Future Fundraising Now

Don't get too excited by survey on Millennial giving

Another widely misinterpreted study has some in the fundraising community in a tizzy. This time it's the Millennial Impact Report, which headiness the following factoid:

93% of surveyed Millennials gave to nonprofit organizations in 2010

A more accurate way of saying that would be:

93% of surveyed Millennials said they gave to nonprofit organizations in 2010

Because this study is not donor data. It is the compiled responses from 2,953 survey participants, age 20-35. It's what they said, not what they do. That's not to say the survey is wrong, or that it can't be generalized with a reasonable margin of error to the attitudes of the 20-35 population. But you simply can't look at that number and think these people are donors the same way your current stable of donors are donors.

Here's what the survey does not tell us:

• 74 million donors up for grabs.
• People born in the 80s are extraordinarily generous.
• Any nonprofit that isn't investing heavily in Millennial fundraising is doomed.

That 93% who said they gave in 2010 includes those who:

• Dropped money in the church collection plate at least once.
• Sponsored a pal in a walk or run.
• Gave $5 or $10 via their phone, mostly likely to Haiti quake relief, since the year in question is 2010.
• Gave money to panhandlers.
• Believe giving is good, but didn't quite get around to it.

... as well as those who were committed, ongoing supporters of causes.

If you're like most nonprofits, less than 5% of your donors are under age 35. There are reasons for that:

It's hard to find them.

More important, it's even harder to keep them.

That's the way it is with people in their 20s and 30s.

If you're in international relief, you get floods of them after major disasters. But nearly all of them lapse away, not giving again until the next disaster. Or until they turn 60 or so and become the type of loyal donors that make charitable work possible.

Every fundraiser should be deeply concerned about finding more young donors. But young donors are better defined as people between 50 and 65. Those are the folks who are about to transform, Get them now, and you have an amazing asset for decades to come.

Fundraising is not really about writing

If you go by the topics of books that are sold to fundraisers, you might get the impression that the most important skill for someone who wants to raise funds is excellent writing.

The reason for that: Most books are written by writers. And most writers wisely follow the dictum, Write what you know.

Writing is an important skill for fundraising, but it's not the most important. It's not even #2. It's somewhere around #5.

Here are some of the things that have more impact than good writing:

• Audience. Having a group of people who resonate with your cause. Knowing who they are. Knowing how to find them.
• Segmentation. Among your supporters, you know whom to ask, when, how often, how much, by what means, and for what topics.
• Offer. Knowing what your supporters and prospects are most likely to support. You've got the language and amounts dialed in.
• Plan. You know well in advance whom you are going to ask, in what media, how much it's going to cost, what your likely returns are.

You've probably seen jaw-droppingly bad fundraising writing that's succeeding. That's because it's doing well on at least some of the things that matter more than good writing.

And the greatest writing on the planet can't rescue your fundraising if you're getting the other stuff wrong.

I hope whoever writes your fundraising writes well. But I hope even more you have the bigger stuff under control.

Some email marketing truths may not be so true any more

The great and terrible thing about online marketing is how quickly things change. Here's a post from the VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog that points out some things that not so long ago were widely held to be universal truths -- but may not be so any more: Mythbusters: Do Old Wives' Email Marketing Tales Hold True?.

1. Using words like 'free', 'dear' or 'save' in the subject line will cause your email to be marked as spam.
2. Test everything!
3. Send email only during the week.
4. All unsubscribes are bad.
5. Sending too many emails too often will make you to look like spam.

As always with things like this, test before you decide to remove it from your rulebook.

Two sins of fundraisers

A recent Seth Godin post lists Seven marketing sins. Two of these sins are especially endemic to nonprofits:

1. Selfish: Your fundraising is all about you, not your donors.
2. Self-absorbed: You want others to see things the way you see them and care about things the way you care.

These common fundraising sins cause nonprofits to raise a lot less money than they would otherwise.

Repent! You can do a lot better when you turn away from these things.

Your older donors are moving online -- are you there for them?

If you're serious about raising funds online, solid email appeals, a strong and easy-to-use website, and both of them integrated with what you're doing in direct mail are what you need to focus on.

As About Nonprofit Charitable Orgs notes, at More than Half of Older Americans Use the Internet and Email, older people, the real donors that drive fundraising growth, are increasingly interacting with charities and giving online:

If you're still thinking that older people are only fishing your fundraising letters out of their mailboxes or are missing out on your email newsletters, think again. It's really the older crowd that constitutes a big share of multichannel donors....

That's right. Getting your act together online is a matter of keeping up with where your donors are.

Real-world fundraising design is aimed at deteriorating eyes

From the Engage:Boomers blog, some reality checks on what's happening on the eyes of aging Boomers: The Eyes Have It.

This isn't a unique Boomer problem. It happens to everyone, eventually. With age, our eyes not only lose acuity, but also become less sensitive to cool and light colors. Here are some design things smart fundraisers who want their donors to be able to read their material should be doing:

• Use 16- to 18-point text.
• Avoid the use of all upper-case text.
• Use short lines and indent paragraphs.
• Avoid reverse type.
• Use bright colors such as red, orange, and yellow.
  
• Don't mix font types and styles on a single page.

Easy ways to improve your direct mail fundraising

If you're looking for quick, easy, and cheap improvements to your direct mail packages, check out this post at the Direct Creative Blog: 12 fast direct mail tests for cheapskates.

1. Change your outer envelope.
2. Test a new letter.
3. Remove your brochure.
4. Include a stand-alone reply form.
5. Insert a lift note.
6. Strengthen your offer.
7. Offer something free.
8. Add a time limit.
9. Highlight your guarantee.
10. Build a package around your self-mailer.
11. Mail your print ad.
12. Try the two-step.

Think of them as cheap tests. Or just as good ideas.

The biggest threat to your fundraising revenue

Who is the biggest threat to your organization?

Let me suggest that it's a certain person on your staff who thinks your fundraising is lame and who has a much better idea that goes like this: Take a group of high-performing donors and move them into a major donor category. That way you can stop sending that annoying, ineffective direct mail and instead cultivate them with some kind of major donor strategy.

In theory, this could be a smart move. After all, high-touch fundraising can raise a lot of money at a superb ROI.

But that's not what happens.

Nothing happens.

The group of valuable donors falls between the cracks. They no longer get the old fundraising that helped them rise to their present value, and they're assigned to already-busy major donor reps who simply can't give them the attention it takes to keep them giving.

And so the months go by, and the valuable source of revenue is mysteriously shut off. Worse yet, after a year of no cultivation, the donors drop off the list. Instead of around 20% of them lapsing, as one might expect, 90% of them lapse. And once they're lapsed, most will never come back.

The revenue loss, depending on the size of the group, can easily be hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars every year for the next several years.

You might think this hypothetical situation I'm throwing out is much too specific. There's a reason for that: I've seen this precise thing happen dozens of times. It's not a freak accident; it's a common occurrence.

The person who makes that decision is a mortal enemy to your fundraising revenue. They should not be making decisions of that magnitude. Chances are, they shouldn't be making any decisions.

Don't move donors out of your direct mail program unless you have a specific plan for each one you remove.

Email design mistakes that hurt response

Here's some helpful info for emailers from the Constant Contact Email Marketing blog: 7 Design Mistakes That Make Readers Trash Your Emails. Some of the mistakes:

• Hard-to-read fonts
• Color catastrophes
• Muddled information
• Awful images
• Too frequent makeovers

The case of the empty mission statement

The following "mission statement" is not a parody. It is real:

The [XYZ Nonprofit Organization] creates, connects and collaborates to raise awareness and inspire change in the areas of well-being, preserving cultures and empowering children in mind, body and spirit. [XYZ Nonprofit Organization] designs forums, partners with existing organizations and brings together experts to define solutions and implement action.

You can find it at Getting Attention: The 74% Percent: Is Your Mission Statement Ready for Prime Time? Where the point is that mission statement should be reserved for your internal audiences only: Staff, board members, volunteers, consultants, and others who need to have a clear understanding what your organization is about.

But gosh. A mission statement like that one isn't going to help anyone think clearly, insiders or out. It's a disaster of empty committee-speak. If this were the only one like it, it would hardly be worth mentioning. But there are more. You've seen them too.

If your mission statement reads like that, you're in trouble. Chances are, everything people write (and think) for your organization are similarly sloppy.

Get professional help.