chapter FOURTEEN
Direct Mail
Simply described, direct mail involves sending a form letter seeking support for your nonprofit and including a return envelope in which people can send back a donation. Direct mail appeals go to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people by bulk mail.
Even today, direct mail is the most common and familiar type of solicitation in use in the United States and one of the most common in Canada, Australia, and England. Because of its long history of use and the sheer volume of direct mail, it is one of the most studied strategies, so there are data that can be used to ensure effectiveness.
Some have proclaimed that direct mail is dead, but direct mail is not even sick. Email and social media have given us some wonderful new strategies for raising funds, but even organizations that use a lot of social media platforms for fundraising still use direct mail, using the strategies together to maximize response (see Chapter Twelve, “Multichannel Fundraising”). Direct mail, email, and social media are similar strategies for engaging prospects and donors, but they are not interchangeable. For general correspondence, email and texting has largely taken the place of both mail and phone calls, so paper mail has become less common. Organizations are finding that direct mail is actually doing better than it was earlier in this century, when the market for mail was saturated. People who genuinely dislike direct mail have registered with various agencies to have their names taken off of direct mail lists, reducing the amount of mail they receive and reducing the number of people getting mail who will never respond to it. Environmental concerns, along with big increases in the costs of printing and mailing, have caused many organizations to cut back their direct mail programs, replacing personal snail mail with email, online social networks, or even texting. With far less volume and with the mail that is being sent far more focused on people who may respond, direct mail is doing well. Sent carefully, direct mail not only produces new donors but also enables you to identify donors to whom you likely have no other access. Stories abound of donors recruited through direct mail whom no one in the organization had ever met but who sent $500 or $1,000 in response to a first appeal; other stories recount donors whom no one knew giving $25 for years and then leaving a large bequest. The latter is validated by research that shows that longtime direct mail donors will often be a source of bequests.
A direct mail appeal is very simple: a letter describing the organization and its needs is put into an attractive envelope, along with a self‐addressed return envelope and possibly a reply card that makes it easy for the donor to return a gift, and the identical letter is sent to hundreds or thousands of people. Appeals that are addressed to an individual—“Dear Francisco”—or letters sent by first‐class mail are not technically considered direct mail pieces, although these more personalized letters may borrow from direct mail principles in their look or style of writing. Identical first‐class mail letters may be going to dozens—or thousands—of recipients, with the only differences being the salutation. In the United States, bulk direct mail appeals are sent in minimum quantities of 200, presorted by ZIP code for the post office; at the post office they receive bottom priority for processing in return for a deep discount in the postage rate.
Claims that direct mail is dead are augmented by claims that young people don't respond to it. Although Generation X and Millennials may not send in a check, mail appeals that offer an online option for giving will often generate a healthy online response. For Millennials, direct mail is a novelty.
Direct mail remains the least expensive way to reach the most people with a message that they can hold in their hands and examine at their leisure. A well‐designed and well‐written direct mail piece sent to a good list can still yield a response that makes it worthwhile to develop and send: 0.5–2% on a first‐time appeal, and anywhere from 10–40% or more from donors who have given before. Many organizations use direct mail letters beyond acquisition to communicate with current donors and to ask for additional gifts. Used properly, direct mail is one of the most powerful strategies a small nonprofit can have.
Direct mail principles that work for very large organizations must be modified for grassroots groups, but it is important to understand these principles in order to make the necessary changes. We will start with what works for larger organizations because it is critical to understand the basic principles of direct mail and then modify them for your situation. Please keep reading even if the numbers seem daunting at first.
ACQUISITION: GET SOMEONE TO GIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME
Donor acquisition is the main reason that many organizations use direct mail. To see how it works, consider the experience of two hypothetical organizations. People for Good trades the names of 5,000 of their donors for an equal number of names of donors to another group, Friends of Progress. (Many experts consider 5,000 names a test‐sample size that gives accurate results. If you get a 0.5% or better response on 5,000 names, you should send the appeal to the whole list these names came from, assuming the whole list is larger. If the test response is less than 0.5%, you can change the appeal to try to improve the response rate or abandon the list. Also note that results will be slightly less reliable if using fewer names for a test.) People for Good merges the names from Friends of Progress with its own donor list to eliminate as many duplicate names as possible, eliminating 300 names. To the rest of the list from Friends of Progress, People for Good sends a direct mail appeal asking for a suggested donation of $40 to its work. The appeal returns a response of just under 1%, or 40 gifts, most of them $40, the suggested donation, but others in the range of $25 to $500. Because the appeal also directed prospects to People for Good's website, it also produces 10 new online donors, giving it a grand total of 50 new donors and $4,500 in income, and a response rate of just over 1%. The cost of sending the mailing—including postage, printing, paper, and the use of a mail house for sorting and sending the mailing—to 4,700 names was $7,050, or $1.50 for each piece of mail.
The net cost for People for Good is $2,550, or about $51 for each of the 50 donors it acquired. This is called the “acquisition cost”—essentially the group paid $51 dollars to acquire one donor, which is a legitimate cost of doing business. (The industry standard for legitimate acquisition costs is $40–60 per donor). These donors will now be moved to the next stage, retention. From this example, you can see right away that there is no point in starting a direct mail program unless you are willing to go all the way with it—trying to retain and upgrade these donors—because the first mailing usually loses money—sometimes a lot of money. Read on to see how that money not only will be recouped but will grow.
RETENTION: GET DONORS TO REPEAT THEIR DONATIONS
Once a person becomes a donor, the organization tries to get that person to give again, then to give routinely. The program starts by thanking donors within 72 hours of receiving their gifts and then, as discussed in the previous chapter, asking the donors for additional gifts several times during the year. Small organizations should ask their current donors for additional donations at least two to four times a year, with a combination of mail, email, phone solicitations, and special events. These requests should be interspersed with other communication about what the organization is doing with the money the donor has given.
People for Good follows this advice and, with a combination of email and snail mail, solicits donations from this cohort of new donors four times a year.
Those who gave online are solicited online; those who gave by mail are solicited both with additional mailed appeals and online, if the group has their email addresses, to see if some of them will give entirely online, which is a far cheaper form of solicitation. At the end of the year, People for Good has 20 more gifts given by some of these 50 people. A few agree to give monthly, and one donor who gives $500 twice is moved into the organization's major donor portfolio for treatment as a major donor; over time, this donor becomes very important to the organization. In this second round, People for Good makes back most of the money it invested in acquisition.
UPGRADE: ASK DONORS TO RENEW THEIR GIFTS
To be considered active (as opposed to lapsed), donors must make a contribution once every 12 to 18 months, thus renewing their commitment to the organization. Healthy organizations have a retention rate of about 60–65%—which is enough to generate a profit, including making back all the money invested in acquisition. Donors acquired through direct mail who show their commitment to the organization by renewing their gifts are donors the organization might not have found otherwise. These donors can also be asked to volunteer, to give more money, to help with fundraising, to show up at demonstrations, and so on.
Large organizations that frequently send direct mail appeals often have a fund of $5,000 to $50,000 that they reinvest in these appeals. Money coming in from one appeal is invested in the next until the fund is depleted. Organizations spending that kind of money often hire direct mail consultants to design their appeals and to handle all the details of writing, printing, and mailing them. It probably goes without saying that a mail appeal is a gamble—you might have a 0.05% response or even no response at all. As discussed in the previous chapter, by carefully looking at the different types of lists, and by paying attention to what you send the donors and continually fine‐tuning the appeal package, as well as using the cross‐channel techniques detailed elsewhere in this section, you decrease—although you do not eliminate—your risk.
USING DIRECT MAIL ON A SMALLER SCALE
By now, you are probably thinking: “Well, that counts us out. We don't have the money, we don't have the lists, and we can't wait a year or two for the repeat gifts and renewals to start making money.”
Don't despair. There is a way for even small organizations to use mail appeals effectively. They must decrease the risk by decreasing the amount of money spent on each mailing. At the same time, they must try to increase the response rate so that they at least break even on first‐time mailings to a list and, with luck, make money.
These goals can be achieved in two ways: by mailing to more carefully selected lists, and by mailing to fewer people at one time. In the previous example, we used the conventional estimate of a 1% response from a new list; this estimate is useful for planning costs. However, direct mail expert Mal Warwick often cautions that there is so much variation in response from one organization to another and from one appeal to another that using this 1% figure as success can be misleading. Other factors also need to be considered: attracting bigger donors, finding a whole new constituency of donors, testing messages, and so on are often as important as the percentage of response. Attracting a smaller response on the first mailing but a higher percentage of donors who renew year in and year out would make the mailing worth its costs. Despite this optimism, small organizations need some measurable gauge, and percentage of response will give you a way to budget money spent for money earned.
The next sample shows a direct mail scenario again, but on a much smaller scale and with much more targeted lists.
As you can see, the average net income per donor from smaller mailings is much higher and the risk much lower than with larger mailings. But neither set of income figures is particularly impressive given all the work involved. Nor do the costs examined here count the costs of staff time to compile the mailing lists, produce the direct mail package, write thank‐you notes, record donations, process credit cards and deposit checks, and complete other fulfillment (such as producing and sending newsletters). Again, one wouldn't enter a direct mail program if this were the only kind of income you could expect. The first appeal is just the beginning.
An organization must be prepared to identify among the donors it has acquired those who can give more, and sometimes much more, and then ask them to do so. The organization must ask some of the new donors to volunteer and ask others to bring in other donors. Over the long term, some donors will include the organization in their wills.
CONSTRUCTING A DIRECT MAIL PACKAGE
A direct mail appeal needs to be conceived of as a package rather than as simply a letter in an envelope sent to a bunch of people. The work of your organization is only one variable in determining the success of your appeal. The appeal is “wrapped” in a certain way to entice the donor to open the letter, then to read the letter, then to make a donation, either by sending a check in the return envelope or donating online. This is a lot of pressure on a few pieces of paper with no power of their own. The rest of this chapter discusses all the elements of putting together a direct mail package as well as several ways to use direct mail in seeking first‐time, additional, and renewal gifts; what to do with the responses; and how to evaluate your direct mail programs. The next chapter focuses on using email and social media to appeal to potential and current donors.
THE DIRECT MAIL APPEAL PACKAGE
The standard direct mail package has four parts: the carrier or outside envelope, the letter itself, the reply device, and the return envelope.
Each part of the package is complementary to the others, and all the elements work as a unit to have the maximum effect on the person receiving the appeal. We will examine each element separately and then discuss putting the elements together.
The Carrier (Outside) Envelope
Many mail appeals fail because, although much attention has been spent writing an effective letter, it is enclosed in an envelope that no one opens.
First‐class personal and business mail can be sent in an envelope simply with the recipient's address and a return address, and the sender can be reasonably certain that someone will open the letter. In the case of first‐class mail, the envelope is simply a convenient way to deliver the letter. In a fundraising appeal sent by bulk mail, however, the outside envelope has an entirely different purpose. It must grab prospects' attention and then intrigue them enough that they want to open it and see what's inside. The envelope in this case is like gift wrapping. Everyone wants to know what's inside a present. In fact, gift wrapping works so well that, even when you may know what the gift is, there is still the thrill of discovery in removing the wrapping.
Getting Personal. Think about how we look through our mail. We may have bills that we set aside and a magazine or other appeals that we glance at and either discard or put in a pile to read later. But if we find an envelope with our name handwritten on it, we will often put down the rest of the mail to open that envelope. If there are no such envelopes, we may open envelopes that promise interesting content or envelopes from organizations that we respect or from places we can't recognize just from the address. Maybe we see mailing labels inside, so we open that envelope. If we are in a hurry, we throw away mail more quickly than if we are not. Up to 70% of mail is thrown away unopened. In designing your carrier envelope, then, use your own experience as to what you open first and what you are unlikely to ever open. However, don't rely on your experience alone. A fun conversation is to ask colleagues, neighbors, and friends to look at the outer envelopes of five appeal letters and tell you which one they would open first or which one they would throw away immediately. You will generate several different opinions, which is why you will never find one style of envelope that always works, with the exception of those that are hand‐addressed, which almost everyone will agree they will open.
Use Common Sense. Mission drives fundraising, and the truth of this tenet can be seen even in the design of carrier envelopes. For example, a national organization advocating for the rights of LGBTQ+ people is always careful to use its initials or an innocuous logo with its return address on mail appeals. It does not wish to endanger people who may live in a place where being or being thought to be LGBTQ+ is dangerous, even if this practice cuts into the response because some people throw away the appeal without recognizing who the group is. In another example, if you are in a rural area, it is likely that the people receiving your appeal will open letters that originate in their county or small town. In that case, you want your name and return address to be fairly prominent on the front of the envelope.
Most mail appeals are sent in standard business‐size (No. 10) envelopes. Your appeal will stand out if it arrives in a smaller or odd‐size envelope. Personal letters are not generally sent in business‐size envelopes, so to make your appeal look more personal, send it in a smaller envelope or in an invitation‐style (generally square) envelope. Make sure your return card and return envelope are sized to fit in the envelope size you choose. One caution: odd‐size envelopes and letters can run up your printing and postage costs, sometimes significantly, so check with your printer before making a final choice.
The least effective strategy is placing what's known as “teaser copy” on an envelope; however, it should not be totally disregarded. Teaser copy is a text, drawing, or photograph on the envelope that is meant to intrigue the reader or cause some emotional response that propels them to open the envelope.
Envelope color is another variable to experiment with; in choosing colors, make sure that the type is still readable against the color of the envelope. Bright colors can grab attention, but readability is key.
The Letter
Keep in mind that a direct mail appeal is not literature. The direct mail letter is not designed to be lasting or to be read several times, with new insights emerging from each reading. The function of the fundraising letter is simply to catch the reader's attention and hold it long enough for the person to decide to give. The recipients of fundraising letters most often read these letters on their own time. It is not their job to read the letter (distinguishing it from a proposal sent to a foundation, where the recipient's job actually IS to read it), and if the letter has its intended result, they will wind up giving money as a result of having read it.
The letter should contain a lot of white space, including wide margins, and be in a font that is clear and simple. Break up the text into paragraphs no more than two or three sentences long, even if such breaks are not absolutely dictated by the content. Add to the informal style by using contractions—won't, you're, can't, we're. This is a letter, not a term paper. Do not use jargon or long, complex words. Go on to a second or even third page in order to ensure that the letter is easy to read and understand.
People Read the Letter in a Certain Order, and They Rarely Read the Whole Letter
People often read the P.S. to a letter first. Then they read the salutation and the opening paragraph and, no matter how long the letter is, they read the closing paragraph. If they did not read the P.S. first, they read it now. Up to 60% of readers decide whether or not to give on the basis of these three paragraphs and will not read the rest of the letter. The other 40% will read selective parts of the rest of the letter, usually parts that are easy to look at, such as facts set off in bullet points or phrases that are underlined. Only a small number of people will read the entire letter.
The Postscript. The P.S. is most commonly used to inspire the reader to take action: “Don't put this letter aside. Every day new cases come our way and we need your help.” Sometimes it offers an additional incentive for acting immediately: “Every gift we receive before April 15 will be matched by Nofreelunch Foundation.”
The Opening Paragraph. Use the opening paragraph to tell a story, either about someone your program has helped, some situation your organization has been instrumental in changing, or something about the reader of the letter. Have the story resolve positively because of the work of your organization. Here are some examples:
The paragraph ends here. The body of the letter goes on to explain how many working people are facing great housing insecurity and how Homes Now helps them with housing, job training, and child care. If this letter were being used with current or former donors to Homes Now, the opening paragraph would use this sentence in place of the third sentence: “But this week, because of the help of donors like you, Homes Now paid Toni's security deposit for her and she has moved into an apartment of her own.”
The rest of the letter lets people know how Inner City Greenspace helps neighborhoods transform vacant lots, treeless streets, and abandoned buildings into more livable community spaces.
The letter goes on to explain why Rio Del Vista is often targeted for these projects and what can be done about it.
Any of these styles of opening can be effective. The one you use will depend on your list and the stories available or the role of the reader in the situation described. As you can see, all of these stories can also be told in an email appeal or on social media. All of them lend themselves to pictures or even short videos. A campaign will include as many channels as possible.
The Closing Paragraph. The other paragraph people read, the last paragraph of the letter, reminds the reader that this is a request for money. It is specific and straightforward:
If you are a membership organization with several different giving levels, give only the simplest description of the giving options in the letter. This last paragraph is a short paragraph. Explain the full details of giving levels and benefits on the reply device.
The Rest of the Text. The rest of the letter tells more of your history, discusses your plans, tells more stories, gives statistics, and lists accomplishments. It also includes a request for the reader's support, ideally by the middle of the first page. This message is repeated in the final paragraph, and if the letter is more than two pages long, can be repeated (using different phrases) at another point in the letter. To break up the text, use devices other than straight paragraphs. These devices might include bulleted text, such as this:
Or underlining:
Who signs the letter is not critically important. If a famous person can be found to sign the letter, then the letter should be from that person: “I am happy to take time out of my busy movie schedule to tell you about Feisty Group.” Otherwise, the chair of the board, the executive director, or another leader in the organization can sign. The letter should be signed, however, and it should not be signed by more than two people or it begins to look like a petition.
The Reply Device
The reply device is the mechanism by which people send a donation back to you in response to a direct mail appeal. The device can be a small card listing the benefits of donating and containing a place for the donor's name, address, and so on, and come with a self‐addressed return envelope, or it can be a tear‐off from the main letter, or a wallet‐flap envelope.
The Psychology of the Reply Device. In the letter, the organization refers to the reader using the word You and keeps the focus on the reader in that way. In the reply device, the reader responds to the organization while the focus continues to be on the reader, with phrases such as “Count me in,” or “I agree,” or “I'm with you.”
More and more, when people open mail from groups they have heard of and possibly donated to previously, or causes they believe in, they move right to the bottom line—how much will it cost to join? For this, they look to the reply device. If the reply device holds their attention, they may return to the letter or they may just give without referring to the letter at all.
The reply device may be the one piece of paper the donor keeps from the mail appeal, as happens when someone reads an appeal letter, decides to give, then puts the return envelope and reply device into a “bills to be paid” pile and throws the letter away. Two weeks later, the reply device must rekindle the excitement that the letter originally sparked, using a fraction of the space. For this reason, the design of the reply device is very important.
The reply device is usually printed on paper or card stock that fits easily with a check into the return envelope. Making the bottom portion of a letter the reply device or using a separate card or slip of paper allows you to change the reply device with every letter without incurring a great deal of cost.
Another option is the wallet‐flap style of envelope, in which the reply device is the back flap of the envelope itself. In general, these are more expensive to print so groups usually print them in quantity. Once printed, no further customizing can be done, so if you use this style, be thoughtful about the content so that you can use it for some time, or use this style of envelope only for big mailings. Further, a reply device that is separate from its envelope allows for one or the other to get lost without the person losing the address of your organization, and you can use the return envelopes for other things you may want people to return, such as postcard petitions or surveys.
The Design. If possible, the reply device should display the logo of the organization and include a slogan or a short mission statement to remind prospects of what the organization believes in. Be sure to let people know they can also give online.
Probably the trickiest part of the reply device is wording the donor categories and benefits briefly. Many organizations use a simple series of boxes with differing amounts of money suggested as donations, and with the benefits the same for any amount of gift.
Unless you have really clever names or particularly good incentives, naming your donor categories is not worth that much. “Patron,” “Benefactor,” “Friend,” all have little or no meaning and inevitably reflect a hierarchy of giving that is just as well avoided.
The rest of the space must have room for the name, address, and phone number of the donor, or a place for a label. Make sure the response you want is obvious and easy to comply with: note on your reply device to whom to make the check payable and (in very small type) whether the contribution is tax‐deductible.
People will read the suggested amounts until they find a number they are comfortable with or the amount that the letter has most emphasized. The following type of arrangement is fairly standard:
| $35 | $50 | $75 | $100 | other |
You may wonder whether to start with the highest suggested gifts or put a large number in that second slot. These strategies are not effective because people will not pay more than they can afford, and you don't want to scare them off. An organization with the following sequence may wind up giving a message that small gifts are not encouraged:
| $500 | $250 | $100 | $____ | other |
On the other hand, do not suggest an amount you would rather not receive, such as $5. If someone wants to or needs to send only that much, they can check “other.” By suggesting it, you will receive that amount from people who could have given a lot more.
When it comes time to evaluate your appeal, you will want to be able to distinguish one appeal's response from another's. You do this by coding the reply device for each appeal in some way. If you have access to inexpensive printing, you could print each reply device in a different color, add a number or date to a bottom corner, or change the device that goes with each mailing in some other way. If you don't have a way to distinguish the reply devices during the printing, an inexpensive and easy method is to put a dot with a colored marker on each reply card and note which color you are using for which mailing.
The Return Envelope. In addition to the wallet‐style envelope discussed earlier, there are two other styles of return envelopes: business reply envelopes (called BREs) and plain, self‐addressed envelopes. With a BRE, the organization pays the cost of the return postage; this amounts to about twice as much as a first‐class stamp but is only paid on those envelopes that are returned. With a plain, self‐addressed envelope, the donor affixes a stamp.
For small organizations, BREs are not necessary, and organizations have ceased using them as consumers have become aware of the cost. Similarly, unless you are working with a sizzling hot list of current donors, do not put a first‐class stamp on the return envelope. Your response rate will be too small to justify this expense. On the other hand, do not try to save money by omitting an envelope altogether. Your percentage of response will decline significantly if you do not use a self‐addressed envelope of some kind.
Other Enclosures. The letter, reply device, and return envelope are all that are necessary to make an excellent mail appeal. There are some additions you can use if you wish. Whether they will increase your response rate depends on many other variables, but they might.
The Lift Note. A lift note is a small note equivalent to the notes in commercial direct mail packages that say, “Read this only if you have decided not to buy our tires.” The note usually appears to be handwritten or at least printed in a different font from the text of the letter. It is from someone other than the signer of the letter and provides another compelling reason to give. For example, a letter signed by Judy Blacetti, director of an organization that helps seniors learn to use computers, had this lift note:
Of course, most people will read the lift note first, even though it reads as though you would read it after the letter. People's curiosity is piqued, and they now read about Lois Smith in the letter.
An Internal Memorandum. Similar in theory to a lift note, an internal memorandum gives readers the impression that they are learning something that they would not normally be privy to. For example, an organization working to feed refugees in Pakistan used this internal memo:
Sunny then scrawls the following note on the memo:
The website would also have this memo or mention it, and you might put it on social media so that there is consistency with all your messages. In a week or two, put a message on the website about how the fundraising campaign worked.
Fact Sheet. A well‐designed, easy‐to‐read fact sheet highlighting exciting facts about your organization can take the place of one page of your letter. Many organizations now use a fact sheet with a two‐page letter, and their results are as good as when they used a longer letter. Even though the number of pages is the same, a fact sheet is handy because the same one can be used with several different letters. A fact sheet should be on your organization's stationery. Among the “facts” should be that you depend on donations from individuals and what the minimum donation is for a person to become a member of your organization. This information reinforces the message of the letter, reaches those people who only read the fact sheet and not the letter, and allows you to use the fact sheet in other kinds of mailings or give it away at rallies, house parties, or other events. A PDF of the fact sheet can be emailed to board members or posted on your website to be forwarded to others or downloaded for board members' own fundraising efforts.
Brochure. Surprisingly, using a brochure in a direct mail appeal will almost always decrease your response. Brochures are more complicated to look at than fact sheets or newspaper articles and require more of the reader's attention. Because a brochure does not generally emphasize giving, it can wind up holding attention but not achieving the purpose of the mailing. Brochures are designed to be given away at special events or to people wanting more information, and to be sent with personal letters asking for money. Brochures are less and less common, as their content has been replaced by the information on organizations' websites. You don't really need a brochure and you do really need an up‐to‐date and attractive website.
PUTTING THE PACKAGE TOGETHER
Be sure that your letter and enclosures are free of typographical errors. One typo can change the meaning of a sentence or, more often, render it meaningless. Moreover, typos give a bad impression of your organization's work, particularly the most common typos: pubic for public or grunt for grant. Make sure that your website and return addresses are on everything: the reply device, the letter, and the return envelope. If someone loses the return envelope, you can still be found. Although the letter itself should be in a clean, readable font, the carrier envelope, reply device, and return envelope generally should be in a larger, bold font. These details are important because sometimes the only impression that donors recruited by mail will have of your whole operation will be from what they receive in the mail.
Use sharp contrast in your type and paper color so that the words are easy to read. Use recycled or tree‐free paper and soy ink in the printing whenever possible; if you do, put the recycle graphic on your letter so that people will know you have paid attention to this detail. Similarly, if possible, use a unionized printer and put their union “bug” (the insignia that signifies you have done business with a union shop) on the letter and envelope. Although the response won’t necessarily be higher, those donors who do notice will be pleased that you have not left your values behind to promote your cause by mail.
Do a spot check of all the printed materials before they are mailed; if you use a mailing house, ask them to do that. Sometimes a printer's mistake may leave the middle 25 letters smeared or blank. Although you can't look at every piece individually, you may be able to stop a mistake from being sent out.
Fold the letter so that the writing appears on the outside rather than on the inside, as with a normal letter. A person pulling the letter out from the envelope should be able to begin reading it without having to unfold it or turn it around.
Some states have laws that require you to send a copy of each appeal to a government agency for approval before sending it out, or to list your federal identification number on everything you send. Be sure to investigate and comply with these laws (your local Association of Fundraising Professionals chapter or state nonprofit association should be able to help you find the laws for your state).
As you can imagine, almost all the content used in a direct mail appeal can be used on your website as well.
BENEFITS AND PREMIUMS
The purpose of a benefits program is to give donors something for their money that pleasantly reminds them of your organization or educates them further about your work so they feel even better about their previous gift and more inclined to make another one. Tangible benefits such as mugs, tote bags, or water bottles are not as popular as they used to be. First of all, it is hard to find these from a source that has excellent labor practices and is totally green—two things that more and more donors are conscious of. Related to the second concern, it is hard to ship items to the donors without using any nonreusable or nonrecyclable material. Studies about whether offering a tangible benefit increases either the percentage of people giving or the amount given show no clear direction. In general, we recommend against offering anything tangible as a regular part of your acquisition program.
Premiums
Premiums are additional thank‐you gifts for donating within a specified time. Announcement of a premium is often included in the mail appeal letter at the postscript, whose main purpose is to move the donor to act:
Or
You don't want the renewing donor to put your appeal in the pile of bills to be paid later or to lose the appeal, so you offer a premium to encourage the donor to act promptly.
The best premiums from your organization's point of view are those that you already have. For example, suppose you are doing a concert and ticket sales are slow. Offer renewing donors a free ticket for renewing by a certain date.
In using premiums for acquiring new donors, remember to add the cost of the premium when figuring the cost of the mail appeal. The cost of the premium will lower your net income, but if you gain even one or two percentage points in response, the cost will be offset.
In weighing whether to offer benefits, and if so, which ones, try to imagine repurposing content you already have. For example, many people who are not in fundraising have no idea what a report to a foundation looks like. Take your most recent report (that does not contain proprietary or confidential information), add “Not for distribution” on the top, and send it or a shortened version of it to your donors.
WHEN TO SEND AN APPEAL
There is a saying among direct mail consultants that the best time of year to send an appeal is when it is ready. There is much truth in this saying, because there are no really bad times of year for appeals and no really excellent ones; the best time will always be when the appeal is fresh and exciting. Moreover, your mailing can be derailed by major natural disasters or world events at any time of year.
Every organization needs to adjust the timing of its direct mail appeals according to its constituency. Farmers have schedules that are different from those of schoolteachers. Elections will affect timing. Even the activities of other organizations your constituents belong to may have an impact. Because of these factors, you will want to test mailing over many months and keep track of what works best for your organization.
USING DIRECT MAIL TO SEEK RENEWAL GIFTS
A second use of direct mail is to renew gifts on an annual basis. See Chapter Eleven for how to create categories of donors for different renewal letters.
The renewal letter follows the format of direct mail appeals. It starts with a sentence or two about the donor, affirming the importance of individual donors to the health and work of the organization. The letter goes on to list a few of the organization's accomplishments during the previous year and asks for a renewal gift, requesting that the donor increase his or her gift if possible. Although a renewal letter need not be long, do not jam the content into the space. Let the letter be as long as it needs to be to do the job. Also, do not try to save space by saying so little that you wind up being cryptic or giving the impression that not much actually happened during the year. If you have more to say about your work than will fit nicely on one page, go on to a second page or use the back of the first page. Remember, for these donors especially, what they receive from you in the mail is most of what they know about your work.
The reply device for these mailings should be designed specifically for renewals, so the donor feels they are a part of a group being asked to give again, rather than a new person being asked to give for the first time.
Most organizations find it effective to send three renewal notices over a six‐ to eight‐month period. They may then call the donors they have not heard from and ask them to renew. Donors who haven't responded after three renewal notices and a renewal call and who haven't given during the previous 18 months or more should be suppressed from receiving any paper newsletters or paper appeals. They can be sent a final renewal notice that says something like this:
A word of caution: many donors on your list will respond to requests for extra funds and not to your renewal appeals. In their minds, they have given already this year. Any gift donors give during a 12‐month period makes them “current” donors. Sometimes organizations that have memberships get snippy with donors who have given but who haven't renewed their memberships. Unless membership entitles a person to something that their other gifts don't, this is silly and can alienate the donor. When you finally take donors off your list, make sure they really have not given for at least 18 months.
Most social change organizations allow people to stay on the mailing list without paying if the person is interested in the cause but can't afford to join or to subscribe. This practice is certainly appropriate; however, you don't want to keep people on your list whom you never hear from. Many times these people do not read your newsletter or your appeals and don't even remember how they got on your list.
We hear stories every so often of someone who was on an organization's list for 10 years without giving a gift and then gave $100,000 or left the organization $20,000 in their estate. Although this may happen from time to time (as in geologic time), and it is true you will miss these people (if, indeed, you ever had them), the cost of keeping all the people on your list who don't give on the off chance that one will give eventually is not sensible. Think of it this way: Imagine one of your donors who works at a low‐wage job and sends $35, which may represent half a day's pay after taxes. That donor thinks you are going to do good work with that money and probably would not be happy to know that some of their hard‐earned money is being used to send paper newsletters to people you have not heard from in years.
Make this your general rule: to be considered an active donor and stay on your mailing list, a person must show their interest in a tangible way every 12–18 months. They need to make a donation, indicate that they want to stay on the list even if they cannot donate, or volunteer. You can always ask them if they want to be on your email list and they can stay there as long as they want.