7. Fundraising Beyond the Homepage

Legal and IRS compliance? Check.

Inviting homepage with fresh content? Check.

Clean, easy-to-use Donate page? Check.

When you’re satisfied that those top priorities are in tip-top shape, that’s a sign that you’re ready to turn your attention to the next phases of fundraising: email campaigns and some carefully chosen direct mailings to bolster your online efforts.

Either of these elements can become quite involved for even medium-size nonprofits. We’ll outline a scaled-back plan that’s more manageable for small shops.

Email: Versatile and Valuable

Email has a lot going for it as a fundraising tool. It’s a personal, informal medium that most people are comfortable using. For nonprofits, it’s an inexpensive way to communicate—you don’t have the production and mailing costs of printed materials, or the hassles of stuffing envelopes and then cashing checks when they come in.

Email also is an invaluable tool for stewardship. You can keep your donors up to date on your programs and plans, thank them, share success stories, and invite their feedback.

Because email is so effective, your mailing list is possibly your organization’s most valuable asset, other than your name and reputation. Researchers have even calculated how much an email address is worth. The Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study for 2011, which looked at 700 nonprofits in the United States and Canada, found that the median amount raised per usable email address was $12.92 in 2011, up from $12.48 in 2010 and $11.68 in 2009 (Figure 7.1).

Figure 7.1. The median amount raised per usable email address per year across all verticals was $12.92 in 2011, a small but continued increase.

Source: Convio

It follows, then, that you’ll want to be proactive about building your email list. Here are some ideas for collecting email addresses:

• From your website: Place a Subscribe button on your homepage, or better yet, on every page of your website. It can be as simple for your visitors as just submitting their email address. If you want to collect more information with a longer form, make it easy by asking for only the information you really need—name, email address, home address. You can always gather phone numbers or information on personal interests later. Tell supporters why they’d want to subscribe: “Sign up for our e-newsletter and get news, tips, and updates on how you’re making a difference in our community.”

• Offer an incentive: Enter new subscribers into a drawing to win a gift certificate or other modest prize. If you conduct research or write tip sheets or white papers, offer them as free downloads. Put a quiz or puzzle on your homepage.

• On social media: Add a sign-up form to your Facebook page.

• From direct-mail pieces: Include a line for email addresses on donation forms that are mailed in.

• From phone calls: Ask for email addresses when you call your supporters. You can mention that email communication saves your nonprofit time and money.

• In your office: Place an email sign-up sheet at your reception desk for people who visit you in person.

• From business cards: When you exchange business cards at conferences or other functions, be sure to enter the email addresses into your database. Put a bowl or basket in your office to collect business cards.

• From your email signature: Include a link to your sign-up form in your own email signature.

• At events: Place a sign-up sheet at your fundraisers, or in your booth at community outreach events.

• From current supporters: Include a “forward to a friend” link in your e-newsletter.

• Ask donors: On your donation form, ask supporters for the email address of one or two other people who might be interested in your cause.

Once you have a nice base of email subscribers, it’s on to the next challenges: What are you going to write about? What if writing isn’t your strongest skill? What if your organization is so small that you don’t need, or can’t afford, an email service and a professional e-newsletter?

DIY vs. Email Services

Let’s get the last one out of the way first: There’s nothing wrong with sending plain-text emails. Nicely designed newsletters with several articles are great, but they’re not a must, especially for small organizations. Your supporters aren’t looking to be entertained or dazzled by visuals—they just want to know that their contributions are making an impact. You can accomplish that just fine with periodic text emails.

If you’re really on a shoestring budget or you’re just starting out, you could set yourself up on Google Groups or Yahoo! Groups for free, ask your supporters to subscribe to your group, and send your emails from there.

That said, email services offer features that can make your life easier, at prices starting around $30 per month. You can choose from a variety of templates to create attractive emails, but the greater value of these services is in the data they provide. Just for starters, you’ll know how many people opened your emails and on what devices, what links they clicked, and whether they shared with friends by forwarding or posting to social media.

Other typical features of email services include:

• CAN-SPAM compliance

• “Double opt-in” to confirm sign-ups. When people sign up, they get an email to verify that they really want to join your list. That prevents them from signing up others who might not be interested in your organization.

• List management to weed out defunct email addresses

• Optimized pages for mobile devices

• Segmentation, so you can email a subset of your subscribers based on where they live, for example, or what they’re most interested in, or their level of engagement.

For do-it-yourself newsletter producers, several websites offer free boilerplate email templates that are designed to display properly in Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, and other major email clients. Here are two to try:

• HTML Email Boilerplate, http://htmlemailboilerplate.com

• Emailology, www.emailology.org

Another service, Email on Acid at www.emailonacid.com, allows you to see how your email will look in 48 variations of the most popular email clients. You can preview in AOL Mail, Outlook 2003, and Gmail for free. The full service is available in pay-as-you-go bundles or by monthly membership.

Start with a Calendar

Dennis McCarthy, coauthor of the Convio benchmarking report, says nonprofit leaders frequently ask him how often they should email their constituents. There’s really no set answer, but most people are accustomed to getting email more frequently than direct mail.

If you have good content to share, every month or six weeks is a reasonable interval. If there’s an urgent need, say for fuel oil in an unusually cold winter, you can always reach out more often. That’s another benefit of email, by the way: the ability to communicate on short notice.

Emails don’t have to be—in fact, shouldn’t be—only about donations. You can use them to deepen your connections with supporters by occasionally just sending photos or a short video of your group at work at, say, a food pantry or Habitat for Humanity build, or a beach cleanup.

If emailing every month to six weeks seems too frequent for you, a seasonal email schedule can work just as well. McCarthy suggests that small organizations draft a simple communications calendar to use as a framework for tasks and themes. For example:

• Spring is a time of rebirth. Send an email about a new program, or someone who has renewed hope because of your supporters. Make note of who’s responsible for writing it.

• A summer email might be for a clothing drive or back-to-school effort.

• Thanksgiving is the perfect time to—yes—thank your supporters, letting them know that, for example, “to date, this is what we’ve accomplished with your support.”

• In December, outline your plans for the coming year, and ask for an end-of-year donation.

As your capacity grows, consider adding an email or two each year written by someone who’s received your services (but avoid solicitation). Also, have your executive director or president write once or twice a year, as the “voice” of your organization.

Write from the Heart

Now here’s the potentially intimidating part: The writing. You can have great ideas for making the world a better place but still find yourself staring at a blank Word document. But guess what? You don’t have to be a great writer, and you don’t have to hire one, either.

Just write from your heart about what you do well. Definitely find someone to edit for spelling and grammar—you don’t want outright errors. But your content doesn’t have to be so polished that it sounds like it came from a magazine. In fact, some of the best emails are those where an executive director or a recipient of services writes a letter about your organization’s impact. A real, heartfelt story lets people know that they’re giving to a group that’s making a difference.

The “real” image can be an advantage for small nonprofits. According to McCarthy’s benchmark study, donations to large nonprofits are essentially flat year over year, while small organizations, food banks, and schools are continuing to see double-digit growth. People want to give locally, and they like to help fulfill the basic needs of others in their community.

Here are a few more best practices for email campaigns (Figure 7.2):

1. Feature a story about one relatable person who succeeded because of donors’ generosity. (See our “storytelling” tips in Chapter 4.)

2. Include a small photo, but use mostly text. Not all of your readers can see images in email.

3. Write short, easy-to-read paragraphs. Use headings, bullets, and numbered lists to break up text and make it scannable.

4. Provide a clear call to action: Donate, register, volunteer, sign a petition, call your elected officials.

5. Offer information on how to contribute other than by donating.

6. Include a link for forwarding to a friend.

7. Provide an unsubscribe link.

8. Include your organization’s address and phone number.

9. Write a short, punchy subject line. Shoot for 50 characters or less. (Many nonprofits ignore this.)

10. Use a recognizable “From” line, usually your organization’s name.

11. Put key information at the top so it displays in email preview panes.

Figure 7.2. This newsletter illustrates some of the best practices of email campaigns.

Multiple Channels, Multiple Gifts

In the past few years, large nonprofits in particular have paid close attention to multichannel giving, looking for insight into the habits and differences between online and offline donors.

Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, conducts extensive research on the subject, looking into donor acquisition and retention, how much online and offline donors give over time, demographic differences, and more.

In the 2011 donorCentrics™ Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report, Blackbaud found that donors who were acquired online but gave offline as well gave three times more over five years than donors acquired by mail.

Other key findings about donors acquired online included the following:

• They tend to be significantly younger and have higher household incomes than donors acquired by mail.

• They tend to give larger gifts than mail-acquired donors.

• Their retention rates are slightly lower than those of mail-acquired donors.

The message that has emerged is that online and offline fundraising go hand in hand, and that nonprofits should have a presence everywhere their constituents are—from the telephone and the mailbox to Facebook and Twitter as well as Google Plus, Pinterest, YouTube, and Tumblr.

Good news, again! While all of that makes strategic sense for organizations that target prospects by the thousands, a small nonprofit can get by with a few well-chosen actions.

When you think of direct mail, you probably picture solicitation letters or print newsletters. But one of the most meaningful ways to use direct mail is the traditional handwritten thank-you note.

A personal thank-you stands in stark contrast to the speed and efficiency that online giving represents. It takes time and thought to compose, and that alone conveys your gratitude more genuinely than even the most sincere email could.

Convio’s McCarthy, who recommends the communications calendar, likes the idea of designating a day or two a week for volunteers to write thank-you notes, perhaps on monarch-size paper for a distinguishing touch. Build that into your calendar so it becomes a habit.

Another good use of direct mail is to let your supporters know about events. An oversize postcard is perfect. The recipient can see what it’s about right away, so the postcard is more likely to be read than a letter. And because there’s no envelope, you can save a bit on postage.

In the spirit of multichannel integration, use your mailings to drive traffic to your website. It can be subtle on your thank-you notes—including your web address on your stationery—or more prominent on event postcards. There, you can direct readers to register or buy tickets online, “Like” the event on Facebook, or tweet about it.

Helping Hand

In terms of importance, email is second only to your website in your online fundraising efforts. A well-done email program will not only boost your budget, it will also help you stay connected and build an ongoing relationship with your constituents.

Here are some pointers to keep in mind:

• Your email list is a valuable asset. Make a concerted effort to build it.

• You can produce an e-newsletter yourself or use an email service provider. What matters most is heartfelt content that connects with supporters and shows them that they are having an impact.

• Event postcards and handwritten thank-you notes are easy and meaningful ways to use direct mail. Be sure to include your web address on your stationery to encourage visits to your website.

Next up in Chapter 8, we’ll discuss apps, text-to-give, and other variations on mobile fundraising.