Direct Mail: Just Bring It
It started with chocolate bars. On the day after the first day of school, every year, without fail, kids would hit the streets, going door to door, to sell chocolate bars to raise money for their schools. Even the Catholic kids, whose parents already were paying big tuition, were called to action.
Soon, it was magazines, raffle tickets, wrapping paper, whatever. For a week after school started, you couldn’t answer your door without the teacher’s pet or the class clown or any one of a thousand local school kids hustling you for a sale.
I hated doing it as a child. As a parent, I refused to let my own child do it, opting instead to buy at least her individual quota myself. But despite the fact that I rallied against what I consider a shameless, bordering-on-extortion and increasingly dangerous practice, when those kids came to my door ... I bought. I still do, though fewer schools are requiring this half-pint hard sell these days.
Why did I buy? Simple ... because they asked. Which is one of the first lessons that nonprofit fundraisers need to have tattooed on their butts. (OK, maybe someplace more visible might work better.) That is: You don’t get if you don’t ask.
Lesson No. 2, which is not as simple but just as important: There is art in the asking. It’s no surprise that little Suzie Sunshine always had more luck shilling her subscriptions than did Johnny Badseed. She kept her nose clean, presented herself well and, darn it, made you feel good about buying a 3.5-ounce tin of stale, Santa-shaped candies for $12.99.
And she was rewarded. She won the envy of her peers, the adoration of her teachers, the sense of accomplishment that comes from knowing you’ve given your all for a good cause and, perhaps most importantly, a shiny new transistor radio or Partridge Family lunch box.
Of course, the true reward of a successful direct mail fundraising package is an influx of much-needed funds for the organization that mails it. But FundRaising Success would like to sweeten the pot with a little gratification of the less selfless kind.
Our goal for the FundRaising Success 2005 Gold Awards for Direct Mail Excellence is to recognize those packages that get their messages across in the most efficient and cost-efficient way.
This is no beauty contest, folks. We’re looking for solid numbers, and our panel of judges — each of them intimately involved in fundraising DM — will be using concrete scoring criteria to choose the winners. The categories are Acquisition (mailing size under 50,000); Acquisition (mailing size over 50,000); Renewal (mailing size under 50,000); and Renewal (mailing size over 50,000). Package of the Year will be the highest-scoring package from among those four winners. The Grand Control of the Year will be chosen from among packages that have found a home in the Who’s Mailing What! Archive.
Packages will be judged on a point system in each of the following categories: Results, Revenue, Copywriting and Creative.
The entry fee is $125 for the first entry and $75 for each additional, and the packages can be submitted by agencies, consultants and organizations. Entries, along with completed forms and payment, must be in the FundRaising Success offices by close of business on Wednesday, June 1. Winners will be featured in the special Package of the Year edition of the magazine in September.
You can look for an entry form in the April issue of FundRaising Success or head back to the homepage at www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com and download a form.
Best of luck to you all!
