It would be hard to imagine a fundraising challenge more daunting than the one faced by the Archdiocese of Boston in January 2002, when the nationwide sexual-abuse scandal was at its height. The task was to win back the support of area Catholics dismayed by reports that the head of the archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, had kept on dozens of priests who had sexually abused children and adolescents.
For almost 200 years, the American Bible Society has provided Scripture to needy individuals in almost every country in the world. Like many nonprofits in the 1990s, ABS was using elaborate, premium-based acquisitions to attract new donors via mail. Renting several million names each fall, ABS would mail a single acquisition and garner several hundred thousand new donors at a crack.
Unfortunately, the organization spent the rest of the year wondering if those new donors gave because they felt connected to the mission or because they liked the premiums.
Sustaining strong results for an 18-year control package is no easy feat, even if you’re an aggressive direct mailer such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which dropped 7 million cold-mail acquisition pieces in its last fiscal year alone.
And while it’s no surprise that PETA’s pack has seen myriad tweaks and tests and format changes over the years, the nexus has been a simple, straightforward questionnaire, with jarring inquiries such as: “Did you realize that the vast majority of painful animal experimentation has no relation at all to human survival or the elimination of disease?”
Grammar is the curse of direct-mail fundraising — and for several reasons.
First of all, those who sign fundraising letters often have the unfortunate conviction that the words they put on paper to describe their mission rank far above the words associated with selling a product.
So their letters tend to follow what they consider the basic rules of grammar, in order to give them a higher state of dignity than one they might write if they were selling women’s underwear.
For direct mail copywriting and creative team Paul E. Barry and Rosalie G. Barry, the objective set forth by the Air Force Association in 1997 was a simple one: Craft a membership appeal to sell accident insurance to a decidedly military audience.
In the for-profit world, insert media no longer is considered an “alternative” marketing channel. Program managers are seeing significant usage by mailers seeking vehicles to brand and sample their myriad products and services. But for most nonprofits, an insert is still just an alternative, a substitute, a backup.
One of the greatest challenges for charities considering insert media, according to Curt Weigel, account supervisor at Seattle-based direct-marketing agency the Domain Group, is finding enough relevant programs to accommodate a campaign’s fundraising needs.
The Children’s Aid Society, New York City, founded in 1853 to serve needy children and families through a broad network of services, including education, health, counseling, adoption, foster care, arts, recreation and emergency assistance.
A one-week-a-year campaign that raises $200,000 over three years? Not bad.
More aggressive is increasing your development goal for that campaign to $100,000 in a single year.
The horrific tsunami in the Indian Ocean late last year brought instant and gratifying responses from myriad governments, private donors, the military and nonprofit organizations from around the world. Among them was Oxfam America.
Oxfam America was founded in 1942 by a group of Quakers, social activists and Oxford academics who called themselves the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief in response to the plight of refugees in Greece.
President John F. Kennedy gave NASA a decade to get to the moon. My kids give Santa a year to come through with presents. But I wonder if the rocket scientists and St. Nick have the same “under-the-gun” feeling that many direct mail fundraisers have when preparing the next big campaign.
Both experienced and newbie fundraisers alike know that successful campaigns require an investment of financial resources and time. We’ve dealt with the financial issues, now let’s deal with time — the one resource of which we all have the same amount to spend.
