What Aretha Franklin Can Teach Fundraisers About Direct-Mail Response and Online Giving

Now, before we get into how to fix this issue, consider these four facts:

1. Direct mail generated almost $8 of every $10 donated to nonprofits in 2009.
2. Your donors and members have come to expect that anything they can do offline, they should be able to do online.
3. One in three donors who give online say that a direct-mail piece triggers her to visit the charity’s website to make a gift.
4. Online gifts are typically 25 percent to 35 percent higher than gifts by mail.

The main reason online gifts in response to direct mail go into cyberspace is that most organizations simply do not have … a) a viable tracking field on their online-giving forms and b) a system in place so donors can simply type in the source code printed on their reply devices. Why is this so difficult? It seems relatively simple to add a message and (at least) a radio button field on the online-giving form that reads: