Personalization

Baby, Come Back ...
January 1, 2011

I deliberately became a lapsed donor (13+ months) in early 2010 in order to receive more reinstatement and acquisition mail, to see how nonprofits would endeavor to woo me back. Recent lapsed-donor direct-mail efforts from St. Labre and CARE really stand out.

Go On ... I Dare You
January 1, 2011

Do you have the guts? I have 10 ideas that might scare the daylights out of you. They're probably difficult, politically unpopular or against the rules of your organization. Furthermore, these ideas might not work for you. They could even be very, very bad for you. But I don't think so. These are good ideas that have worked for others who made them happen despite the difficulties. I dare you to try at least one.

3 Common Online Fundraising Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
October 12, 2010

There are still several common mistakes fundraisers make in their online communications, says Thomas Gensemer, managing partner at online technology provider Blue State Digital. Here, he shares those common online fundraising mistakes and provides ways fundraisers can overcome them.

This Month — A Brandraising Twofer
October 1, 2010

Start your donor relationships off right with prompt, polite thank-you notes, and start lighting the fire for your end-of-year appeals today.

3 Top Analytics Techniques Every Fundraiser Should Know, Part 2
September 28, 2010

It’s impossible to target personalized messages and relevant communications to your donors if you first don’t know who they really are. But “how do you find out who your donors are?” Austin asked. The answer is crucial for identifying affluent donors for major-gifts campaigns and planned-giving prospects, as well as unearthing the proper marketing messages, corporate relationships — “Corporations want to work with organizations that have an overlapping market,” Austin said — and more.

Are You Nurturing the 4 Fundraising Babies?
August 3, 2010

At the 2010 Bridge Conference in National Harbor, Md., last Wednesday, Tony Elischer, managing director of Think Consulting Solutions, said fundraisers should focus on the third “R” — rewriting, as in rewriting how you think and how you fundraise. To do that, he proposed looking at fundraising as four babies — brave baby, baby and the bathwater, looking to the future baby, and fully managed baby — in his keynote presentation, “Futurology 2010: Focus, Determination & Transformation."