In this section, I discuss in detail the strategies organizations use to invite people who have never given to become donors—direct mail, online, telephone, special events, and canvassing—and then how to use those same strategies to invite people to give over and over. I start with a discussion of one of the most important concepts in fundraising, which is the overarching strategy called “multi-channel” fundraising. Multi-channel means that you are delivering the same message across all the methods you are using. Multi-channel is the practical application of what I talked about in Chapter Three, “Be Clear About What the Money Will Do.”

Making sure everyone is getting the same message is not a recommendation to repeat yourself, but rather to think about the differences between how you tell your story on Facebook, inviting people to comment on it, and how you tell the story in a direct mail appeal. How you describe your work on the phone will be different from the 140-character tweets you might post. But all these roads will lead back to your case for support. No matter the channel, the purpose of the communication is the same: to inspire support.

I then describe both the basics of these strategies, including what they all have in common, especially direct mail and online fundraising, and specific how-to’s and examples of using each strategy. Near the end of this section I look at the possibility of implementing a voluntary fee-for-service program to generate income. Finally, I cover the important topic of “opportunistic fundraising”—how every organization needs to train all its staff to be aware of fundraising opportunities that can spring up in the most unexpected places. This is the twin of multi-channel fundraising.

Most of what applies to acquiring and retaining donors can be adapted to asking them to increase the size of their gifts, which I take up in Part Four.