From the Ashes

But when they opened the letter and realized it wasn’t an official summons, they felt duped and were furious! The organization’s headquarters was nearly overwhelmed by phone calls from angry members, and the mailing did not reach its financial goals. Even L.W. Robbins Associates staff members who were seeded on the client’s file were “aghast” when they received this mailing at their homes. They truly thought they were being summoned by a court.

Since the strategy was to get the members’ attention, but not create a public-relations disaster for the organization, we sent an apology letter (without asking for a donation!) to the entire audience.

Important Fundraising Lesson Learned: Put yourself in the members’ shoes! How would you respond to this communication? Getting a court summons can be nerve-racking. Why would you want to create this type of emotional response among your supporters?

Oops! We Did It Again!
Submitted by Kathryn Conway, Merkle

[A member of our fundraising team] had a situation many, many years ago (pre-Merkle) when they were doing a personalized letter for a political organization and inadvertently addressed all of the letters “Dear Friend.” At the lettershop, after all the letters were printed — and it was a lot — they hired people to cross out the “Dear Friend” and handwrite in the actual personalized salutation, which, of course, they had to pay for. The result was such a dramatic increase in response and revenue that they did it again the following year — this time on purpose.

Do as Donors Do, Not as They Say
Submitted by Sue Woodward, Virilion

DMA Nonprofit Federation, DMAW and AFP conferences are always exciting and full of new marketing and fundraising strategies and tactics that you immediately want to run back to your office and try. I mean, they’re working for everybody else — so why not you?