Category: Appeals

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The Last Four Days: When Online Giving Quintuples

Your year-end fundraising strategy must pay special attention to the last four days of the year. December is the most lucrative giving month of the year, and especially so for online giving. Approximately one out of every three dollars in annual giving is donated in December. In fact, 28% of nonprofits raise between 26% and 50% of their annual funds from their year-end drive. An additional 36% of nonprofits raise nearly 10% of their annual funds from their year-end ask. For online giving, the figure is even higher, with 12% of all annual online giving coming in the last four days. (Statistics

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Advanced Tips For Your Year-End Appeal Letters

Can you imagine how many nonprofit appeal letters I receive after 40 years in fundraising? And yet I still open each one, relish most of them, and occasionally grimace. Here are advanced tips for crafting your year-end appeals that will help you raise more revenue.   1. Is direct mail dead? It most certainly is not. Direct mail is still the workhorse of fundraising. You’ll want to collaborate closely not just with your printer and mail house, but everyone on your team—including your copy editor and graphic designer. What’s a good response rate for direct-mail fundraising? A recent Direct Marketing

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A Nifty Tool To Improve Fundraising Copy

“Books are well written or badly written. That is all.” Well, whatever aesthetic criteria Oscar had in mind when talking about literature, we can now scientifically say the same for fundraising copy. All I’ve ever done is write copy (I mean, I’ve done other stuff with my life, but not for a living). But it’s only in the past year, since testing and launching the Copy Optimizer, I’ve had any objective criteria by which to assess whether anything I wrote was good or bad. In the fundraising world good or bad is defined by response rate. But despite endless drafts and rounds

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Does positive or negative messaging raise more funds?

Do Negativity and Alarm Really Raise Funds?

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO A reader writes: “My inbox and mailbox are flooded with fundraising appeals from causes using the words ‘terrifying,’ ‘alarming,’ ‘emergency,’ etc.  “Yes, we’re in deep sh*t on many levels. Why would they think I don’t know this? The messages only make me more depressed, and depression does not motivate me to contribute. Does negativity and alarm really raise funds?”  —John, CEO of a civic education nonprofit   Dear John,  This is a top-of-mind question for many fundraising professionals. Fundraisers use danger messages because marketing data often (not always) shows they’re highly effective when compared with

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Kick Off Your Year-End Fundraising Drive With a Thank You-2

Kick Off Your Year-End Fundraising Drive With a Thank You

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO Your year-end drive likely features written and email appeals delivered between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. That’s good … but … Before you make your appeals, you have an important opportunity to say “thank you” — and to do so in a way that is fresh and vibrant. Thanksgiving offers you a perfect hook for kicking off your year-end drive through a Thank-A-Thon — a “Thanks Bonanza” that you can start preparing for now. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of thanking donors and doing so in ways that do not come attached

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Giving Tuesday vs. Donor Advised Funds

Giving Tuesday vs. Donor Advised Funds

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO As Giving Tuesday comes around on November 30, I am asking you to think deeply before you commit to promoting it. My annual struggle over whether to include Giving Tuesday (GT) in my year-end fundraising plan is in full swing. This year, I am distracted by the gargantuan untapped revenue that you can access from those donors with Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) — upwards of $140 billion. I am asking myself if instead of focusing on Giving Tuesday, would it be more lucrative for me to focus on cultivating and soliciting those donors with Donor Advised Funds? Your

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The Fundraiser’s Annual Calendar

There is a definite flow of philanthropic revenue, peaks, and valleys, throughout the year, distinct times, like the last quarter, when more donor giving is realized. You have to understand when those moments are, and what activities work best to capture the most revenue.

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You Will Love This Year-End Appeal Idea

You Will Love This Year-End Appeal Idea

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO The Thanksgiving holiday is an excellent time to extend gratitude to your donors, do you agree? Before mailing a single year-end fundraising appeal though, you can catch supporters off-guard with a positive Thanksgiving message full of gratitude. Don’t ask for a thing— not volunteer support, not links to social media, not their time, and certainly not their money. Don’t refer to the upcoming year-end appeal or include a donor reply envelope. Don’t mention previous donations. Just tell supporters that, on this Thanksgiving holiday, your nonprofit is thankful for them and why. A nice personal card

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