Sean Triner's blog

Sean's blog is moving...

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:48:00 +0000

Hi folks!

I've recently launched a new website: www.seantriner.com

No biggie, I just wanted to have all of my blogs, tips, articles and newsletters all in one place.

This means that, apart from maybe the odd personal blog post from me, going forwards all of my blogs will be found on seantriner.com

I've been using Blogger for years now to share all of the proven fundraising knowledge and non-profit marketing insight I've learned over the decades. I've also used it to share new tips and advice for charity marketing whilst travelling around the world and mentoring non-profits.

I've enjoyed reaching out to the community on here and sharing knowledge with many of you.

If you want to continue to read more of this good stuff, please head on over to: www.seantriner.com

And thank you for reading!

Sean

What is the best language to use when building relationships with your Mid and Major Donors?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:32:00 +0000

I've been sharing a lot of tips and material about mid and major donors lately. And this got me thinking, what's the best language to use when talking to and trying to build relationships with these donors? Equally, are there words that we should avoid using? Words that might turn them off?

Are there words we shouldn't be using?

In Fraser Greens' book, 3D Philanthropy, Fraser talks about mood killing words - those words that you really shouldn't use when talking to donors, of any kind.

In an old, (but still very relevant!) blog post, Katya Andresen talks about these 'mood killing words' in detail - and they're as relevant to major donors as they are to others. View the blog post, and the words to avoid in detail here!

These words include:

1. Capacity

2. Empower
3. Enhance
4. Indigenous
5. Partnership
6. Development
7. Systemic
8. Community
9. Innovation
10. Superlative
11. Outcomes
12. Support
13. Sustainable
14. Resources
15. Dignity
16. Facilitate
17. Diversity
18. Fostering

Katya goes on to summarise the deadliest combination of words and phrases to turn off donors too, e.g. 'facilitating outcomes.'

So what should we be saying to our major donors?

I've spoken to charities about this before and some have claimed if they took the above words out of their pitches and messaging to donors, there would be nothing left to write.

I beg to differ.

I think the best language to use when engaging with major donors is language similar to their own. Preferably, language that they use everyday.

When engaging with donors, on any level, we need to be able to use the same everyday language that they use, in order to engage with their hearts.

With mid and major donors, in particular, we're trying to persuade them to part with a significant amount of money to help our beneficiaries.

Why everyday language?

1. We need to ignite a passion in potential donors and, in order to get major donors passionate about our cause, they need to be able to relate to it on a human level.

2. We need to engage with and build relationships with these donors - and the best way to do that is to relate to them on their level.

3. Major donor relationships tend to be built up over a lengthier period of time. It's therefore more likely that we'll be able to keep a dialogue going with them and keep them engaged if we use everyday language.

4. Using everyday language is particularly important when engaging in face to face meetings and phone calls with donors. It lends a human touch to our fundraising team.

5. It's also easier for one person to sustain and build a relationship with their donors on a personal and human level if they're using language that the donors are used to and that doesn't make them come across as false or phony.

6. It makes us sound more sincere.

7. We usually think of making approaches to major donors through personal introductions or one to one conversations, but you do need to remember your potential major donors are searching for you online too. So, from a digital marketing point of view, using everyday language that people are more likely to use, can massively help you and your cause when it comes to search engine rankings and being found on Google too!

Should we avoid formal, business language altogether?

There is a flip side to the coin to consider...

Mid and major donors are often professionals, quite often business people, who are looking for the best return on investment for their donations, in terms of what their money will support and achieve.

More often than not, these donors are results driven. It stands to reason then, that there may need to be a balance in the language we use when communicating with them.

To some degree, more formal, business professional language may need to be used in order to get across the aims of your cause and the benefits of investing in it. Particularly when you're pitching to major gift donors.

It may make sense to pepper the conversation with business and professional terms that they are familiar with.

Don't overcomplicate things and keep your communication jargon free as different industries will have different levels of knowledge.

Don't bamboozle them with long, formal phrases or embarrass them by using overcomplicated words that they won't understand.

How do we do this?

Firstly, when doing research on your major donors, or indeed those mid level donors whom you'd like to convert to major gifts,think about 'language'.

What sort of words, language and even tone of voice do they use on their website? And in their emails? Is it professional and business-like? Or is their tone more warm and friendly? Perhaps they use a different tone in their emails to what they do on their website?

Secondly, meet them in person or at the very least chat to them on the phone. And when you do, observe the language and words they use. Where possible try to mirror it.

Final word.

Whilst it's great to come across as professional in business correspondence, it's best to match the tone and mirror some of the everyday words that your major donors use.

Instead, talk to them, mirror their language. Use words that will appeal to their human nature and ignite their passion for your cause.

And yes, at some point, particularly if you're presenting a formal proposal for supporting your cause, you may need to pepper your pitch with some of the professional, more formal words to help win your business case.

See you soon!

Sean

PS Click here if you haven't already registered for my next webinar:

The Quickest, Cheapest And Easiest Way To Extra Cash Now. Turn Mid Value Donors Into Major Gifts In A Week.

Live on Thurs 29^th Sept / Friday 30^th Sept (depending on your time zone), but the recording and slides will be available for all who register - even if you can't make the date.

A Great Way to Boost Donations in Your Next Appeal…

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Wed, 17 Aug 2016 07:20:00 +0000

...And Build Awesome Relationships With Major Donors

I have a little story about Jason Smith, a quiet and unassuming Quebecois guy living in Melbourne, Australia. He works as the fundraising manager at Burnet Institute.

The Institute is a charity dedicated to researching diseases that cause harm to people in less developed countries. It is one of my favourite charities, partly because Jason works there and is an easy guy to get behind and support, but also because of it’s unique mission.

However, the Institute’s fundraising is relatively small with a database of just around 7,000 people who donated in the past year or so.

For their mid-year appeal, Jason and his colleague Asther Creo ran a classic direct mail appeal to their donors.

Shortly after the appeal had been mailed Jason met with a ‘mid value’ donor – someone who had, with their partner, donated $4,000 in 2015. I’ll call the donor Bernadette because it kind of works with the charity name.

Bernadette told him she was keen on ‘stretching’ her (and her partner’s) donation to have more impact. So Jason and Bernadette agreed that a special communication would go out to donors.

The message was simple ‘One of our supporters has offered to match your gift up to $50,000.’

With time short, the campaign was run as part of the second ‘wave’ of mid-year appeal. Basically a follow up letter to the original appeal.

Jason told me; “the matched gift offer boosted results and the campaign raised an extraordinary $326,000 (including the $50,000 donation). About $150,000 came in after we went out with the offer – it definitely got a lot of traction out there.”

Although the matched offer would have done better as a letter earlier, this is still a great study of delivering what a mid value donor wanted – and lifting them into the major donor zone.

By the way, if you're interested in how you can turn your mid level donors into major gift donors - you should join my next webinar, where we'll give you more details and a process on how to do this.

Click here to register for 'The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Earn Extra Cash Now, Turn Mid Value Donors into Major Gifts In a Week.'

This webinar will be live on 29th / 30th September (various time zones are available), however even if you can't make the date the recording and slides will be available for all who register.

Like many fundraisers, Jason is keen to expand his knowledge and understanding of fundraising. In particular, he has gained lots of good tips and knowledge from Pareto, our blogs and my webinars.

“Sean’s webinars have given us some much-needed focus, clarity and inspiration to help grow our mid-value donor program at low cost. It’s been great to watch them as a team and learn together. Already, we’ve made practical improvements such as using an effective method for building our mid-value donors portfolios.”

Because Jason is so nice he is also happy for me to share the full copy of the direct mail letter, second wave/reminder (with the matched gift ask) and response coupon.

Just click here for the PDF in un-merged format, showing you all those personalisations.

If you are struggling to find an offer for your mid value donors, but want to try and lift them up then this is always something available to you, and very attractive to many donors.

Let me know of examples of multiplying gift appeals you have seen. You can find me on Twitter @SeanTriner or post a comment below.

Click here if you haven't already registered for 'The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Earn Extra Cash Now, Turn Mid Value Donors into Major Gifts In a Week.'

How much research should I do on my major donors?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:35:00 +0000

A well researched tale about two fundraising approaches.

Featuring Bastian the fundraiser at Malnutrition: Unacceptable For Children (MUFC) and Jamie from Let’s Feed Children (LFC).

They both became fundraisers at about the same time just over a year ago. Both had the job of increasing revenue from their ‘mid-value’ donors: people who had given more than average.

Neither charity had ever had a mid or major donor program beyond it’s existing direct mail program.

Bastian, MUFC

Bastian knew that the more you know about donors, the more chance you have of getting a large donation from them. MUFC had never had a major donor program so this was a great opportunity.

Since he arrived at MUFC, he identified prospects ‘worth’ approaching for a personal visit:

A: 955 donors currently giving large amounts through the direct mail program.
B: 196 donors currently not giving lots, but with potential. Determined by asking a major donor prospecting data agency to scan the MUFC donor database for rich people, (36 were giving more than €500 to MUFC)
C: 254 prospects who were identified as wealthy connections to MUFC. For example, some were friends of board members, others were ‘known’ wealthy locals.

Bastian had spent about €3,500 plus his time getting the data from the database.

He now had over 1,400 prospects: 955 + 196 where he knew their past giving history and 254 who hadn’t given.

Bastian now knew he had to prioritise. He asked the prospecting agency to provide profiles of the 36 prospects giving over €500 (i.e., rich people who were already giving large-ish gifts).

In addition he asked the agency if they had profiles of any of the 254 ‘C’ prospects on their database.
They had quite a few and he paid extra for 44 of the best prospects profiles.

This cost of these 80 profiles (36 + 44) was €60,000 plus about twenty hours of work – but now he had a lot of great information.

For his final research, he hired a temp researcher who helped him Google and use other public information to learn more about the remaining prospects.

Bastian managed to achieve all that within three months of starting his job with MUFC.

Next he started building brilliant, individualised cases for support for the top 80 prospects.

This work took him about nine months – back and forth with field workers, case studies and trying to get a ‘shopping’ list of items donors may be interested in.

Now he had everything lined up.

He started trying to contact the top 80 prospects: which included the 36 rich people who had given over €500 (donor prospects) and the 44 really rich people (cold prospects) who were connected to board members or just wealthy and local.

After another three months, approximately one in four of the donor prospects agreed to meet. And nearly all those who did made donations.

Only one board member managed to get a meeting specifically about donating to MUFC with any of the cold prospects. She met three people, but wasn’t able to ask. She said it was the ‘wrong time.’

About 15 months from starting, he had raised €90,000 plus €50,000 in pledges.

Another board member committed to raising €10,000 for MUFC at an upcoming golf day. That board member ‘ring-fenced’ his contacts, telling Bastian to wait until after that day to follow up. Of course, he would ask for a decent time-frame between the golf day and a formal approach. Probably a year.

So, after 15 months, tons of work and a cost of about €65,000 Bastian had raised €90,000 and had €50,000 in pledges. If those pledges came in, he should have covered all of his costs in just 15 months.

Jamie, LFC

Jamie took a different approach.

She knew that the most likely to donate were people who had donated before, but since only about one in four or one in five would ever meet up she decided to research people after they had agreed to meet.

Step one for her was the same as Bastian’s. Look at the database.

She identified these prospects:

A: 812 donors giving large amounts through the direct mail program. These mid and major gift prospects had all given to LFC’s direct mail in the past.

Jamie worked with the direct marketing team to identify what the next campaign would be. She interviewed a worker from the field, collected some extra photos from the direct marketing team and copied some videos they had from the website to her iPad.

After six weeks she really understood the cause, had lots of stories and lots of video from the next direct mail (and web) campaign.

She then went through the list of donors, called them and asked them for meetings.

Over the next six weeks she managed to speak with 380 of the 812 donors! Twenty actually made donations over the phone – usually about the same size as previously, but one gave €20,000.

Of the remaining 360, 205 agreed to meet. Before each meeting she Google’d them to find out what she could. Even after that, she knew nothing about most except their previous giving to LFC. But that was enough.

Within those six weeks she had met up with 160 of her mid and major gift prospects. She managed to get total donations of €390,000.

In total, she had raised over €400,000 in her first three months. She knew from the database it was €250,000 more than what these people had ever donated before in a year.

Not bad, but next she needed some really big donations which wouldn’t be as quick. So she convinced the boss to take on someone else to keep this pace up, whilst she started looking at those BIG prospects.

Learnings from this story:

Most donors won’t meet you, but that’s OK. Even attempting is good donor care.
Focus on people who have given to your organisation in the past. They are much more likely to give than those who have never given. And don’t be tempted early by those big wigs your board knows. Board ‘leads’ can be awesome, but rarely. Start with the low hanging fruit.
Wait until donors agree to meet you before you research beyond previous giving. That way you will be more effective and be able to meet many, many more donors. Living in this state of frantic research is fine, if planned. And don’t worry if you don’t find much more out. Their previous giving is the gold dust of research.
You probably already have great major gift propositions within your current programs. You don’t have to develop new cases for support straight away. For example, Amnesty lifted a donor’s gifts by asking them to kick off the next direct mail appeal with a big donation. Read the Amnesty Case Study here. And I have another story with a similar case coming from Burnett Institute, which will be in my next blog.
Fundraising planning and tactics are all about the numbers. Jamie chased the numbers.
This approach doesn’t excuse you from chasing the biggies, where things take longer and more thorough research is worth the effort. Ultimately do both, but in the first place - just get out there and ask.
There are no excuses for relationship / philanthropy / major donor fundraisers getting out there and asking. Fast.

Any connection between names and English Premier League teams is nearly coincidental.

Sean

PS By the way, if you're interested in learning more about how you can turn your mid value donors into major gift donors - you should join my next webinar, where I'll teach you a process to follow to do this, fast!

Click here to register for 'The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Earn Extra Cash Now, Turn Mid Value Donors into Major Gifts In a Week.'

The webinar will be live on 29th / 30th September (depending on your time zone) - the webinar recording and slides will be available for all who register, regardless of whether you can make the live webinar.

The Easiest Case for Support

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 23:30:00 +0000

Bas, a new fundraiser at a Dutch charity decided he needed to get out and meet some donors.

He looked at those donors who had given by direct mail, since that was most of them. The third donor he spoke to (of a dozen he tried to call) agreed to meet him. Indeed, she sounded excited. Her name was Jeanette.

Every Christmas for four years Jeanette gave €250, and for the big fistula appeal last June, a year ago, she gave €1,000.

She also gave €500 last February, but this time to a young girls’ education appeal. All were in response to letters she’d received from Bas’s charity, like the one below, which was their upcoming appeal.

Bas had been to a few conferences, and knew he needed a case for support. But that seemed like it would take a lot of time to develop from scratch.

Now that Jeanette had agreed to meet, Bas had a look in more detail at her giving history. She seemed to respond really well to issues about children and young people.

And the next direct mail appeal was all about fistula – something she had given very generously to in the past.

He decided the easiest thing to do would be to take the personalised direct mail she would be getting in the post and deliver it by hand. The brilliant communications team in the charity had researched the topic really well.

They had lots of photos for the direct mail campaign (many more than were used) and videos too. They were running the videos in posts on social media and on their website.

He printed the photos out on good photo paper – like one of those envelopes of photos we used to get before photography went digital. He also got the videos transferred to his Samsung tablet.

He had a good, long chat with the communications people, who had met the people featured in the appeal. Now he had a great – albeit second hand – story of the project from someone who’d been there.

He would love to have taken one of those ‘witnesses’ with him, but he knew he would be visiting lots of donors, and dragging a communications or programs person to every one would not make financial sense. He had to make this work on his own.

Now he had a great case study – basically the next direct mail appeal – and some extra material. All at hardly any cost of money or time.

Jeanette loved it. She loved the time he gave her, the videos and the photos. He made her feel special. And she really cared about the young people he talked to her about. She used to be a nurse, and knew all about fistula – a horrible but easily cured condition, which without treatment causes lots of problems for victims.

She gave him €20,000. More than either expected. Which actually allowed him to raise €100,000 more. (But more about that in another article.)

Don’t use the lack of a case for support as a reason not to ask your direct mail donors for more.

They really care already, or they wouldn’t be donating. And you’ve got great material already!

By the way, if you're interested in learning more about how you can turn your mid value donors into major gift donors - you should join my next webinar, where I'll teach you a process to follow in order to do this.

Click here to register for 'The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Earn Extra Cash Now, Turn Mid Value Donors into Major Gifts In a Week.'

The webinar will be live on 29th / 30th September (depending on your time zone) - the webinar recording and slides will be available for all who register, regardless of whether you can make the live webinar.

Sean

Important: Date changes for my next webinars

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 22:00:00 +0000

Just a quick one to let you know of a date change for my final two webinars in the Mid Value Donor Webinar series.

The next and penultimate webinar is being pushed back to the end of September, replacing the final one’s time slot. And the final webinar is being moved to another date.

Details of titles, times and dates and how you can register are below.

If you haven’t been to any webinars yet, there's plenty of time to register! And don’t worry if you can’t make the live broadcast date, every registrant receives a webinar recording and the slides. If you missed one of the past webinars, you can still get the recordings.

I am really enjoying sharing this knowledge of mid value donors with you. And this is the type of feedback we're getting from others who've attended my webinars so far…
"Sean's knowledge on how to grow charity revenue is very valuable. I learn every time Sean speaks."Jeroen van Kernebeek, Managing Director, Four Paws Australia

Dates and times for my next webinars:

The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Extra Cash Now. Turn Mid Value Donors Into Major Gifts In A Week.

Thursday 29th September / Friday 30th September (depending on your time zone).

Click here to register for this webinar if you haven't already or you can check times below.

Americas Edition

Thu 29th Sep 12.30 PDT - US West Coast
Thu 29th Sep 14:30 CDT - Mexico City
Thu 29th Sep 15.30 EDT - US East Coast
Thu 29th Sep 16.30 BRST - Rio De Janiero, Brasil
Thu 29th Sep 20.30 BST - London, UK
Fri 30th Sep 05.30 AEST - Brisbane, Australia
Fri 30th Sep 05.30 AEDT - Sydney, Australia

SE&E Asia, Oceania edition

Thu 29th Sep   17.00 PDT - US West Coast 
Thu 29th Sep   20.00 EDT - US East Coast 
Fri  30th Sep    01.00 BST - London, UK
Fri  30th Sep    08.00 HKT - Hong Kong                                                     
Fri  30th Sep    09.00 JST - Tokyo
Fri  30th Sep   10.00 AEST - Brisbane, Australia
Fri  30th Sep   10.00 AEDT - Sydney, Australia 
Fri  30th Sep   13.00 NZDT - Auckland, New Zealand 

Europe, Africa & W Asia edition

Fri 30th Sep 04.00 PDT - US West Coast
Fri 30th Sep 07.00 EDT - US East Coast
Fri 30th Sep 12.00 BST - London, UK
Fri 30th Sep 13.00 CEST - Paris, Brussels, Madrid
Fri 30th Sep 13.00 SAST - Cape Town, South Africa
Fri 30th Sep 14.00 EAT - Nairobi, Kenya
Fri 30th Sep 15.00 GST- Dubai
Fri 30th Sep 16.30 IST - Delhi
Fri 30th Sep 21.00 AEDT - Sydney, Australia

Top Tips For The Conversation That Gets The BIG Gift From The Mid Value Donor.

Thursday 27th / Friday 28th October (depending on your time zone)

Click here to register for this webinar if you haven't already or check the times below.

Americas edition

Thu 27th Oct 12.30 PDT - US West Coast
Thu 27th Oct 14:30 CDT - Mexico City
Thu 27th Oct 15.30 EDT - US East Coast
Thu 27th Oct 17.30 BRST - Rio De Janiero, Brasil
Thu 27th Oct 20.30 BST - London, UK
Fri 28th Oct 05.30 AEST - Brisbane, Australia
Fri 28th Oct 06.30 AEDT - Sydney, Australia

SE&E Asia, Oceania edition

Thu 27th Oct 17.00 PDT - US West Coast
Thu 27th Oct 20.00 EDT - US East Coast
Fri 28th Oct 01.00 BST - London, UK
Fri 28th Oct 08.00 HKT - Hong Kong
Fri 28th Oct 09.00 JST - Tokyo
Fri 28th Oct 10.00 AEST - Brisbane, Australia
Fri 28th Oct 11.00 AEDT - Sydney, Australia
Fri 28th Oct 13.00 NZDT - Auckland, New Zealand

Europe, Africa & W Asia edition

Fri 28th Oct 03.00 PDT - US West Coast
Fri 28th Oct 06.00 EDT - US East Coast
Fri 28th Oct 11.00 BST - London, UK
Fri 28th Oct 12.00 CEST - Paris, Brussels, Madrid
Fri 28th Oct 12.00 SAST - Cape Town, South Africa
Fri 28th Oct 13.00 EAT - Nairobi, Kenya
Fri 28th Oct 14.00 GST- Dubai
Fri 28th Oct 15.30 IST - Delhi
Fri 28th Oct 21.00 AEDT - Sydney, Australia

Sean

An Aussie/Brit Trying to understand the US Democrat Convention

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 02:49:00 +0000

Ten thirty PM on 28 July 2016. Well, a little after because Chelsea Clinton was going on about how good her mom was. The commentator on the TV said "Chelsea Clinton extolling her mums virtues. It seems she's like a mother to her".

They got bored of Chelsea and started yapping about other stuff.

Four days of this. Parties (the drinking type, not political) every night. I still don't get these $250m+ conventions.

But here I am, at a friend's house in Massachusetts watching the inauguration of the first woman to be a contender for President of the USA. About time too.

I've always thought America was progressive on women's rights but it is pretty amazing that we had to wait to 2016 to see a woman accepting the nomination from the 'progressive' party of America.

American politics is not in a good place - unlike my home countries, England and Australia who have both had a great couple of months in politics ;) - it is like watching an unbelievable soap opera.

But here we go.

Let's not get carried away.

"It would be historic to have a woman in the White House. But if we are to embrace a feminism that concerns itself with more than the inclusion of women (particularly wealthy white women) in corporate capitalism and US imperialism, then we need a President who is willing to challenge the status quo. We need a leader unafraid to stand up to a system that idolizes profit at the expense of human decency, and who will work to replace it with one that serves the interests of all its citizens."
Julia Sharpe-Levine, Huffington Post.

Sean

(PS - I love the financial news reminding us who is really in charge around the edge of the TV :))

We've got to build a relationship! But when is the right time to ask?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:06:00 +0000

We've got to build a relationship! Everyone says so. But when is the right time to ask?

If they have a history of giving… all you need to do is ask!

Alex

Alex is a caring and loving person. She really likes kids and hates the idea of any child, anywhere in the world suffering.

She loves the work of the charity Malnutrition: Unacceptable For Children (MUFC). She found out about them through a letter she received from the lovely boss there, José.

Every Christmas for four years Alex gave £250, and for the big malnutrition appeal last June, a year ago she gave £1,000. José wasn’t around, but MUFC’s star fundraiser, Javier had called her to say thank you on behalf of José. She appreciated the gesture.

She also gave £500 last February, to another malnutrition appeal. All were in response to letters she’d received from MUFC.

A new person at MUFC, Bastian called her to say thank you and to introduce himself. He told her that Javier had actually left to work for a similar organisation in Germany, but he would be taking over.

He arranged to meet her and ask her about her giving and the latest campaign.

They had a really long chat and both left happy. Bastian has tried to catch up with her a few times since, but she has been too busy.

Back at base, Bastian spoke with José and – unbeknown to Alex - they decided that they should concentrate on the really big donors as that was where the money was. And that people like Alex should just go into the direct mail pool.

Nigella

Nigella is also a caring and loving person. She really likes kids and hates the idea of any child, anywhere in the world suffering.

She loves the work of the charity Let’s Feed Children (LFC).

She found out about them through a letter she received from the lovely boss there, Sven.

Every Christmas for four years she gave £250, and for the big hunger appeal last June, a year ago, she gave £1,000. Sven had left a while back, but a new person, Claudia, had written to her to introduce herself and tell her about the work LFC were doing.

It was quite a long letter that made her feel quite important! Claudia remembered Nigella had told her on a previous donation form that she had two grand kids and asked her if they were well. Claudia told her they were still a little short of target, so Nigella sent the lovely charity another £500.

She also gave £500 last February, to another malnutrition appeal. All were in response to direct mail. Claudia wrote again to thank her, and introduced her fundraiser, Jamie, whom she said would soon be in touch.

Jamie called her to say thank you. He told her that the previous fundraiser, David, had actually left to work for a similar organisation in Middlesbrough, but Jamie would be taking over.

Jamie arranged to meet Nigella and ask her about her giving and the latest campaign. They had a really long chat and both left happy. But just before the end of the meeting, Jamie spoke to her about a special campaign that was coming up.

Jamie told her all about the kids needing help, including one she had met – little Marcus – who was really into football, and already impressing his friends. He had some video of Marcus playing football with friends – and Marcus shone above all the older boys!

Then Jamie showed pictures of the village, and the sorry state of affairs in Marcus’ home country. He showed Nigella the stark reality – which was much worse than she expected.

Jamie explained that without Nigella’s support to get this next campaign going, it would be tough for Marcus to even survive, never mind be able to enjoy himself.

Nigella decided to help and donated £5,000.

Back at base, Claudia and Jamie debriefed. They really did appreciate Nigella’s donations but also knew they don’t have much time. The plan was to meet, thank and ask Nigella in one go. Her donations showed she really cared – she already had a relationship with LFC.

And they were right.

If you want to lift a mid value donor to major donations level it may take a while. But time and time again we see that if someone is already a donor and willing to meet, you should probably ask.

Now, if I was trying to get £1,000,000 I probably would not ask for that straight away – but it wouldn’t harm the potential to give donors opportunities to invest in that mid value area first.

Sean

PS Any names or circumstances are purely coincidental. Sorry, England fans.

PPS If you're interested in how you can turn your mid value donors into major gift donors - you should join my next webinar, where we'll give you more details and a process on how to do this.

Click here to register for 'The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Earn Extra Cash Now, Turn Mid Value Donors into Major Gifts In a Week.'

This webinar will be live on 29th / 30th September (depending on your time zone), however even if you can't make the date the recording and slides will be available for all who register. 

Is fundraising unique in different countries?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:01:00 +0000

Learning and Sharing Across Three Continents

Learning and sharing across three continents!

This 'winter' I have headed North.  Very north in fact, starting in Alaska.  I am writing this on the plane from Vancouver.

I put 'winter' in quotes because the big advantage of crossing the equator is the season reversal. (Though surprisingly, the temperature is the same at home in Australia as it is in Anchorage, Yorkshire, Amsterdam and Dublin this week!)

If you are a charity or non-profit bod living in Anchorage (13 July - be quick!) Dublin (1-2 September), Amsterdam (6 or 7 Sep) or Vienna (19 or 20 Sep) I really hope that I may get chance to catch up with you there.

Across those cities I will be presenting on one or two of the three topics that I think offer the most fundraising opportunity to charities world-wide in 2016.

Not that I think these should replace any fundraising activity that is already working for you, but all could help enhance your current program, or be a new 'thing' in your portfolio.
Legacies/bequests.  By far and away the most important source of revenue per donor, and the area with the most potential from current databases of direct mail donors.
Mid and major donors.  The fastest, easiest and cheapest way to make more from your current database, and extend the life of current donor acquisition methods.  You may have already noticed my passion for this area with the fifteen or so emails/blogs or articles I have written on the topic recently!
Digital fundraising, especially using Facebook and looking globally.

Wherever you live, if you have a direct mail program, I bet you could do better with the first two legacies and mid/major donors.

Making digital fundraising work is a bit more challenging, and is not for everyone.  The three secrets to making digital work are:
A fantastic, strong, social offer
A message people would be willing to share with their friends AND take action.
"I need to do something about this" is the   feeling you want, not "Someone needs to do something about this."
The right audience.  Older people give more.  But getting a big enough volume of older donors is challenging.  Facebook is the key, and the larger your reach (why not global?) the better chance of success.
Budget and knowledge.  Strategic growth in digital fundraising is not free.  Whether out-sourced or in house, you need to pay for development, creative, media and integrate with phone.

If you want to know more about these topics...

... and you are in Anchorage (13 July) or Dublin (1-2 August) click on the city to find out more.

... and you are in Amsterdam (6 or 7 Sep) or Vienna (19 or 20 September) click on the city to email your interest to the relevant people.

... but if you are not available in those places above, email me sean@seantriner.com and ask me any questions, or for help if need be!

See you soon!

Sean

PS If you're interested in how you can turn your mid value donors into major gift donors - you should join my next webinar, where we'll give you more details and a process on how to do this. 

Click here to register for 'The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Earn Extra Cash Now, Turn Mid Value Donors into Major Gifts In a Week.'

This webinar will be live on 29th / 30th September (various time zones available), however even if you can't make the date the recording and slides will be available for all who register.

How Accurate is the Pareto Principle?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 22:27:00 +0000

Hopefully you know all about the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule.

In fundraising it means concentrating more resources on the 20% of people who would, theoretically, give you 80% of your future revenue.

Pareto² (Pareto squared) is a little bit more complex. It is when we look at those top 20% of donors, and note that 20% of them will give a majority of income too.

Again, theoretically, this small number (20% of 20%, which is 4%) would give you 80% of 80% of your revenue – 64%.

This theory can really help with resource allocation. But how close is reality to theory?

The Principle ‘works’ to different degrees. A charity with a database consisting of only monthly donors would have a ‘flat’ Pareto score. Their top 20% of donors might give just 45% of donations for example.

Whereas a charity who has a broader portfolio of donors and is good at maximising revenue from bequests and mid-major donors would be much closer to the ‘true’ Pareto principle.

My colleague Andy Tidy had a look at all the individual donations made to all 75 charities in the Pareto Benchmarking study, and we saw something really interesting.

Bringing the charities together, you would expect the charities who are reliant on monthly giving would ‘balance out’ the charities who do well in bequests and major donors to get us close to the Pareto principle.

And indeed they do.

One off donations – including bequests – come very close to the ‘Perfect Pareto’.

With 73% of revenue coming from 20% of donors, and 46% coming from 4%, those one off gifts are close to theory. When charities are really good at their bequests and major donors, their Pareto principle will be closer to 80/20 and 64/4.

But monthly givers are nice and ‘flat’ with the top 20% of donors ‘only’ giving 45% of revenue, and the top 4% just giving 16%.

Pareto Principle - Theory v Reality

So what does that mean when you develop a plan for your mid value, major donors and bequests?

Well, the lessons of Pareto still apply – there is more potential now and into the future from a minority of your donors. Your approach should be the same.

Here are my thoughts about the Pareto principle and Pareto², even if the numbers are not quite 80/20 and 64/4.

You will get a majority of your revenue from a minority of donors
If you have a ‘flat Pareto score’ - like 20% of donors giving you 50% or less of revenue - then you are probably not doing enough work in the areas of bequests, mid and major donors
If you have a ‘steep Pareto score’ - like than 5% of donors giving you 80% of revenue – then you may be too reliant on a few donors for your whole operation. Time to invest in some monthly givers?
Increasing investment in your ‘top’ donors is likely to reap rewards. What type of investment?
- Better stewardship
- Visits, events and meeting donors ‘in the field’
- Bigger, better direct mail to fewer donors
- Integrating direct mail with digital, phone, visits and events

So don’t worry if you don’t have a perfect Pareto score, the learnings still apply and can guide you in your future planning.

And if you're interested in how you can turn your mid value donors into major gift donors - you should join my next webinar, where we'll give you more details and a process on how to do this:

The Quickest, Cheapest and Easiest Way to Extra Cash Now, Turn Mid Value Donors Into Major Gifts In a Week.

The webinar will be live on 29th / 30th September (depends on your time zone), however even if you can't make the date, the recording and slides will be available for all who register.

Click here to register for my webinar.

Sean

How much ‘relationship’ is enough?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 15:41:00 +0000

When fundraising is like the gawky guy or gal who just needs to ask for the date!

There are lots of books, blogs, webinars and conference sessions about stewardship and building relationships with donors. Most I have seen are good, and the theories would work if charity staff did them.

But most take a long time, and involve developing big cases for support, many meetings, lots of research and more. They also rely on experienced and rare staff talent.

Looking around at data, as well as having an understanding about how many charities operate, most stewardship and relationship plans simply don’t work.

Why? Impatience, too many distractions and short employment periods all contribute to the failure. As does the challenge to get the talented staff, or the difficulty in dealing with staff who are simply not up for the job.Also, we tend to aim a little high, and often try to build relationships with people who have a capacity to give but no previous relationship directly with our charity.

A while back I came up with a little program that I called ‘Major Donors, Next Week.’

The idea is for charities with large enough databases to turn donors who give, say $1,000 into donors who give $2,500 very quickly. It has even increased donors to give over $10,000.

This is possible using these tools and thoughts:

Donors who have given well above average already have a relationship with you - all you need to do is make a special ask

Better direct marketing will help, but nothing beats face to face conversations

You don’t need big or new cases for support – your direct marketing is already working on this group, so base your ask around the work you have featured in your direct marketing

Only research donors after they have agreed to meet

Meet and ask. Yes, ask in that first meeting

Do this next week, or it doesn’t work.

Go on, give it a go!

My next webinar will actually give you more details about this exciting yet simple program. And I’ll also give you a process to do this. But ultimately it is a more structured version of those points above. Uncomplicating the process is key to making it work.

Click here if you haven’t already registered for The Quickest Cheapest And Easiest Way To Extra Cash Now. Turn Mid Value Donors Into Major Gifts In A Week. Live on 29th / 30th September (depending on your timezone), but the recording and slides available for all who register – even if you can’t make the date.

Sean

The Pareto Principle - Damian O'Broin's latest blog

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:25:00 +0000

You may like to hear from other fundraisers from time to time, so I'd like to share my friend and fundraising expert, Damian O’Broin’s latest blog on the Pareto Principle.

Yes, I know you have heard about this principle a million times before, but I believe it is always worth reading others thoughts, particularly if it only takes you 5 minutes, which this will.

Click here to read Damian's blog: bit.ly/Damians_blog

I am also very proud to be invited to speak at Ask Direct (Damian’s agency)’s Summer School in Sept 2016. Click here to find out more about the event.

Stewardship 3 Easy Steps Presentation Slides

Customer Care Feedback Handling Guide Mini Give Away

Customer Care Training - Module Overview (Pareto)

Donor Feedback Log Template

Examples of lovely thank you communications

Nice donor cards from Maude at Children of the Street Society

Example welcome program

Should we thank? Proof in numbers? AND how to construct a thank you test.

How good is your donor care?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:21:00 +0000

Hi!

I'm Fiona McPhee - Fundraising Strategy Director for Pareto Fundraising. Sean has asked me to help him with his webinar on stewardship this week.

I am really looking forward to this as it is an area of real passion for me. His other webinars have gone down really well, with great feedback, like this:

“This series thus far has been the best investment I have ever made in webinars. My entire development team of [six] … are participating and all of them are gaining so much knowledge and information... If only we could get our board and executive leadership to watch these too!!!”

Mary Butler, Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis

If you have already registered – great and thank you! But please read on, because I would like to ask a favour of you…

All registrants get a recording and the slides, and if you are free for one of our three time slots on Thursday or Friday (depends on your time zone) you can attend live.

Stewardship: Three Easy Steps To Make Your Mid-value Donors Feel Like The VIPs They Really Are

If you haven’t registered, you can now watch the recording here. We are limited to 101 people per webinar watching live so please register soon!

The favour: Can you please help Sean and I help more charities? Whether you work within a charity or an agency, we want to showcase great examples of donor care and awesome anecdotes of wonderful stewardship.

A letter or video you are proud of, or a communication you received. Anything that shows off great donor care to help others learn.

And – a very generous gift indeed – I am hoping for one or two people willing to share their organisations’ donor care plans, diagrams or flow charts. Or an anonymised client’s plans? (If you are an agency bod, we will credit you if you request it).

Perhaps you have a nice chart or process flow diagram of what donors get what communications?

Just imagine how useful that would be for a charity.

You could be helping so many more causes beyond your own. And would very likely trigger a donation from Sean who will almost certainly donate himself to such generous charities!

Please just email anything useful to sean.triner@paretofundraising.com topic/subject ‘Donor Care.’

You can now watch the recording of Stewardship: Three Easy Steps To Make Your Mid-value Donors Feel Like The VIPs They Really Are

If you can’t make one of the three time slots this Friday in New Zealand and Australia, or Thursday in Europe, UK and North America, don't worry! All registrants will get a copy of the recording, slides and any handouts so you can watch anytime. It is just US$89. That is less than the price of a taxi from the airport in London! (Well, it was, depends on how much more the pound has fallen since Brexit!)

Reminder of what we'll cover in the stewardship webinar:

In the session we will be:

Looking at a sensible and practical decision ‘flow’ for managing donor care and stewardship with limited resources
Dissecting some great donor care examples (like this CCIA one you can read here).
Giving you easy and instant tips to improve your causes’ donor care – in a way that will make you more revenue.

See you soon!

Click here to watch the recording.

Thank you so much.

Fiona McPhee
Fundraising Strategy Director, Pareto Fundraising

Great Donor Care from Amnesty International

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 13:02:00 +0000

You know how we all worry about overheads? Well, Josh O’Rourke a relationship fundraiser from Amnesty International Australia had a good approach with one of his mid-value donors.

Having met up with a mid-value donor who had ‘only’ ever given $2,000, Josh found out the donor was keen to multiply her donation. The donor asked to be anonymous, but let’s call her Janine after Josh’s mum.

There is lots of evidence that ‘multiplying gift appeals’ increases average donation and/or response rate. The offer is something like ‘Donate by 30 June and our sponsor will match your gift…’

Janine had obviously liked that offer previously.

Chatting with his colleagues in direct marketing, Josh found out there were no matching gift campaigns that she could contribute to at that time. So he turned it on its head and asked Janine to be the ‘sponsor’ who would be matching other people’s gifts!

It turned out she was keen, and interested in Amnesty’s campaign on the back of their work with indigenous children. She gave $30,000. Josh was chuffed, as were his colleagues in digital direct marketing. They usually have such a campaign around this time of year, and hadn’t got a sponsor. They emailed it today.

Within ninety minutes of the email going out, they had raised $20,000, and will definitely whizz past the $30,000. Janine’s donation will be worth at least $60,000 to Amnesty’s important work.

Amnesty were making sure Janine felt like a VIP.

I hope the Amnesty example gives you some inspiration!

Amnesty match appeal email campaign

Do You Care About Donors!?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:13:00 +0000

Is stewardship just another buzzword? Is that why so few charities actually bother?

Of course you care about your donors. But how much should you care!?

The webinars I have been running for about a year now have been really popular and the Stewardship one is really stacking up to be one of my best.

After a recent webinar, Andrew Hateley from The Leprosy Mission Australia said“Thanks Sean! Really appreciated your frankness and clarity around what is and isn't a good investment. Will definitely carry your insights with me into future fundraising/marketing/communications strategies.”

Every registrant gets the recording, the presentation, and a load of useful information whether they attend live or not. Brilliant stuff you can watch anytime.

Ted Davis from US Charity AmeriCares said my webinars had…“Great, usable content. Goes right to the heart of the issue”

Stewardship: Three Easy Steps To Make Your Mid-value Donors Feel Like The VIPs They Really Are

In my line of work, I come across very few ‘experts’ in donor care and stewardship. Fiona truly is an expert.

I met her when she was ‘doing’ customer care at WWF Australia more than ten years ago. Now she is one of the most senior and accomplished consultants in New Zealand. With a WEALTH of experience and knowledge I reckon even just the Q&A section at the end of the webinar will be worth your time and investment!

In the session we are going to show you how to steward. How to do good donor care. We are going to give you some fantastic handouts and examples of great donor care.Fiona is going to give you awesome decision trees and maps for stewardship.She will also give you some incredibly practical training tips for your staff and volunteers.

Stephen Batsche, Executive Director (the BOSS!!) from The Salvation Army USA“Your advice is straightforward, practical and based upon experience.”

Well Stephen, thank you – and this next webinar is going to really make sure we do the same.

You will leave with a toolkit containing immediate, practical ideas to go and do.

Also, there will be lots of handouts, examples and more. I am going to give you the MOST bonus material I have ever included with a webinar. (Nearly of all which Fiona prepared J)

Stewardship: Three Easy Steps To Make Your Mid-value Donors Feel Like The VIPs They Really Are

Long Fundraising Letters. Why, oh, why!?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 20:05:00 +0000

Long letters work better.

But don't just take it from me.

Dr Barnardo wrote a four page appeal letter in London in the 1880s using classic DM techniques. Underlining, urgency, dollar handles, specific ask and a clear reference to what YOU could do to help. The winter had been 'the severest and most arduous, so far as work among the children of the poor is concerned.' So the good doctor needed to raise £100 a day for food. He told readers 'unceasing demands upon our resources' were having an unprecedented impact on his charity.

The four page Dr Barnardo letter from the late 19th century.

Years later, another children's charity, Starlight, had a rough year and they had decided to go public about their shortfall. Unceasing demands upon their resources were tough too. They asked for funds but also had a refreshing degree of honesty. The donor learned that part of the shortfall was because Starlight funding strategy relied too much upon events and companies.After reading the press stories about their plight I pulled together an 'emergency' appeal to their donors and met up with them. The emergency appeal was only developed to show how I work, but they decided to mail it immediately anyway.

The opening paragraphs of the Starlight letter

A full Case Study of this appeal is here, including an entire copy of the mailpack here.

It would never win awards for graphic design beauty. But the appeal raised over target. It more than doubled the amount raised from the same donors the previous year.

At the heart of the appeal was a four page appeal letter.

Despite the rise of other media, direct mail is still the biggest source of new one off donors. So it is important we maximise revenue from mail donors. And longer letters will tend to do that for you.

New Cash Recruits - by channel, across Pareto benchmarking charities.

I really don't like long letters, by the way. They are a pain in the butt to write, check copy, get clients approval, print and mail-merge. And someone important in most of our clients doesn't like them. And they don't look great in my portfolio (though the results do).

And I prefer doing digital stuff. And... I think you get the idea.

In focus groups, donors say they dislike them too. In Hong Kong, one client ran focus groups which all concluded that donors would be more likely to respond to a pack with a two-sided letter and tear off coupon than a four-page pack (actually eight pages - English and Chinese) with lots of additional information. The two pager raised HK$1.5m (AUD$220k) - the big pack raised over HK$7.5m (about $1.1m).

But they work. As you can see from the test results below. These are from a revolutionary pack National Heart Foundation did more than a decade ago.

I featured it in training I did on writing great direct mail for mid-value donors. (You can access this training session as part of the mid-value webinar series I have done).

Long letters beat short letters - a defining test by National Heart Foundation

It isn't just me that thinks so. Jeff Brooks attempts to explain why fundraising letters tend to work better in this 2012 article. He also tells us in his Fundraising is Beautiful podcasts that in tests, long letters are three times more likely to win than shorter ones! (He adds long email appeals are twice as likely to win as short email appeals).

I know longer letters tend to work better, but not because they are long. I think it is because, to tell a good story with a beginning, middle and end and ensure the right fundraising tactics, it simply takes more words. These tactics include target, what the target is for, deadline, establishing need, demonstrating solution, demonstrating why that charity is best placed to solve etc). Having said that, a dreadful four pager is worse than a good two pager - if a story can be told more quickly then tell it. As Mal Warwick says 'A fundraising letter should be as long as it needs to be...'

This article is a re-hash of one I wrote seven years ago. Things have changed since then, but nothing changed in terms of whether long letters work better or now.

See Dr Barnado's 19th century appeal on SOFII here.

Long letters tend to work better with mid value donors too. Maybe it is just about respect - good donor care to take the time to explain why the donors support is so important.

The most powerful fundraising tool in the world

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:44:00 +0000

Understanding donors

The most important asset a fundraising organisation has is its database of supporters. But only if it is actually recording useful information.

Luckily, most organisations record main contact details plus transactions. In other words, you know where someone lives, hopefully you have their phone number and email address and you know how much they donated and when.

Basic analysis of this data can help you predict how likely people are to donate to you and how much. If communications that have been sent are also analysed you can even work out what donors are most likely to respond to, too.

This basic data is crucial for making a basic direct marketing program work. But to make charity direct marketing fly we need to build relationships, and we do that through respecting our donors and their wishes. And we do that by using the most powerful fundraising tool ever – the survey.

The survey - the most powerful tool in fundraising

Achieving many goals

This multi-function device, used well, will also help corporate, major donors, events, donor retention and bequests. It can even be used for PR purposes, and it usually makes a profit on its own.

These are real surveys, getting really useful information, they are not scientific research and shouldn’t pretend to be. Even so, be honest with the donor – you want their opinion and to be able to communicate better with them, but you can also share their views with the public.

Short term benefits

Our tests have shown that, despite running a survey to get data including a direct ask does not suppress response. In other words, using the survey as an actual fundraising appeal subject works. You should aim to break even but what we have found is that when a survey is sent to donors who have responded to a previous appeal through the post, the survey actually makes a profit.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has been using surveys as an integral part of its donor communications strategy for some time now. Their first survey was mailed to over 25,000 donors and nearly one in four responded – half with a gift. They not only received a ton of useful information but made a $50K ‘profit’ as well.
Information taken from the surveys is then reflected back to the donors in future communications. For example, if a donor is motivated and interested in climate change, but an appeal is about forests then the letter should be personalised to connect the donors concerns with the subject of the appeal.

Important Note: The sort of surveys I am talking about tell us how to communicate better with individual donors. They are not quantitative research tools!

Medium term

Appeal results and retention can be improved by clever use of survey information, and their completed survey is The Perfect Aide Memoir to take with you with when meeting a major donor. It pretty much tells you what to ask for!

But most charities who use the survey wisely get medium term returns on their regular giving. For example, The Lost Dogs’ Home uses surveys to gather pet names. It has found that this is crucial for building relationships. They include personalisation in appeal letters mentioning the donors pet name:

“Thank you so much Sean, and please give Bilbo an extra cuddle from all of us at The Lost Dogs’ Home!”

But they also use it in phone conversations with donors. When asking donors to increase their monthly gifts, known as ‘upgrade calls’ our caller asks after the health of the donor’s pet.

The Pareto Phone team compared the upgrade success rate of donors we spoke with where we knew pet name against those where we had no pet name. The results are extraordinary:

Knowing Bilbo – a great way to see the value of listening to donors and reflecting back what you heard in future communications.

And the long term

Already surveys have proven their worth. You can see how using them for donor care, appeals and upgrades can work really well, and make them a useful part of the mix. But the biggest return comes from bequests. Specifically using surveys to generate bequest (legacy) leads.

The best measure a bequest fundraiser has to monitor their performance is a count of people who have mentioned the charity in their Will. We call these ‘confirmed bequestors.’
By asking the right questions, we can identify these and also bequest ‘prospects’ – i.e. those most likely to become confirmed bequestors.

A well thought through approach ‘burying’ the bequest question in a survey obliterates any other method of bequest marketing I have ever seen.

For example, Australian National Heart Foundation had seven full time equivalent bequest officers working traditional bequest marketing techniques for seven years to get around 1,500 confirmed bequests. A brilliant achievement and potentially worth $75m, producing a huge return on investment.

But a year of surveys with follow up mail and phone acquired another 1,500. The charity now uses a combination of both techniques to drive more bequests.

And the surveys keep working. The Lost Dogs’ Home now has about fifteen (!) percent of key financial supporters who have put the charity in their will.

A word of warning

Don’t rush out and do surveys without ensuring you can follow them up, record the results and actually use the data in communications with your donors.

It is not as easy as just writing a survey – a good survey needs a great cover letter, it asks questions that help you understand what motivates your donors (avoid questions like ‘how many times they like to be mailed?’), a bequest conversion pack and trained people to follow up leads. And remember, a bequest lead from a survey is only ‘hot’ for a few weeks with conversion success dropping off dramatically the longer you leave it.

Surveys are just part of good donor care.

Fantastic Donor Care

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 11:31:00 +0000

Everyone talks about stewardship and donor care, but great examples are actually pretty rare.

But it is actually not that hard to ‘do’ great donor care. Nor is it that expensive.

Looked at in another way, NOT doing donor care is expensive.

One of my favourite pieces of great donor care is a letter I received from the Children’s Cancer Institute nearly ten years ago. Click here and have a read.

All the coloured text is actually personalised based on my previous transactions.

In my next webinar I will be talking about donor care, along with Fiona McPhee, a New Zealand based fundraiser working for Pareto Fundraising. Her career has zoomed along from real hands-on customer service within charities, to teaching good donor care. Now she is one of the most experienced (and brilliantly charming) fundraisers around.

We already have people registered from large and small charities and agencies in New Zealand, across the USA, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, UK and South Africa.

Click here to watch a recording of my webinar Stewardship: Three Easy Steps To Make Your Mid-value Donors Feel Like The VIPs They Really Are

If you can’t make one of the three time slots on June 30 or July 1 (depends on your Timezone), don’t worry – all registrants will get a copy of the recording, slides and any handouts so you can watch anytime. It is just US$89 (less than the price of a taxi to and from the airport in Melbourne!) In the session we will be: Looking at a sensible and practical decision ‘flow’ for managing donor care and stewardship with limited resources Dissecting some great donor care examples (like the CCIA one you can read here) Giving you easy and instant tips to improve your causes’ donor care – in a way that will make you more revenue.

See you soon!

Interested in the webinar? Just click here watch the recording.

Sean

If Shakespeare Wrote about Fundraising...

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 00:20:00 +0000

It would be a tragedy!

The Capulets (The DMs)

In the red corner, we have the mass marketing Capulets. The direct marketeers (DMs). They look after the majority of donors.

They deliver mass produced communications, but personalise it a little. And they focus on efficiency as well as volume. While their salaries aren’t that big, they come with very expensive direct costs for print, postage, agencies, copywriters and more.

They have helped build donor databases and secure ongoing revenue in many nations, especially in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and just about every western European nation.

You’ll find the Capulets in ‘classic’ charities – charities dealing with humans, animals or the environment. Charities like Greenpeace, Red Cross, Cancer Foundation, Heart Foundation, UNICEF, Amnesty, WWF and local causes. And they are working on raising ongoing revenue.

A few Capulets manage to land jobs in universities, hospitals and arts organisations where they are granted a desk and computer in a dark basement. Sometimes a chair too.

Generally they look after donors under a certain monetary value. If they succeed in getting the donors to a higher level, the donors may be taken away from them and passed to the Montagues.

The Montagues (The MDs)

In the blue corner, we find the sworn enemy of the Capulets. The relationship focused major donor development people (MDs). They look after the top end of town.

With bigger salaries, but low direct costs the Montagues are Very Important People. If your charity is going to get $1,000,000 from someone it is more likely to come from the Montagues than the Capulets.

You’ll usually find the Montagues in institutional fundraising organisations, and the bulk of the money they raise is in capital development. You’ll find them in hospitals, universities and arts organisations.

Occasionally you might find them in ‘classic’ charities, housed next to the CEO and hobnobbing with star-struck boards.

Neither the Capulets nor the Montagues are better than the other. They both play a part in fundraising – a very, very important part. I reckon the Montagues (MDs) probably raise more than the Capulets (DMs), but most of that is capital.

The problem is that the Capulets and the Montagues don’t get on very well. And they don’t have the Prince, Benvolio and the the Friar trying to bridge the gap.

Shakespeare brought the families together by sacrificing Tybalt and Mercutio, Juliet and Romeo.

We also have our sacrifice. The millions of dollars lost to charities because of these six mistakes created by the family feud:

Assuming someone who makes a donation over a certain amount wants a personal relationship with someone in the charity.
Taking people over a certain dollar value out of the direct marketing program in the hope of forming said relationship.
Failing to try and meet some lower value donors who would be worth meeting – e.g. a donor who drops $1000 to a direct mail appeal is probably worth meeting.
Trying to maximise volume of mailings and donor databases rather than focusing on the quality of data and the quality of communications. Mailing better communications to ‘better’ doors will make more revenue. Even if the extra unit cost means reducing volume.
Spending too much time planning, researching, developing a major donor program, and avoiding actually meeting with potential major donors.
Thinking for one moment that a really rich well known stranger who knows someone who is friends with someone on the board is a better prospect than a non-famous donor already on the database who has given $1000.

Just like in Romeo and Juliet, we can see how the story unfolds, but it is easier to avert tragedy.

All you need to do is avoid those six mistakes.

Sean

PS – OK, if Shakespeare had written this, it would have been better than what I have just written, but give me a break for trying a different angle!

PPS – for more information on avoiding those mistakes, please check out my series of webinars and recordings on Mid Value Donors. The latest of which, I'm holding Thursday and Friday with Tom Ahern, at various times - see details below.

Click here to watch the recording of my webinar with Tom Ahern:'Release the Explosive Generosity LockedInside Your $100+ Donors ... With These Proven Direct Mail Secrets.'

Watch live 9th or 10th of June (various time zones are available) AND you'll also receive the recordings and slides to watch at your leisure. 

Quick Quiz: Who is Most Likely to Give You $5000?

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 23:10:00 +0000

Quiz question: Who is most likely to donate $5000?

Picture this scenario. We have two donors.

Donor A

Kate (and her husband, Clarke). In their mid 40's, with two kids.

They donate automatically every month through their credit card. They sponsor two children, costing them about $1,200 per annum. They've done so for three years.

Two or three times a year their own kids swap letters with the sponsored children. They also get regular progress reports on the sponsored children, their families and local community.

Donor B

Margaret, in her late 60's.

She has donated three times in the last four years. Each time was $1,000 in response to direct mail. No donation in year three, but her most recent gift was about nine months ago.

No other correspondence, except for she received a thank you call from our CEO after the most recent $1,000 donation. This is when we started trying to call such donors to say thanks. She said she liked the work the charity was doing and to '…keep up the good work.' No other communications.

The ask

We have a mid value donor program, which for us, is trying to raise $100,000 from about 100 people, aiming for an average donation of $5,000.

We only have the resources to follow up 100 donors and have decided to visit them at their home. But which donor is most likely to give us $5,000 if we ask?

For a little more context, we know the average five-year-value of a monthly giver who is also a child sponsorship donor is around $2,000. Our average five-year-value of a direct mail donor is about $400.

So Kate and Clarke, as well as Margaret, are already telling us they are 'better than average' by beating that average soundly within just three years.

The charts below show average values of donors by 'type,' focusing on how they were acquired in the first place. You can see we are already at the top end with our five-year average.

Five-year value of face to face acquired regular donors. From Pareto Fundraising Benchmarking 2016.

Five year value of cash donors. From Pareto Fundraising Benchmarking 2016.

Cash gifts over $1000 by age. From Pareto Fundraising Benchmarking 2016.

Who is most likely to give us $5,000?

The answer seems obvious. Surely Kate and Clarke? They give more, are more reliable and they correspond with their sponsored children. They seem more committed – more involved.

But on the other hand, they are younger than Margaret and probably arrived at the cost of sponsoring through a discussion process and most likely budgeted for it. They are likely giving what they think they can afford.

Also, they are likely have less disposable income because of a mortgage, school fees etc.

Margaret, however, is likely to not have these things and she donated a grand without an intimate relationship.

I would love to speak to them both, but I haven’t the resources. So I am going to focus on Margaret.

Margaret is most likely to give me a larger one-off gift.

Even without my theorising about budgeting process, mortgages and school fees I would still go for Margaret. It is her age that seals the deal for me.

The plan

My plan would be to send Margaret a great high value direct mail piece, and am also keen on following her up with a personal visit.

Quiz answer

In reality, you don’t know. But you have limited resources.

With these limited resources, I would be using my high value cash techniques (direct mail, phone and personal visit) on people like Margaret. Only when I have tried all the Margaret's, or have budget to spare, would I be aiming for big cash gifts from the Clarke's and Kate's.

Interested in more explosive tips like this one?

Watch the recording of my webinar with Tom Ahern:'Release the Explosive Generosity LockedInside Your $100+ Donors ... With These Proven Direct Mail Secrets.'

Sean 

The Missing Millions in YOUR Charity's Databases

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 31 May 2016 02:14:00 +0000

We fundraisers have a problem. OK, we have many, but a big one is the ‘missing millions.’

Direct marketing expert Roger Craver calls releasing these missing millions ‘miracle’ fundraising.

But I think that is too generous.

Image: Where are the missing millions?

Tapping the money is not a miracle. But not tapping this resource is unforgivable.

Where are these missing millions?

They are in your databases.

They are the funds people would donate if only you gave them the right opportunity.

The problem is our historical structure.

We have built fundraising around either mass marketing (direct marketing, or DM)

personal relationships (major donors, or MD).

And we define the difference between them as an amount of money.

Donors however, don’t buy into that definition. Many lower ‘value’ donors would be much more valuable if only we worked on building a relationship with them. And many high ‘value’ donors simply don’t want a personal relationship.

The solution is actually quite easy.

Direct marketeers need to produce the best possible communications for their top donors, and produce cheaper versions for lower value donors. They need to sacrifice volume (numbers mailed or telephoned) to free budget to allow improvement in the quality of communications.

And major donor fundraisers need to spend more time meeting with donors. If they did, the cost per visit would be less and they could also then justify spending time with donors giving at lower values.

If you have already booked the latest webinar, great stuff and thank you!

If not, and you are interested in seeing how to tap into your part of those millions? Click here to watch the recording of our webinar ‘Release the Explosive Generosity LockedInside Your $100+ Donors ... With These Proven Direct Mail Secrets’.

Sean

Tom Ahern and I are going to make your cause money. Lots of money.

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Fri, 27 May 2016 14:07:00 +0000

Perhaps you have enough already in your bank account. Helping everyone you can.

Or maybe your direct mail is already perfect and you maximise the donations from your database – and have no doubt about it.

But I doubt it.

I know you want to raise more because you are reading this.

On 9/10 June come to ‘Release the Explosive Generosity Locked Inside Your $100+ Donors ... With These Proven Direct Mail Secrets.’ And Tom and I will give you solid, simple tips on how to boost your income. Fast and easy.

(Formerly known as ‘Writing and Creating Mid Value Direct Mail: same webinar, much better title thanks to Tom Ahern!)

So much Direct Mail. How do I Cut Through and Raise More for My Cause!?

Whatever your time zone, there is a slot that works for you to watch live. Or maybe you would prefer to watch a recording with your whole team at a time that suits you?

Everyone who registers has an opportunity to attend live. Whether you make it or not you will get the recordings, the slides and any handouts.

AND if you miss the live session but have burning questions: no worries – just email me!

Sitting in your database is a mass of money that you could be missing. Donors with a capacity to give well above their current levels are waiting for you to allow them to do so.

And we will show you how.

For just the price of a taxi to and from the airport in Melbourne this webinar offers amazing value at just USD$89.*

In this practical webinar we are going to:

Briefly look at who are the people ready to give you more money
How to develop awesome offers (propositions)
Very quick, easy and specific approaches to copy
An awesome copy checklist! Yours to keep forever.
Creative execution ideas: how to get those packs opened and drag out those huge gifts and response rates and, finally
Hyper-personalisation. How to use data to really press the right buttons.

Tom and I look forward to seeing you there – to watch a recording of the webinar click here.

Sean

*USD$89 is about $125 NZD/CAD/AUD or €79 and £61.

** Dates and times by timezone below.

Americas edition
Thu 9th Jun 12.30 PDT - US West Coast
Thu 9th Jun 14:30 CDT - Mexico City
Thu 9th Jun 15.30 EDT - US East Coast
Thu 9th Jun 16.30 BRST - Rio De Janiero, Brasil
Thu 9th Jun 20.30 BST - London, UK
Fri 10th Jun 05.30 AEST - Brisbane, Australia
Fri 10th Jun 05.30 AEDT - Sydney, Australia

SE&E Asia, Oceania edition
Thu 9th Jun 17.00 PDT - US West Coast
Thu 9th Jun 20.00 EDT - US East Coast
Fri 10th Jun 01.00 BST - London, UK
Fri 10th Jun 08.00 HKT - Hong Kong
Fri 10th Jun 09.00 JST - Tokyo
Fri 10th Jun10.00 AEST - Brisbane, Australia
Fri 10th Jun 10.00 AEDT - Sydney, Australia
Fri 10th Jun 12.00 NZDT - Auckland, New Zealand

Europe, Africa & W Asia edition
Fri 10th Jun 04.00 PDT - US West Coast
Fri 10th Jun 07.00 EDT - US East Coast
Fri 10th Jun 12.00 BST - London, UK
Fri 10th Jun 13.00 CEST - Paris, Brussels, Madrid
Fri 10th Jun 13.00 SAST - Cape Town, South Africa
Fri 10th Jun 14.00 EAT - Nairobi, Kenya
Fri 10th Jun 15:00 GST- Dubai
Fri 10th Jun 16.30 IST - Delhi
Fri 10th Jun 21.00 AEDT - Sydney, Australia

Using URLs in Direct Mail

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Tue, 24 May 2016 23:14:00 +0000

Thanks to Mike Linnemann from the University of Minnesota Foundation, and Tom Ahern, donor communications expert whose recent Twitter conversation inspired this blog.

Direct mail is the largest source of new donors in most fundraising markets.

(AND if you want to know more about how to maximise income from your direct mail, please check out my upcoming webinar on this topic. View the recording here! )

Yet, even with an average age of 70-80, depending on country, many of these donors are online as well..

So, should we include convenient URLs for donors in our direct mail letters?

URL on a response coupon - in the 'To Make a Gift' section.

The answer seems obvious. Of course we should! If we do, we see a big spike in online donations.

But is that the right answer?

A good few years ago we tested including URL on the donation form and in the PS of a direct mail letter. Something like:

www.charityname.com.au/BetsyAppeal.

In this A v B test, half of letters (A) included the URL, half (B) didn't.

Unsurprisingly, there were more donations made online from the A Group - people who were given the URL, than from the B Group.

Whenever you send direct mail, there is usually a spike in donations to the standard donation page on www.charityname.com.au. However, with volumes usually being very small, it is hard to make valid conclusions.

The correct measure for the test, because this was a warm (house) mailing going to previous donors is:

“Does adding a URL to my direct mail letter increase total net income from the group who got the URL?”

Any other measures, like how many donations were made online, average donation and response rates, are all variables contributing to that single question.

In the test the answer was....

NO. Adding the URL reduced total income. Although the A group gave more online,their total giving (including off and online) was less than the B Group.

Adding a URL to my direct mail letter reduced total net income.

Why? What was going on?

My theory is simple.

A good direct mail letter is designed to trigger an emotional response and get the recipient to do something now. With the standard letter, we asked them to fill in the form, right now, pop it into the enclosed postage paid envelope and post today.

That’s probably what they have done before, which is why they are on our direct mail warm (house) file.

With the letter that included the URL we added an extra option, such as, 'Or you can make a donation online at...'.

What happened was that the 25% or so who had opened the letter and felt motivated enough to give either filled the form there and then (yay!) or put the letter aside with 100% intention to donate when they were online.

The problem is (or was) that they would then have to do stuff to log on - like turn on their computer.

Precious time would pass between their desire to donate and the actual act. And that time would eat into response rates.

Of course, these days with three or four times the mobile penetration than when we tested it (four years ago) many can indeed donate online straight away.

But remember, the average age of a direct mail donor? Hmmm, what proportion of people that age can donate straight away online?

The answer: I just don't know. Please, someone test it!

The first charity to send me the results of testing this properly:

A true A/B test looking at whether adding a URL to letter, PS and/or response form statistically increases net income will get a donation of US$150/AUD$150/ €150 from me if they let me post the results.

Sean

PS

Click here to watch the recoding of my webinar with Tom Ahern -
Release the Explosive Generosity Locked Inside Your $100+ Donors... With These Proven Direct Mail Secrets.

Pareto Principle and Direct Mail

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Mon, 16 May 2016 15:24:00 +0000

I’ve reminded you all about the ParetoPrinciple, and written about Pareto². It’s all well and good in theory.

But how can it be applied in practice?

One of the most obvious applications is when targeting and budgeting in direct mail.

If I am working on a direct mail pack to my house file (people who have donated through direct mail before) I can use the principle to increase revenue. And usually for no extra cost!

A fundamental mistake in direct mail is when the goal is to reach as many people as possible, as cheaply as possible.

Generally the bigger and better the pack, the better it will perform. A ‘better’ pack may get a higher response rate and/or a higher average donation. But it probably costs more per pack to mail.

Applying the logic of the Pareto principle, we can quickly work out that sending a bigger, better pack to fewer donors will raise more money.

A really easy example is that I may be planning on spending $1.50 for a standard pack to 20,000 people. That will cost me $30,000. (Print and production is expensive here in Australia!)

My ‘better’ pack is going to cost me $3, but my budget is stuck at $30,000.

I would mail the $3 pack to the top 20%, about 4,000 people. Wiping out $12,000 of my budget I now only have $18,000 left and 16,000 people I could still mail.

Now, with the remaining budget I can either:

Mail a much cheaper pack to all of them ($18,000/16,000 = $1.12 per pack) OR

I only mail 12,000 people with the $1.50 pack.

Whichever I choose, I will raise more money in total. But only if the pack really was better.

Nice and clear?

Here it is in a video.

Sean

Why you should register for the Mid Value Webinar Series - with Roger Craver and Tom Ahern

noreply@blogger.com ('Sean is always learning') — Fri, 13 May 2016 08:30:00 +0000

You're frustrated.

You have all these donors already on your database. And you suspect there's a LOT of additional giving hiding inside those generous hearts.

The only problem is: you don't know how to release it!

But we do!

And we'll show you step by step how to raise far more money from your existing donors ... in this unique series of webinars by three of the world's most successful fundraising experts.

Your investment in these exclusive expert-grade webinars will pay for itself many times over. Guaranteed! (And, by the way, unavailable elsewhere.)

You can view recordings of my Mid Value Donors Webinar Series here.

Then go buy or borrow a wheelbarrow. For all that extra cash you’ll have for your important cause.

Through this series of webinars, along with my truly esteemed colleagues, I will be giving you a ton of useful and practical information for increasing revenue from mid value donors.

The first webinar is this week - starring the most accomplished and experienced charity direct marketeer I know, Roger Craver.

And a few weeks later, we will have everyone's communications hero Tom Ahern.

In the series we give you almost EVERYTHING you need to make fundraising from mid value donors work.

You just need to add some hard work, a great offer and that wheelbarrow!

Why attend?

Mid value / mid level donors are the biggest immediate fundraising opportunity for any charity with current donors.
Getting mid value fundraising right is not usually expensive. It is a matter of focused resources.
The series of webinars gives you everything your need to know to make your mid value program soar.
We are going to feature an amazing frank and step-by-step case study of a relatively small international charity - willing to share their learnings about targeting, writing, personal visit plans and more!
We will cover maths and targeting, how you ask, ways to improve direct mail, and sensible, manageable stewardship. This series is awesome value.
Five webinars, three hosts (Roger Craver, Tom Ahern and me) and in a time zone to suit you.
If you miss one, no worries - every registrant gets the recording, the presentation and any handouts.
One registration - but you can share the material across your whole organisation.

That looks good doesn't it? Watch the recordings now.

But please don't just take it from me. I have been working with Orbis in New York on mid value donors and more for a little while now.

Don't just take it from me, I have been working with Orbis in New York on mid value donors and more for a little while now. Here is what Laura Parrotta has to say...

And her colleague, Norma...

"Sean’s clear and concise advice is based on deep analysis of what works in fundraising. Because his advice is based on knowledge and experience, I feel confident as I write direct mail and high-level donor appeals that it’s going to work.

I just listen and take lots of notes as Sean talks, and I capture his ideas and wording, and I know it’s wording that works.

All his ideas have the target of getting people to give at their own best level of commitment. So I know that, with Sean’s help, I’m working to maximize the good my organization can do."

Norma Hopcraft, Associate, Donor Development, Orbis

View the webinar recordings here.

I hope to see you there. Thank you!

Sean