Just to introduce a reality check into the matter…in a national donor survey we conducted, we learned from donors themselves that they support a variety of nonprofits — and your very best donors may be supporting more than ten!  That doesn’t sound like they belong to any particular organization, does it?  ”Your” donors are also supporting their church, alma mater, political campaigns, United Way, health-care related organizations, the PTA, their local Goodwill, homeless shelter, little league and Girl and Boy Scouts.

The fact that donors give to multiple organizations should not only prevent us from considering them “our” donors, but it should make us think of “Nanna.”  Why?  Because these donors give to you, and like a grandmother who sends Christmas gifts to all her grandchildren, they wait to see who remembers to say thank you, who shows appreciation for the gift “Nanna” just sent.  You can be sure “your” donors are keeping track and they compare your expressions of gratitude with those of the other organizations they support.

It’s easy to understand.  Just think about the last time you sent a gift for a bridal or baby shower.  After a few days, you probably started looking for a thank you note from the gift recipient as you sorted through your mail.  You might have even noticed the thank you that you did receive was a generic “thank you for your gift” note with no mention made of what you actually gave.  Someone was pumping out thank yous as fast as they could.  Also, think about the times you sent a gift and never received a thank you, or months passed before one came.  We all have the same expectations, and your donors are just like you.  They want to be thanked.  They want to feel appreciated.

As we enter the “season of sharing,” remember to make it the “season of thanking.”  Are you showing enough appreciation to your donors for their gifts?  Do you send out personalized thank you letters that specify the amount of the gift within 48 hours of receiving that gift?  Do you call your donors at least once a year just to say “thank you”?  Does your board chair send out a second personalized hand-signed letter to thank new donors or large year-end donors?  How many ways can you think of to thank the very people who make your work possible?

As times get tough, donors become more selective about the organizations they are supporting and donor attrition rates increase.  A lack of appreciation could be one of the criteria your lost donors were using as they moved on.  The next two months offer you a tremendous opportunity to stand out among the organizations “your” donors are supporting.  You can make them feel good about their decision to help you.  Think of the ways you can accomplish that goal and start today.

Call me at (325) 677-1342 ext. 108 or send me an email at pfulham@zachryinc.com and ask me how Zachry Associates can work with you to develop an overall donor retention program that will keep “your” donors giving larger and larger gifts … year after year. With more than 40 years of helping nonprofits grow their donor bases, we have pioneered ways to enhance your overall fundraising efforts.  So let me hear from you.

And, yes — “thank you” for reading this!

The organization is a well-established religious nonprofit that receives strong support, but they hadn’t been bonding with their upper donors.  Their annual appeal traditionally mailed in one version to all donors with very little personalization.  Since their upper donors are generous and committed, we suggested a special upper donor version of the letter be mailed with the person at the top hand-signing all 135 letters and adding personal notes that mentioned specifically the donor’s previous gift.

The unusually high response rate was also encouraged by a hand-signed thank you letter that mailed immediately after the gift was received.

The tremendous response is definite reinforcement of the need to pay extra attention to those who provide your greatest support.  Make them feel as special and as important to your organization as they really are.  They’ll respond!

Not many nonprofits will ever be sued for fraud and deceit, much less racketeering, but the fabrication of stories is another matter.  The lawsuit in Montana is a cautionary tale for all of us in charitable endeavors to keep our stories authentic and avoid rationalizations that the fictitious story we’re telling could have happened.  Sometimes an agency will write the same story in multiple locations and suggest each time that “it happened right here.”  These stories can bring embarrassment if found to be shared among locations.  Such practices reflect poorly on the nonprofit although they are usually justified by the desire to reduce fundraising costs.

There are far too many inspiring stories about the good work nonprofits are doing, stories we can tell our donors to let them know who they’re helping, to be making them up!

In our most recent mailing for one organization, we included a photo of a client and her story.  We also included a soft ask in the letter to renewing donors, along with a reply envelope.  We expressed hope that they would remain active this year, followed by this ask: “To that end, I have enclosed an envelope for you to use the next time you want to share your blessings with those we serve.”

Many immediately shared their blessings!  The nonprofit received a 4.22% rate of return from 2,396 donors with gifts totaling $18,612.  Not a bad response for a thank you letter.

A similar soft ask in a thank you could be an idea worth trying for your organization.

There’s an effective way to show your organization is a good steward of your donor’s gifts, and you can — and should — build your first mailing in 2011 around this strategy.  Your image as a good steward becomes especially important when you consider that “your” donors are not just “your” donors.  On the average, “your” donors also belong to 4 to 8 other charitable organizations in addition to their church.  That means “your” donors have an easy way to compare your organization with the other nonprofits they support.

Here’s how to differentiate your organization from the others by showing your organization is a good steward.  At the end of January 2011, plan a “tax statement” mailing.

Give this mailing a strong message of “Thank you and I really hope you’ll continue your support.”  Summarize what the donor did in 2010, emphasizing how a gift this month is needed to help your organization successfully kick off the new year.   Make an individual “2010 Gift Summary Sheet” for your donor showing gifts for 2010 by date and gift amount.  Provide a tear-off response slip on the bottom of the sheet that the donor can use to return their first gift of 2011 to your organization.  For “super donors,” have your letter signer write a personal note on the upper donor letter or summary sheet.

Include all of your donors in this mailing — not just those making gifts of $250 or more.  Some may say because of cost that lower donors should be excluded, but I propose that most people start supporting an organization with their smallest gift, not their largest.  Your package will say to the donor that all gifts are important, and it suggests to the donor that “if they track my small gifts with such care, I know as good stewards they’ll put my larger gifts to good use.”  Reinforce your image with facts — such as XX% of every dollar given goes directly to helping you accomplish your mission.

Zachry Associates can develop and mail a highly personalized “tax statement” mailing for your organization.  All you need to do is send us your 2010 donor files, and we’ll do the rest.  We’ll write a draft of a letter for you to edit, provide you with a layout and print your appeal and individual “giving summary” page.  We’ll also match all the pieces and insert them into a closed-face carrier that includes a business reply or courtesy reply envelope.

Making sure every one of your 2010 donors continues to support you in 2011 is key for your overall fundraising success.  Show your donors your organization is worthy of their continued support in 2011 by making your first mailing next year a personalized tax statement.

We can help.  Just send me an email at pfulham@zachryinc.com or give me a call at (325) 677-1342 ext. 108 to get started.

It comes up from time to time — should we send this fundraising letter from both the Annual Fund Campaign Chair and the Development Director — or some other combination of people?  The answer to that question is found in the answer to this question — have you ever received a personal letter from two or more people?  A letter signed by more than one person looks like a communication from a committee.  And hardly anyone reads communications from a committee.

Although most people would agree that a personal letter comes from only one person, if they are in development, they might turn around and think a fundraising letter from two or more people is a good idea.  “If we send the letter from both the Annual Fund Campaign Chair and the Development Director, we can give it twice the clout.”

Unfortunately, it would probably carry half the clout — or less.  My recommendation is always to have one person sign the letter.  You’re experienced in this process.  Think back to your college days and letters from home, which probably came from your mother.  It’s unlikely she said, “Well, I can’t mail this until Dad signs it too.”  She signed it and put it in the mail to you.

Do the same with your donors.  Give them a personal letter from one person.  And make it from the person at the top.  It might seem reasonable that a “lesser” figure with front-line experience in the organization and impressive credentials would carry equal weight, but we haven’t found that to be true.  Donors like to be acknowledged — and acknowledged personally — by the people at the top of your organization.  Give your donors what they want — a personal letter from the person at the top.

If you think way, way back to the first letter you ever wrote as a child, you’ll probably recall how you started it.  “How are you?  I am fine.”  That simple, traditional way of opening a letter was based on a fundamental principle of social discourse — putting “you” first and “I” second.

If you apply that philosophy and practice to your organization’s fundraising letters, you’ll probably ensure their success…because regardless of what you might think, your organization is not the most important thing in your donor’s life.  The donor is.

You can determine the priorities in your previous letters very quickly.  Find one of your best appeals and one of your worst, and perform the following analysis.  Circle every “I” and associated pronoun like “we” and “we’re”  and “us,” anything that indicates the letter signer or your organization.  Then draw a triangle around every word that applies to your donor, including “you” and “you’re” and  “your.” 

For each letter, add up the number of triangles and compare that number against the number of circles.  The number of you’s in your best performing letter will probably exceed the I’s and we’s.  And you’ll probably find just the opposite in a poorly performing letter.

Whether you do a word count or not, remember to focus on your donor.  The next time you mail a fundraising letter, see if it would make sense if it started with the traditional “How are you?”  If it doesn’t fit with what follows (because all you’ve written about is your organization), rethink your letter and put your donor in it.

Your strategy in writing a fundraising letter should be single-minded.  You want to guide a donor from Point A (an introduction) to Point B (the ask) as seamlessly and as convincingly as possible.  When you erect a roadblock, you take your donor down a side street and may lose them along the way.  A lost donor probably won’t send you a gift.

So your objective is to avoid placing roadblocks in the giving process.  In fact, your letter should make giving sound like the easiest, most reasonable and most pressing thing your donor will do that day. 

Roadblocks come in many forms.  A letter from someone other than the president or the person with whom the donor has a relationship introduces questions.  Who is this person, why are they writing me, and should they be writing me?  Those kinds of questions aren’t encouragement to give.  These are reasons to delay and often to avoid giving altogether.

Your development office has many worthy goals, such as stimulating attendance at special events and recruiting volunteers.  But those goals are unrelated to the intent of a fundraising letter and should be dealt with elsewhere.  If they find their way into your letter, they weaken your single-minded purpose.

Extraneous materials such as brochures or photos that don’t support your ask can be distractions and diversions.  So when you edit your letter, look for anything that may constitute a roadblock.  If it doesn’t support your ask and encourage giving, eliminate it.

Your fundraising letter must sell itself right off the bat.  The first thing a donor is going to do is scan it, and in an instant, they’ll decide whether your letter looks inviting to read…or whether you’ve made it look like a task they can easily put off — maybe forever.

The most important thing to remember is — you are not your donor.  As a fundraiser, you’re accustomed to seeing fundraising letters that were forced onto one page by shrinking the font, making long paragraphs and eliminating white space.  You can safely assume your donor won’t like the looks of such a letter, and if you mail one, it will probably end up in the trash.  Such a letter looks — and is — hard to read.

We tested the direct mail “style” — short paragraphs, indentions, underlining, lots of white space — while working with one of our university clients.  A professor making a matching gift wrote a fundraising letter, and it fit the description above with long paragraphs and little white space.  It was visually unappealing.  We rewrote it, much to her dismay.  She was appalled by our short paragraphs, underlinings and indentions and refused to sign it.  The university decided to test our “easy-to-read” letter against hers.  Ours won the rate of response contest by a 5 to 1 margin.

Remember the importance of selling your letter to your donor so it will pass the scan test.  A first impression is probably all you’ll have!