Jim Shapiro

We were recently asked a great question, “What 5 things should every development director know?” Here’s our answer.

• Your donor list is your most important asset. Back it up, keep it up to date and know who is on your list and why.
• Segment your list into giving groups based on amount given or other factors like giving frequency. Know your donors giving patterns and communicate with them based on those patterns.
• Encourage donors already giving to your cause to continue giving. Keeping donors costs you less money and time than it does to acquire new donors.
• Build a clear and visible fundraising offer. Great offers state the problem, solution, make the solution a great value and create a level of urgency.
• Learn how to enjoy asking for money. You are asking donors to help solve a problem or make the world a better place.  Donors are happier, healthier and wealthier than non-donors.  You are helping them live a better life!
• Ask for more and ask more often.  Most of us aren’t asking enough.

Watch the video!  We created a 3 minute video that gives you deeper insights and information into this subject.  To receive the video along with other timely fundraising resources periodically delivered right to your desktop – register with Better Fundraising For All using the form on the right side of this page.  ======================>

For immediate help, visit our store to register for a class or order a direct mail / newsletter review.

We recently received a great question from one of the followers of this blog.  She works for a large, nationally well-known organization and was questioning the need to include pictures, quotes and captions in her direct appeal letters.  Here’s how Steven Screen, our BFFA expert on direct mail, responded.

                    For the most part, appeal letters are about presenting a Problem and then asking the donor to Solve the problem with their     gift. Over time, direct mail fundraisers have found that letters (without photos) get higher response. You can absolutely use photos, captions and headlines in letters – but they have to be done really well so that they add to the letter and not take away from it.

Three details to note;

1) Often times organizations will send out a letter presenting a Problem and asking the donor to solve it – but they will use a photo of someone who looks happy or healthy. That sends a mixed message to a donor and because of that mixed message the responses are almost always lower.

2) A good letter does have headlines — they are just formatted differently than a newsletter. A good letter uses underlining, bolding, “handwritten” text in the margins, a P.S., etc to draw readers’ eyes to certain sentences. Those are the headlines! (Which is why, by the way, it’s so crazy when an organization doesn’t want to underline or ‘call out’ any text. They are, in effect, saying to the donor that “we are not going to tell you what’s important about this letter, you have to read the whole thing for yourself to find out.” Good design, on the other hand, makes it easy for a donor to scan the letter and still know exactly what it’s about and exactly what the letter writer wants them to do.

3) Not all direct mail to Major Donors needs to have a photo. We’ve done tons of letters to Majors that didn’t have photos but still worked really well.

A good friend of BFFA, Chris Davenport from 501c Videos, recently posted a video entitled, “The four rules of good fundraising writing.”  Take a few minutes to watch the video. It is chalk full of great insights.

To receive more timeline fundraising tips directly to your email inbox subscribe to the Better Fundraising For All email feed by completing the registration form on the right side of this page => => => => => =>