You can read about generational giving but can understand it only if you lived it. When you have had a lengthy career in the fundraising field, you see generational giving at work.
So, you’ve created a strategy for your peer-to-peer email communications. You’ve segmented your audience, built compelling content and prepared to design emails that will grab your readers’ attention. Now there’s one thing left to do: Start executing on your plan (and find ways to improve it).
In this swipe left/swipe right world, those in the dating scene have learned to make very quick decisions about whom they are interested, often with very little information at the outset. In an instant, they decide to swipe left (delete) or swipe right (connect), deciding if a person is worth getting to know based on a profile picture, a tagline and maybe a few key facts.
Successful direct response fundraising campaigns feature many finely tuned elements, including demographically appropriate appeals, images, materials, and keen insights about the best timing of solicitations. However, there remains one campaign rudiment that is still often left to rote standardization — the personalization of gift array values.
Direct response is not as sexy as taking donors to the golf course or hosting the annual major donor cruise, but I’m proud of what I do because I have seen the results of the money I have raised over the years. And if someone says to me, “Oh, you do junk mail?” that’s OK.
I determined from a group of independent variables what variables stood out as being the most effective for me to utilize over time. There was importance in understanding donor characteristics.
A copywriting colleague used to keep a folder he called, “The Graveyard of Good Ideas.” He filled it with half-thoughts, messy-concepts and opening lines he’d been in the middle of when he suddenly had to take an important phone call. Or respond to an email. Or stop because the boss stuck his head in the door and needed something urgently.
Direct mail is extremely effective for nonprofit fundraising. With ever-increasing postage rates, it can eat away at your donations. You should not stop sending direct mail, but there are some things you can do to decrease the amount of postage you pay. The less postage you pay the more donation dollars go toward your organization.
Millennials are changing the face of business and they will change the face of philanthropy — eventually.
There are a lot of effective ways to communicate with your peer-to-peer fundraising participants, such as social media, apps and push notifications, SMS and direct mail – to name a few. But email is still king.
