New Year's Resolution: Improving your annual appeal. A webinar from Third Sector Labs and Adcieo.

1. 800.383.3854 | www.thirdsectorlabs.com
a webinar from Adcieo and Third Sector Labs
© 2014 Third Sector Labs, Inc.

2. Welcome
The holidays just wrapped (pun intended) and
everyone is recovering
Your 2013 year-end appeal response should finish
soon
We’d like to talk about how to improve the appeal
… now
… before you become swamped by the next task or event

3. Agenda
1. Introductions
2. Talk about the fundraising appeal process a bit
3. Review what the experts are telling us about better
appeals
4. Separate content from data
5. Look at an example
6. Recommendations
7. Conclusions

4. Who are we? Adcieo
Adcieo is a leader in fundraising consulting, social media and
the use of fundraising technology
Debbie Snyder is the VP of Sales and Marketing
Debbie’s leadership experience includes
EDS, KindMark, Kintera and Merkle, Inc.
Website:
Email:
LinkedIn:
www.Adcieo.com
debbie.snyder@adcieo.com
www.linkedin.com/pub/debbie-snyder/0/448/89b

5. Who are we? Third Sector Labs
Third Sector Labs is a data services company challenging
nonprofits to re-think their data practices
Gary Carr is the Founder and President
Gary’s leadership experience includes Carr
Systems, Kintera, KindMark and United Way
Website:
www.ThirdSectorLabs.com
Email:
gcarr@thirdsectorlabs.com
LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/gpfcarr
Our data tip of the week: Facebook & Twitter

6. Shall we get started?

7. How was your year-end appeal?
It’s January …
Planning was done
Website was updated
Direct mail was sent
Emails were sent
Social messaging updated
And now …
Responses coming in
Results being tallied

8. What’s on everyone’s mind?

9. Chairman:
“Did we hit
our goal?”
Executive
Director:
“What’s the
number?”
Anonymous
staffer:
“It feels like
feast or
famine.”
Director of
Development:
“Can I keep my
job?”

10. Is anybody talking about the most
common mistakes made with an
annual fundraising appeal?
And is it too late?
No … and, no!

11. The anatomy of the
annual appeal
Let’s break it down (briefly)

12. #1: Components
Planning
&
budget
Content
Materials
Style
Data
Year-end appeal

13. #2: Schedule of activities
Before
• Planning
• Messaging
• Materials
• Website
• Direct mail
• Email
• Social media
During
• Donations
received
• Results tallied
• Inquiries
answered
After
• Enter data
• Update records
• Send out responses

14. What are the most
common mistakes?
What do the experts say?

15. Let’s find out
Start with the leading search
engines …
Use a variety of search
terms and questions …
To find the most consumed
advice …

16. And our survey found …
Top 30 articles
90%+ in the past two years
156 total recommendations
Which we organized as follows:
Content only
Content and data
Data only

17. Examples of what we found
Content only
Weak call to action (CTA)
Failure to tell stories
Content only =
messaging, style, mat
Failure to demonstrate impact
erials, communication
Failure to personalize
frequency, etc.
Small fonts
Too much content … too little
Too many communications … too few
Sloppy mistakes, misspellings
Failure to thank donors

18. Examples of what we found
Content and data
Treating all donors the same
The ask is too small
Failure to track responses to the
appeal, analyze the results
Failure to research prospective
donors / audiences in order to
determine the right message
Content + data =
Content decisions
depend upon data
analysis

19. Examples of what we found
Data only
Data only =
Failure to reach out to lapsed donors
Action is strictly
Failure to reach out to new donors
data related
Failure to track fundraising stats
Failure to clean and update your donor list

20. We graphed the problem
(because we are data-heads)

21. Examples of the advice
Before …………. After
Thank donors
Track responses vs messages
Track donor stats
Send reminders
Collect the pledge
Convey urgency, impact
Simple writing style
Larger asks
Personalize
Don’t treat all
Tell stories
Stronger CTA donors the same
Envelope design
Fonts
Research prospects
Better plan
Don’t ignore lapsed
donors
Mailing list
Content …………. Data

22. Before …………. After
4%
2%
1%
4%
81%
6%
2%
Content ………..…. Data

23. The mistake about the most
common mistakes
What does the survey data tell us?

24. The survey data says …
81% focus on content related activities
before the appeal
12% vaguely discuss content-related data
issues, but offer little direction
Only 7% discuss what to do after the
appeal … and most are thank you
reminders
Only 3% address data

25. Problem:
Nobody is talking “data”
Recommendations for “Content + Data” …
Recommendations for “Data” …
All require interpretation to understand that the issue is data.
For example …

26. Bigger Problem:
Nobody is explaining “data”
Nobody explains things like …
How you do something such as track an appeal response
against the message, or
How do you NOT treat all donors the same, or
How do you analyze lapsed givers
This work starts with data.

27. “Feast or famine”
In other words …
With so much of your effort going
into pre-appeal, content-related
activities …
This is why every fundraising appeal
feels like “feast or famine”.

28. What do we do?
Where do we start?

29. Good advice
“The temptation to form
premature theories is upon
insufficient data is the bane
of our profession.” –
-- Sherlock Holmes
Is he talking about solving crimes
or fundraising?

30. Start here: two simple rules
Rule #1:
If the data is poor, the content does not matter
Rule #2:
What you do AFTER the appeal matters as much as what
you did BEFORE

31. So, how can you improve the
appeal?
Let’s look at an example

33. GEDCO Donor
Individuals
‐
‐
‐
‐
‐
‐
‐
Corporations
‐
‐
‐
Older Adults
Professionals
Retirees
Faith Based
Baltimore Natives
Volunteers
Member
Organizations
Baltimore Based
Shared Vision
Personal Connection

34. How does GEDCO reach it’s donors?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Direct Mail and Newsletters
Online Engagement
Events
Phone-A-Thon
Board Fundraising
Individual Calls

35. From data to impact

36. Results: Comparison of EOY Giving
$160,000
$140,000
$120,000
Online Donations
$100,000
$80,000
Appeal
Responses
$60,000
ThanksGiving
Tribute
$40,000
$20,000
$0
EOY 2012
EOY 2011

37. Why the Increase?
New donors
Higher gifts from current donors
Use of communications
 Supported and framed final appeal
 Personal look at residents and clients

38. Bringing it all home

39. First and foremost
Act now!
The “after” to one appeal is the “before” to the next
one.
Your appeal response is producing thousands – tens of
thousands? – more? – of new data points … are you
prepared?

40. Our recommendations
Plan and commit to the plan
Separate the management of donor data from the activities
needing that data.
Data management requires you to be
not
PROACTIVE
REACTIVE

41. Our recommendations
1. Clean your data … REGULARLY
2. Check all data sources into your database
3. Ask for the data that you want from your donors
This is the easiest and cheapest way to enrich your data
4. Segment your donors and messaging
Do you know how your donors want to communicate?
Are you delivering the right messages to the right people?
5. Plan to turn higher quality data into improved fundraising
results

42. Hint
This approach applies to ALL of your fundraising activities …
Not just your annual appeal …
But you probably figured that out!

43. How we can help
... Start with a data assessment, schedule
data hygiene or develop a data quality plan
… Strategic planning and execution, to
turn your improved data into better fundraising results

44. Conclusion
Every organization must
(a) plan
and
(b) budget
for good data management

45. Before …………. After
Go from “feast or famine” fundraising
4%
2%
1%
4%
81%
6%
2%
Content ………..…. Data

46. Before …………. After
To sustainment
4%
2%
?%=
$$
4%
81%
6%
2%
Content ………..…. Data

47. Executive
Director:
“We are
tracking to the
plan.”
Anonymous
staffer:
“Already
working on the
next appeal.”
Chairman:
“We hit our
goal!”
Director of
Development:
“I can keep my
job!”

48. Questions ???
You can read more about this topic on our blog at:
Thirdsectorlabs.com

49. Thank you for attending!
Please stay tuned for upcoming webinars in
February:
1. “You can’t take it with you: why you don’t want to
migrate all of that old data into a new CRM”
2. “If your data isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse:
why?”