Although year-end mail is always slow, 2011 saw the USPS give new meaning to the word! This was an eye opener for savvy nonprofit mailers who realize that a reckoning day is coming, and that the time to reassess mail campaigns is now.

There’s little question that the post office is headed for some drastic changes, although due to its being stymied in bureaucracy, it may take a while for the deepest of the cuts to be felt.  It seems certain, however, that the results the postal customer will ultimately feel will be twofold:  less service and higher prices.

If we’re going to get less and pay more, why do it?  Well, simply because for most nonprofits, the lion’s share of annual giving income still comes from direct mail, although this slice of the pie isn’t as large as it used to be . . . and it costs more to produce.

Whenever your ROI is affected this drastically (or is about to be), it’s vital to evaluate your overall campaign, to see which areas can be modified, streamlined, combined, improved – or simply need to be eliminated.  Several nonprofits that have strong direct mail programs have done precisely this, and discovered that one of their best tactics is a multichannel approach.  In addition, some have discovered that more resources are best diverted to direct mail for acquisition, while online appeals are successful for retention.

Since it’s unrealistic to eliminate direct mail from your budget or campaign, it’s smarter planning to consider a multitude of factors and be more strategic:

• Take care that your database is as accurate and as up to date as possible. The better your data is, the more precise your campaigns are, the lower your costs, and the fewer returned pieces, wasted staff time, etc.

•     Consider sending out smaller, more frequent, segmented mailings. This will take additional time – both to pull the targeted data, as well as to craft the appeals, but it will make your donors/prospects feel special, whether you group them by geography or affinity for a particular type of fund, cause, etc.

•     Schedule your direct mail campaigns sooner than you previously did. Expect delivery to take longer than it has in the past.  Much longer.  This isn’t going to improve.

•     Budget for more direct mail expenses, if possible.  Postage will likely continue to increase, and with other services costing more (e.g., NCOA), this is simply pragmatic.

•     Make certain your appeals are both engaging and get down to business. If your letter is a solicitation, it still has to be interesting, of course, but the ask shouldn’t be buried in paragraph six, either.  Get to the point.

•     Integrate a multichannel approach. Include a direct hyperlink for your call to action (e.g., donation, registration, petition, etc.) on all pieces in the mailing:  letter, reply card, reply envelope, inserts, flyers, etc.  Remember to add a Twitter and Facebook icon and/or hyperlink as well, and QR codes when applicable.  Since a QR code is versatile, it can link to a video, provide a coupon code, or other venue, depending on your campaign.

•     Remember the carrier envelope is the most important, not an afterthought. Mail is typically opened over a trash can, so if your carrier envelope isn’t designed with at least the thought put into your letter, you have drastically reduced the chances of your letter ever getting read.

•     Test at least one variable with each mailing. This can be something as simple as including postage – or not – on your reply envelope, or addressing your carrier envelope on the back instead of the front.  Does a photo on your carrier make a difference, and if it does, do you need to pay for a color photo, or will a black and white one result in essentially the same response rate and average gift?  Perhaps a freemium boosts your average gift or response with an acquisition mailing, but it’s unnecessary when soliciting current donors.

•     Your opinion doesn’t matter! Make sure to track and analyze your data after each campaign.  Just because you personally prefer the bright green font doesn’t mean that it has the best response rate from your constituency.  Until you have several bundles of data from your own organization, a good place to start can be checking sources such as Which Test Won? which gathers and shares a great deal of data on both direct mail and online marketing.

•     Learn from your analyses. Take what worked well, and attempt to extrapolate upon your successes.  For the campaigns that performed poorly, either determine why and fix the errors, or eliminate them and substitute them with the strategies that are succeeding for your organization.  While you’ll probably find that much of what you’re doing follows industry standards, there may be some anomalies that are unique to your constituency.

•     Don’t be afraid to try something new. Annual Giving by its very nature can easily become cyclical and repetitive, and making goal is constantly on everyone’s mind, but great things can happen when you stretch outside your regular boundaries and dare to dream of a different way of doing things.

How can you make the most of what you’ve got – not just with mail, but all of your fundraising venues – and perhaps something new?

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Keep the base of the pyramid strong

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Should I Even Bother With Direct Mail Appeals Anymore?

Is Direct Mail Dead?

Improving the Successful Campaign

Nearly every workplace has cut budgets in order to survive, but how they do it sends messages to staff about how they are valued as people.  Many employers are surprised – or oblivious – as to what messages employees receive with these changes.

Lucy* was somewhat embarrassed to tell me her story when we met.  I began by asking her basic questions about her work, employer, coworkers, etc., and was puzzled about why she was looking to leave and find another job.

While she did have talents that could likely reach beyond the position, she could probably be promoted after spending more time with the company.  It seemed like it was just a matter of time.  I had trouble finding the problem that was leading her to look elsewhere, frankly.  Was it salary?

Again, the response was that she would be delighted to earn more, but her pay was appropriate for her education, experience and time with the company.

Finally, she admitted that over the last year or two, the company had experienced a harsh several rounds of budget cuts, which led to a different office environment.  Although people weren’t pleased, they didn’t seem to be hostile toward one another.

The final difficulty for Lucy, she told me, was that the ladies’ restroom had replaced the toilet paper with something so abrasive, it ended up causing her problems.  She had begun bringing in her own bathroom tissue to use, she confessed.

She was mortified to do this, and to have to constantly have the presence of mind to hide prepared stashes of toilet paper in her desk, and to conceal wads of it on her person whenever she went to the ladies’ room at the office.  It had become embarrassing and stressful for her, worrying about being discovered.  Eventually, she was resenting her employer for putting her in such a position to begin with, and decided to Forget It! since this was simply not a topic she could ever discuss with HR or her supervisor.

“Even if I could bring it up, I don’t think anything would change – except that I’d be an object of ridicule,” Lucy told me.

Along with her interview preparation of good questions to ask, since this was a topic of importance for Lucy, she added arriving a bit early to her interviews and making a trip to the restroom as part of the visit.  After several months, she found a new job that was a good fit with a different company.

“I would have never thought that this would be a factor – or deal breaker – in employment,” Lucy said, “And of course, I couldn’t tell my previous director my real reason for leaving.  I simply said, ‘I was looking for new challenges.’  What else could I say?”

Mildred* had many duties in her position with her company, including managing events, and when her director informed her about upcoming budget cuts that would affect staff activities, she tried to explain to him how it would affect morale, which, frankly, had already taken a few hits over the last year.

Her director really didn’t understand (or seem to care) that there had been more theft of food in the employee refrigerator, or that people’s lunches were cut shorter, now that one of the microwaves had broken down, leaving people less time to prepare their food – and more time waiting in line.  The lower quality coffee, cream, etc. didn’t go unnoticed by staff, either.

Now, he informed Mildred that the semi-annual company parties were to be eliminated from the budget.  She worked to persuade him that celebrating twice a year and congratulating the staff for a job well done was a necessity – and pointed out that the cost of food and facility was not terribly high.  What about having it on company premises, she suggested, as a compromise?

Her director cut the compromise deeper than that:  He told her that the only way he would agree is if employees essentially paid for it all themselves, by bringing all of the food, and taking no more than a two hour lunch break.  Then, to add insult to injury, she felt, he remarked, “Make sure everyone lists what’s in their dishes . . . I have allergies.”

Although Mildred was both shocked and insulted at her manager’s short sightedness and pettiness, we discussed it as a potential opportunity.  Instead of choosing to update her resume, she decided to Fix It!

Mildred worked on convincing her director that, since they were having the potluck lunch in-house (and saving on caterers, etc.) it would be necessary to officially have the event run all afternoon.  Because it would be on the premises, many people would go back to work anyway, but others would be needed to help prepare, clean up afterward, etc., so they wouldn’t be able to return to work immediately after.  Also, the goodwill of having the afternoon to socialize would help counter the surprise response to not having the entire day.  He finally agreed.

To help offset objections staff might have to cooking the food themselves, Mildred pitched the event as a Share Your Favorite Recipes event, and encouraged people to boast and bring dishes that they were most proud of.  This also took care of participants labeling dishes, for attendees with any allergies, but in a much more positive way.

Since Mildred’s background was that of an event planner, she also worked with other departments and secured several prizes from local vendors in exchange for advertising in the company newsletter.  Participants who brought dishes signed up for various categories of food, and attendees voted on “best of category” at the lunch.  Later in the day, Mildred awarded the prizes to the winners.

Mildred posted photos of the winners and participants on a designated Facebook page, allowing participants to review, comment and enjoy the event for days and weeks afterward.  The comments posted on the page clearly demonstrated that staff members enjoyed themselves . . . to the point that people were already providing input on what the next staff event should entail.

Overall, staff response was quite favorable to the in-house, low budget event, and Mildred’s director was very pleased with how she handled it.  In the future, he made a point to consult her for more decisions, and trusted her judgment on how to deal with staff matters.  Within the next year, morale improved and Mildred was glad she stayed.

Do you have a Fix It or Forget It? story to share?  Send it to me, and it might help others.  Identifying features will be altered prior to publishing.

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Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
—  Rita Mae Brown

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Greg* and Hilda* have difficult work space environments

Barney* and Courtney* deal with micro-managers

Irene* and Jennifer* have constant office stressors

Nearly every non profit earns a substantial amount of its budget at year’s end. For some, this season is a do-or-die time of year. Either way, how many will take the time to analyze which appeals were most successful and which should be re-evaluated?

Overall dollars are important, certainly, but a great deal can be learned by delving into who gave what to which appeal when, why, by what means, etc. Reviewing details of response rates, click through rates and so forth now can help you better plan the upcoming year’s success, once you know what your constituents are responding to.

Take this challenge: Find the separate segments that are performing the very best and the very worst, regardless of whether or not you made more money overall. Where are your trends happening? Which demographics are taking off, and which ones are starting to drop off? Can you see that they are by age, geography, gender – or is it by the channel they are using, such as direct mail, email or social media? Perhaps it’s a mixture of several variables. How will you determine this to make next year’s appeals even better?

In addition to your analysis, it’s essential to keep up with current trends in the industry, which is rapidly changing. Although your organization most likely can’t respond to everything, a good goal would be to add two new things in 2011 that will interest and engage your constituents. For example, perhaps you might start a Facebook page and add video components to your email appeals. These don’t both have to begin on January 1st, but have a plan and work toward projected launch dates for each.

While assessing your year, consider other areas for improvement that affect fund raising indirectly, but may not come to mind immediately when you are doing your initial evaluation.

Find ways to boost your organization’s publicity. If you know a reporter, that’s wonderful, but reach beyond traditional means. What about bloggers? Consider asking several bloggers to write about your latest event, press release or promotion. Also remember to promote directly to your followers and friends, asking them to retweet/forward/share your latest news or video to their friends. This is the nature of social media, after all. (Remember to reciprocate now and then.)

Something else that is crucial to fund raising efforts, but often overlooked: database software. Does your database have dedicated fields for Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, text messaging, etc., or are you using [Other1], [Other2], [Other3] and [Other4]? This will make tracking next to impossible . . . and it’s only going to become more difficult as time goes on. What/how are you going to update your database with social media information or text messaging? Mobile giving and text messaging is only going to become more relevant as people have fewer land lines.

Actively seek feedback from those constituents who support you the most! Getting written documentation, as well as photos and video, will be very compelling testimony that can be used in your appeals (with permission, of course), to demonstrate to other potential donors why your organization is worth contributing to.

Just as you commit to boosting the value of your organization’s Annual Giving program by adding to its portfolio with a couple of new features, make certain that you add to your own professional portfolio as well, and increase your own skills and knowledge by a couple of features this year. Even if your training budget has reduced or evaporated completely, the Bilou Calendar lists many low cost and free online courses throughout the year, and you can subscribe to it. Don’t shortchange yourself or your personal career development.

Also remember that while online courses are very helpful, nothing takes the place of the value of face to face networking. Meeting with those in your profession on a regular basis can provide insight, education, mentoring and connections that possibly lead to a future job one day. If nothing else, staying in touch with those in the same profession helps one feel less isolated. Depending on your area of fund raising, you might find better networking with AFP, AHP, APRA, CASE or NTEN, or a combination therein.

The best year-end gift fund raisers can give to themselves is less exhaustion for next year by earlier, better planning for 2011. This begins with an in depth evaluation of what was done, but the follow through is not only adding some upgrades for the organization’s program, but investing in the fund raiser as well.

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Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
— Rita Mae Brown

People never stop learning.  In one form or another, we all continue to discover, absorb and conclude, whether we do it in a classroom or not.  Ideally, organizations realize the need for employees to continue keeping up with current trends and they budget for this.  Unfortunately, this isn’t typical, so what’s one to do?

Of course, everyone should grow and learn new things on the job, but some jobs require a steeper learning curve than others, because the evolution of their field is moving more rapidly than others.  Annual Giving is one such sector, since technology affects this part of fund raising more than, say, Planned Giving.  Certainly new laws on estate planning are important for professionals to know, but it’s doubtful that they are changing as quickly as the landscape of social media, for example. Often one feels that if you blink, you might miss something.

A recent study by Guidestar on the economy’s effect showed that five of the top six ways that nonprofits used to reduce costs were related to staffing, salary and benefits, which surely translates to less funds for training as well.

Couple this with the fact that when training budgets are doled out, Annual Giving professionals typically receive the smallest allowance, and you have a double whammy of those in need of the most training having the least means to receive it.  Seth Godin makes a good argument about how the old business model of worker and employer is disintegrating, and stresses the importance of a worker being “fast, smart and flexible” in our new, emerging economy. 

Here are but a few examples of items that Annual Giving professionals will need to add to their toolbox:

•     Facebook has a reputation for changing its features on a regular basis.  Facebook Places is one of the newer features to learn.
•     Twitter is rolling out several major changes, including the ability to view photos, video and past tweets without scrolling.
•     Video – It’s going to be more than just creating something on YouTube or Vimeo and inserting it into an email or posting it onto your Facebook page.  Soon, every individual, company and organization will be able to have its own web-based “tv” channel.
•     RSS (Real Simple Syndication) or text messaging – see some examples of how it can (and is) being used, including a non profit example.  How can you use RSS to keep in touch with your constituents?
•     SlideShare  -  Beth Kanter has great suggestions.  Although I clearly don’t utilize it enough, you can see results of various polls I’ve taken on social media habits from audiences over the years.
•     LinkedIn is changing the specs on its site, upgrading the social networking and other features a great deal lately.  What will that mean for how you market yourself online?
•     Technology requirements to handle all of your applications and other needs.  The Seattle Public Library launched a matching gift campaign, and their site crashed soon after the campaign began, in response to the outpouring of the unanticipated support.

Patrick* made a point to sign up for as many classes as his organization – and professional society – offered during his first year on the job, in order to learn as much as he could.  He wanted to be well versed, and take full advantage of what the company (and his membership) had to offer.

At the end of his first year, he had raised a great deal more money than his predecessor and also implemented some successful new events, etc.  He arrived at his performance review with a list of his accomplishments and a calendar of the trainings that helped him learn how to achieve said tasks, as well as a proposed schedule of upcoming courses.

He was stunned at his manager’s reaction:  Instead of praising him for having a good plan and learning so much, he chastised Patrick for having taken so many courses:  “I had no idea you were spending this much time out of the office!”  His manager denied Patrick’s proposed training schedule for the new year, and said he would have to cut it by half.

“When I asked ‘Why?’ since I had clearly raised more funds,” Patrick recounted, all I could get was, “‘It doesn’t look good for you to be gone that much.‘”

Patrick made a point in the future only to highlight the end result (his accomplishments) and not the means of achieving them (his training) during performance reviews.

Ramona* also met with difficulty over getting training.  She knew that budgets were tight, so she rarely asked to go to seminars, but there was one that she felt was very valuable and was not terribly expensive, so she asked to attend.

When she approached her director, he only pretended to review the materials and listen to her argument, but turned her down almost immediately.  Ramona decided not to give up just yet, and searched the seminar website for scholarships, since she couldn’t afford the entire cost herself.  Finally, she contacted the conference organizer when she found no scholarship application online, and explained the situation.  She was successful in getting a free admission to the two day conference!

Ramona made a point to network with others in her professional society – locally and nationally – and had a friend in the nearby city, within a day’s driving distance.  She arranged to stay with her friend, rather than pay for a hotel.

Because her manager hadn’t bothered to notice the details of the conference during her initial request, Ramona simply put the dates down as a vacation request, stating that she was “visiting a friend,” and said nothing more about it.  She returned with more skills – and contacts – to put in her professional toolbox.  She knew enough about her manager’s dynamics to realize that he wouldn’t reward or praise her for her resourcefulness, but most likely subtract future opportunities from her if he knew she had received this training.

While neither Patrick’s nor Ramona’s situations are ideal, they each found ways to continue developing their skills professionally, working around the limitations set before them.  Although it’s important to invest in yourself when necessary, it’s also essential to know when to draw the line and realize if you’re simply not being supported – and never will be.
 
What then, are some tangible, low-cost actions that Annual Giving professionals can take, to sharpen their skills and become more knowledgeable about this profession that seems to be moving at the speed of light?

•     Network within the profession – Joining a professional society such as AFP, AHP, APRA, CASE, NTEN, etc. is advisable.  Connecting with others who are dealing with similar issues can be invaluable.
•     Invest in a mentor relationship – Ask someone you admire to coach you in an area you’d like to learn more about, but also offer your skills to another who is eager to learn.
•     Research scholarships – Many organizations offer scholarships for membership and/or conference attendance.  Investigate and use these applications sparingly, since they’re often only valid once.
•     Take online courses – A great deal of training is available online, and because there is no space to rent or perhaps a limit on attendance, the cost is often very low or even free.  The Bilou Calendar lists many courses related to Annual Giving, and you can subscribe to it.

In the end, you have to drive your career and determine its direction.  You’re learning new things constantly, regardless.  The question is, what do you most want to learn?

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Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
—  Rita Mae Brown