stories should you put in your newsletter or appeal? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on February 10, 2011.

To this I say, everyone has a different key to unlock their hearts.

Phil Cubeta, a teacher of philanthropy at American University in Pennsylvania, asks donors, “Aside from your family, what do you care about?”

How do you find the key to more support?

If your mailings aren’t performing as you want them to, perhaps you could try these three simple steps.

1. Go to your email database and your mailing database, and see if you can link names to email addresses, if this is not already done.

2. Send out a surveymonkey survey via email (they are free) and ask people on your email list to fill it out (Call it a 1 minute survey)

In your survey, ask people why they give. Give them these choices:

“Does it make business sense to give to your organization, because it saves money in local taxes?

Do people give because it feels good?

Do people give because they like to socialize with friends who also care about your nonprofit?

Do your donors give because they feel it is important to the community?

Do your donors give because they want to GIVE BACK to your organization for helping their friends or relative or themselves?

Do your donors give because their family has a tradition of giving?

Do your donors give because it is important to their faith?

Once you get even 20 responses to these questions, you can start to tailor your appeal letters to people’s specific reasons for giving, and you’ll notice your direct mail have more of the effect you want. (BTW, these 7 questions come from my interpretation of “The Seven Faces of Philanthropy,” and are ALSO outlined in my book, The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising, which you should TOTALLY buy, because it’s mega-useful, and also, gives you a direct mail template on a CD that you can just put into your CD drive and begin tailoring for YOUR charity!)

3. So in order to keep track of which donors are which, you need to be able to make a note in your database about their reason for giving.

If you can’t do that, parse out respondents into a spreadsheet, with each tab being the different kinds of donors.

You may already be able to think of someone right now that you know that fits into one of these categories.

So often, as fundraisers, we can assume that people are going to be just like us, so we will just make the letter that will appeal to us.

In fact, people have MANY reasons for giving, and when you reach out, you’ll find that these people are just waiting to be asked the right way.

What has been your experience with direct mail?

How would YOU tell someone to do it?

I’d love to hear your ideas below!

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Reader Questions: Do you need more money in the mail? 3 steps originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on January 24, 2011.