Direct Response

Storytelling is much more scientific than you think.

At the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Fundraising Day in New York last Friday, three fundraising professionals, along with moderator Amy Tripi, president of Tripi Consulting, shared 30 ideas to enhance fundraising direct-response creative. Here are ideas 21-30.

How are you going to approach fundraising? From the Magnificent Side or from the Dark Side?

Imagine for a minute that you’re remodeling your bathroom. You’re looking for something new and different. Something exciting! So you ask your contractor to be really creative. You expand the budget, you extend your timeline and the big day finally arrives. You walk into your gorgeous new bathroom, only to find that there is no toilet.

Sounds ridiculous, right? But in so many ways this is what happens in the direct-response fundraising world every single day. In our quest for new, exciting and creative, we can sometimes lose track of the goal.

Direct-response fundraising is often counterintuitive, so in this rare case, otherwise successful board members can easily make costly missteps when trusting their non-direct-response marketing instincts.

Nonprofit marketing isn’t the warm, fuzzy “discipline” it once was. If you’re in the business of encouraging donors to hand over dollars to support a mission, you likely get it. Today, your job is much more focused on the percentage point in converting potential supporters into long-term donors than being focused on the color of the new logo or the catchy headline.

Successful nonprofit marketing, especially new donor acquisition, must be targeted, tested and measured to generate a positive return on dollars invested.

I admit it — if you follow these six steps you won’t have a model fundraising program in place. But beating your head against the wall until you finally give up isn’t a good solution, either. Start small and make sure everyone on the team knows about the successes and sees the positive notes and emails you receive from donors. Be the best cheerleader for fundraising.

If you’ve been too busy to soak up all of the great content making the rounds at the recent direct-marketing conferences and in the industry’s blogosphere, don’t worry! Production Solutions has been rounding up the must-reads for you so you don’t miss a beat. Here’s a look at some killer presentations — a few insightful articles so you can skip wading through the flood of information out there and get right to the good stuff.

What's the value to fundraisers of an engagement? Where’s the money? When will it arrive? What will be the real ROI, especially relative to time spent?

If the snow kept you away, the 2014 DMA Nonprofit Federation Washington Nonprofit Conference featured information-packed sessions on all aspects of direct marketing and highlighted the trends and triumphs that are shaping our industry today. The Production Solutions team captured the insights and takeaways that could help propel your organization and your campaigns to the next level. Here they are …