Today, a few friendly reminders from your Agents of Good about donor acquisition that puts donors – not your charity or your workplan – at the heart of the conversation.

Start as you mean to go on. Your donor acquisition message should resonate with your mission. If you’re stretching – or getting into ‘mission drift’ – with what you think is sexy right now but not really at the core of what you do, proceed cautiously. Donor acquisition is expensive enough – don’t fall for the trick of trying to get as many people in the door as you can, if the message using you’re bringing them in the door won’t be heard again.

And while you’re at it, create dedicated content on your website about the focus of your acquisition message. Whether you’re using direct mail, email, phone, face-to-face or a combination of methods, make sure your acquisition message is echoed on your website, ideally right on the homepage.

Your URG. The Agents have developed this concept called URG – your Unique Reason to Give. Really think about what you do better than anyone else and what makes your cause completely unique and special. And build your donor acquisition message with this at the centre.

Don’t Count the First Gift. Well, not really. Of course, when those first gifts come in, celebrate each one. Revel in the fact that you rose above the noise of our daily lives, inspired someone to act and moved someone to give. But then keep moving. Focus – ideally in advance – on what you’re going to do to secure that more important second gift. A thoughtful welcome package or welcome series. And a second gift ask – at the right time with the right message.

Chuck Your Thank You Letter. Create a brand spanking new thank-you letter or email that completely echoes your acquisition appeal. Fill it with donor love. Make sure your letter is about your donors as much as it is about your cause. Send it promptly. Promise your donors that you will keep them informed about their gift at work for your cause. And keep your promise.

Focus on Your Offer. What is the basic offer of your acquisition message? If it doesn’t cut right to the chase, and spell out clearly what you want, and more importantly what your donor can help you achieve, tighten it up.

Ask For One Thing. Don’t clutter up your acquisition reply form or web form with a bunch of crap – monthly giving, legacy giving, volunteer opportunities, events. OK, they aren’t crap. But they don’t belong here. They belong in a thoughtful and appropriate follow-up message. If you are going to have one extra thing, talk about what you’ll do with the donor’s information. Privacy statements are dull, but the spirit behind them is important: we promise we won’t do anything with your information that you don’t want us to.

Tell A Story – Or 2. Statistics, facts and other ways you demonstrate impact are vitally important affirmation messages. But make sure you tell a story, connect your donors with something that will speak to their heart, not just their brain.

Test Something. Anything really. But don’t waste the opportunity to not learn something about your message. Test a longer letter. A different subject line. Something.

Count Donors. Not Dollars. Your objective is to acquire new donors. Try to focus on the number of new donors who have joined your movement, not how close you are to breaking even on the investment. Of course, that’s an important consideration. But the more important consideration is the new people – living, breathing, caring and loving human beings – who have just joined your movement to make our world a better place.

With that in mind, we want to offer you 10 ways to keep your donors at the heart of what you do, each and every day… Not for the sake of it, but because they really should be!

10. Read what you are working on – your letter, newsletter piece, email – aloud to someone who doesn’t know what you are working on. Make note of all the words, phrasing and timing that don’t feel write or that you’ll stumble over. You’ll change at least 5 things. Guaranteed.

9. Count the you’s. From the fundraising genius Tom Ahern. Count the number of times you say “you” in your piece. You should have way more references to “you” than to “we”, “us” or “ABC Charity”.

8. Make a promise – and keep it. In your next appeal, tell your donors you’ll report back to them with the outcome of the project you’re raising money for. And do it.

7. Invite personal contact – and mean it. Put your name on a thank-you letter or email. Ask your donors to connect with you directly if they have questions or would like to speak with you. (Please – no more info@charity.org!) Better yet, pick up your phone and call and thank a donor. It’s infectious.

6. Fall in love with Gary. Gary the Donor – the imaginary friend created by Good Works – is great for bouncing things off. Are you connecting with your donors’ mind, heart and soul?

5. Rewrite your thank you letters and thank you call scripts. Find the time. It’s worth it.

4. Use your heart. Your donors deserve your love. Show it.

These last 3 we call the Kimberley MacKenzie trifecta. She does all of them (and some of these others above) every single day. That’s badass.

3. Put a picture of a donor – or a letter from a donor – on your desk or post it on your wall.

2. Put an empty chair in your meeting room and imagine you have a donor in the room with you. It will change lots of what you say and how you say it.

1. Look through your mail every day for 2 weeks. Read the little notes donors write on your coupons – the good, the bad and the ugly. Respect the shaky handwriting. Remind yourself that you are in a conversation with your donors – you’re not just broadcasting.

As a final note – in the header we used the heart from our logo. Most people assume it is a clever way of showing a “o” for “of”. The smarter ones assume it represents our love of the sector, our clients and ultimately the very fact that we are in a industry of sharing and showing love… and they aren’t wrong. But the real reason is to remind us who really matters and is at the heart and core of everything we do. Do I really need to say who?

P.S. This “Top 10″ was inspired by a terrific series by Josh Bowman, 10 things I’ve learned. Thanks Josh!
EDIT: special thanks to Agent Clare McDowall for sending us in this missive from the field! “On the board and highlighted!”

Recently I sat on an awards committee where part of my role was to review the all of the applications… but I realized (especially after having to read 1 paragraph like 6 times) that somewhere we have lost our way.

I’ve sat in boardrooms, I’ve read blogs and have been part of webinars where I’ve had to ask people to repeat what ever bullcrap they just spewed because I just didn’t understand what they were trying to say.

Now I’m no genius by any measure, and I also realize that my work depends on the ability to write and speak at a level that almost any one of any type of education can understand…

But what is this fear of being clear?

As always, Seth Godin nails it is his blog post today “Writing naked (nakeder than Orwell)“.

Here are Orwell’s rules, edited:

If the goal is to communicate, then say what you mean.

Preach on Brother Godin.

This same donor was recently in the office and asked casually if Ruby would ever write him back. Needless to say, we were enchanted with Jack and Ruby’s correspondence, so this week, Ruby writes back!

Successful projects rock. And while it does feel a bit like beeping our own horn, when we celebrate our success here at Agents of Good, it is all the more awesome because in our work, it also means that the world is a little bit of a better place.

And in the case of this project, more fresh food will be rescued from being thrown in the garbage and delivered to hungry people in Toronto. Second Harvest is an amazing and inspiring charity that we have the pleasure of working with. Our Spring Campaign was focused on buying a new truck for their fleet, and it has been a smashing success.

We raised twice as much money as the Spring Appeal last year. Average gift is up 40%. Beep! Beep!

Here’s just some of what we love about this campaign:

1. Surprise and Delight. The letter comes from the truck, and he starts his letter saying “I have a dream…” You KNOW you want to keep reading!



2. The illustrated truck is just so darn cute. You KNOW you’re going to open that envelope!
3. Engaging and involving the donor – the donor uses the keys (sticker) and moves it on to the coupon.



4. The matching gift. Donors “only” have to pay for half. A matching gift (secured with passion and energy by Second Harvest) secures the other half.
5. The last option on the gift array is for $65,000 and a note “I’ll buy the other half of the truck”. Yes, we were secretly hoping someone would send in a cheque or $65,000. But even though they didn’t, we wanted it to make every donor think about giving a little more. It worked.
6. It’s genuine. The match did come in at the 11^th hour, and we used the P.S. and the buckslip.
7. It flowed. We did a reminder pack, with a message of encouragement from the matching donor.
8. It rocked. And we stopped. We had planned to do a follow-up blast. But by the time it was due to deploy, we knew it exceeded the goal. So we did a thank-you email and letter instead. From the truck, of course.

Beep Beep!

Because the content sucks.

I watched the debate. Boring, entitled white guy backpedals and blames the other guy. I follow the candidates on Twitter. Broadcast, broadcast, broadcast.

But now the election is coming into my mailbox. You’re on my turf now.

I could write for days about the vacant, forgettable and uninspiring “leaflets” I’m getting from the candidates. They literally go straight to the kitchen table so Sadie can colour on them and then at least they are worth talking about.

But today, dear readers, I’m writing to tell you about the voter information card to save you the agony I experienced today. I received the Elections Canada mail saying “Have you received your voter information card from Elections Canada?” It looks like the voter card, which I’ve received for years now, but it actually is not a voter card. It is a reminder that if you don’t have your voter card you should contact Elections Canada. It has a large image OF the voter card on it, but instead of saying Jennifer Mary Love (no, Danger is not my middle name) it says YOUR NAME, YOUR ADDRESS. Huh?

So, being me, I go online. Find the number of my local elections office and call. It’s a 1-800 number, which puzzles me, since I’m pretty sure I’m calling someone in my community. Nevertheless, I get through.

After some voice-activated prompting and button pushing, I get through to a guy. I describe the confusing and weird mail in my hands. I explain that I am on the voters list, at this address, so I want to make sure I can exercise my democratic rights on May 2. He says, yes, I am on the voter’s list, and that my voter card will come to me, but that “it seems” they mixed up the order of the voter cards and the “have you received your voter cards” and I should be receiving my voter card next week. Helpfully, if it doesn’t arrive,  he reminds me, I can just call back.

Seriously?

Imagine sending out the reminder before the appeal? Or the tax receipt before the gift? It boggles my mind to think of how many monkeys fell asleep on their desks for this to happen.

If only there was something I could do to change the way I feel about my government. All I need is my voter card.

#sigh

Let us know if any of this information and thinking is useful and applicable… or please feel free to add your own small shop challenges and we can help you in a future post! Cheers. John

Recent estimates put the number of non-profits and charities in Canada at over 160,000. That’s a lot of organizations, and a very large and important part of Canada’s economy. But did you know that more than half are run entirely by volunteers? In other words, they don’t have a single paid staff person.

Collectively, we’ve worked with a wide range of non-profits, with databases ranging from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand active donors. What we’ve learned over the years is that ‘small shops’ can learn a lot from ‘big shops’… and vice versa.

Let’s start with some definitions. How do you know if you’re a small or big shop? We couldn’t find an official definition, so have come up with our own. A small shop has:

• Annual gross revenue of less than $500,000 (according to Imagine Canada, that applies to 87% of non-profits and charities);

• Two or fewer full-time fundraisers;

• Staff who are experts at multi-tasking (small shop fundraisers often leap from major donor calls to special events menu planning to counting pennies from coin boxes within the same hour).; and

• A donor file size of 2,500 or less.

With a file size of 2,500 or less, it becomes very difficult to conduct statistically valid testing within your direct mail program. But that doesn’t mean that small shops can’t learn from testing: they just have to look at what big shops have done and adopt some of the lessons learned.

So, for all the small shops out there, here’s what we’ve learned through the dozens of tests we’ve done within big shop direct mail programs:

• Four-page letters often get better response than two-page letters;

• Incorporate a sense of urgency and/or a timeframe (for example, adding ‘please reply by April 5th’ to your response device, or on your O/E, will likely increase your response rates);

• Stick to one simple straightforward offer (for example, including a an invitation to a special event within an appeal for an annual gift will likely confuse donors and reduce response);

• Larger envelopes almost always pull a higher response rate than smaller envelopes;

• Have a matching gift opportunity? Let your donors know about it and challenge them to participate;

• Use an ascending gift array (i.e., $35, $45, $60) rather than a descending one (i.e., $60, $45, $35);

• If possible, match your gift array to the donor’s last gift (if their last gift was $35, start the gift array slightly higher – 1.25x their last gift is a good rule of thumb);

• Larger response coupons often lead to higher response;

• Here’s a big one: handwriting rules! Have the signatory hand-sign the letters (this is something that’s virtually impossible for big shops to do, but is very possible for you to do), add a hand-written and personalized P.S., and hand-address your envelope. (you can get the help of volunteers for some of this). You can even get your President or Executive Director’s handwriting made into a font;

• Use a live stamp on your mailings (yes, it’s more expensive than third class postage, but we suspect you’d make that up in higher response rates and average gifts);

• You will get your highest response from donors who have most recently given to you (i.e., for a mailing you send in 2011, your highest response will be from donors who have given in 2011, next highest will be 2010, then 2009). If you’re instinct is to give you recent donors a break from giving, don’t do it!; and

• Stick to black text on a white background and use a minimum of 13pt font.

So, why not incorporate a few of these big shop learnings into your own small shop program? Try them out for a while and see how your response rates and average gifts compare to prior years.

Stay tuned for an upcoming article on what big shops can learn from small shops (this is a two-way street).

Leah Eustace, John Lepp, Jen Love

I came home to this in my mailbox.

Wrapped in that old-school brown paper, hand-taped. A stamp from “Wolfsburg, Deutschland” on the top left. It looks like a real stamp, so I touch my finger to the snow and try to smudge the ink the way Steve Thomas taught me. No smudge. So it’s a fake/real stamp. And I notice the “Addressed Admail” Canada Post indicia. So, being a direct marketing nerd I know it’s “junk mail”. But I also know that it’s going to be damn fine “junk mail” because someone is going to lots of effort to make this look and feel like real mail, just to me, right from VW HQ in Germany. I rip it open, and inside is a box saying “Welcome to the family”.

I open it up and out drops a letter from “Markus Schafer, Engineer”. He introduces himself and gets to “I was lucky enough to work on the design of this superb vehicle…” and a bit of dull language about cutting edge technology and German expertise. Not exactly my stein of Pilsener but I get who he is and the context.  And then, the genius. “It’s no surprise that after such a great deal of effort I have become extremely attached to your Golf. I am sure you can understand. With that in mind, I would be extremely grateful if you could take good care of it. Spend time with it. Show it some affection. That is why I have sent you this chamois cloth. It is perfect for lavishing some extra special attention on your car.” And the cloth says “Now it’s your turn to give it some love.”

And, of course, the offer. Membership in VW Plus program to get exclusive benefits and privileges…

W.O.W.

You, my dear readers, have likely read me rage on about premiums. Charity premiums are almost always loathsome. But this is an example of a premium done perfectly. Gets me into the package. Reminds me why I love VW. Actually useful.

This morning, I thought I loved my VW most for the heated seats. This afternoon, it’s their slammin’ direct marketing.

After a few meetings this week and a bunch of reading, I am astounded at how much attention is given to specific channels in our sector and, how often I hear that because their donor doesn’t give to a specific channel, then that channel must be dead.

If charities spent as much time focusing on the ask/offer/message of what they want their donors to do, support and WHY they should care as they do on the channels they deliver their messages – what a different world this would be.

Donors don’t give to the channel. They give to the campaign.

Give your donor a reason to care, be frank with what you want, tell them how they will help, spread across channels evenly and you will win.

It is so easy to get turned inside out and upside down thinking about integrated campaigning, multi-channel fundraising, over-thinking our approach and completely rush past one stunningly obvious thing: asking for one thing.

One of our clients established a monthly giving program a number of years ago, and they have the standard monthly offer on the back of the response form. They were recruiting a handful (or less) of new monthly donors every campaign.

We encouraged them to test a monthly conversion package – to very small, select group of donors and done entirely in-house. Now, this was no turn-key operation. To keep cost and logistics manageable we kept the list very intimate, but tested from a variety of groups. We strategized about segments likely to perform best and went through line-by-line to identify what we would ask them for.

We reached out to existing monthly donors to ask them to provide testimonials we could use as part of the package. Not surprisingly, most of them passed at the opportunity, but it gave the charity a chance to connect with donors, invite them to be involved and thank them for their tremendous support.

The final package was:

-         an oversized outer envelope, closed-faced, with a bright, colourful, real stamp

-         a personal and genuine letter from the Executive Director

-         a full-page insert with the voices (and faces) of other monthly supporters

-         a full-page response device

-         a stamped reply envelope (not a BRE, a real envelope)

The response device. Had ONE option. Give monthly. No single gift option. No shopping list of tick boxes: volunteering, events, legacies, interests. No request for email. Tons of white space and a very clear offer.

To date, they have recruited around or over 40 new monthly donors, with a value of over $650 per month (still coming in). A massive improvement over recruiting a handful in a passive way with each appeal.

Connect with me (jen@agentsofgood.org) directly if you want to hear more about the results by segment, or about some of the adjustments we are making for the second version we are sending in the new year.

I challenge you to have a look at your latest response coupon. How many things are you asking your donors for?