Steve Maggio

There’s a lot to be said about failure. Mainly that it stinks. No, seriously — failure helps you appreciate success a little more, right? And on a less existential level, it can teach you a lot about what not to do next time around. That’s no more apparent than in the world of direct-mail fundraising efforts. And from what we hear, it happens to the best of them. So to prove you’re not alone when one of your ideas isn’t as all-fire successful as you had hoped, here are a few failure stories from fundraising pros. Hear Ye, Hear Ye … Don’t Traumatize Your

“When everybody loves the package, it’s probably going to fail. Never go ‘outside the box’ without first testing a small cell, and make sure an established winner carries the fundraising load. … But of course, don’t stop pushing the limits. You have to learn from your mistakes. And if you never bomb, you’re probably not pushing hard enough.” — Steve Maggio, president, DaVinci Direct, in the article, “From the Ashes,” appearing in the April edition of FundRaising Success.

For this week’s Advisor, FS asked a number of agencies and other companies that serve the nonprofit fundraising sector for tips on making the most of the client/vendor relationship. Here are some more of their thoughts. “1. Treat your agency like a partner, not a vendor. 2. Invest in testing. 3. Share and discuss all data as a team to drive strategy. 4. Hire the best you can find and then trust them, based on past performance. 5. Be willing to take calculated risks in order to achieve creative breakthroughs.” — Steve Maggio, president and chief creative officer, DaVinci Direct (www.davinci-direct.com) “Consider [your

Well, we’ve got webinar No. 1 under our belts. I was a nervous wreck, even though my part was very small and, by virtue of the nature of webinars, I didn’t actually have to face anyone as I did it. Nope … it was just me, my hard candy and my stress ball, listening as Robin Riggs, Willis Turner, Steve Maggio and Kimberly Seville educated and entertained our audience.

Ah … it was a great run. But a tricky one. For the past few years, I’ve been wrestling with the challenge of letting FundRaising Success Senior Editor Abny Santicola do her thing without the rest of the Target Marketing Group catching on to how fabulous she is.

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