'Sprog' on 'Holidays'

Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 22:55:59 +0100
From: FundUK List Manager

John Rodd wrote (kindly):

>Howard Lake if you are listening to all thi, I think it's High Time that
>you gave us a tutoriall on e charity mail and its potential, interactive
>web sites, the works.

I'm doing quite a few talks and training sessions around the country from
mid-September onwards (10 locations), together with another training
session in Bristol, and then I'll be at the International Fund Raising
Workshop in Holland in October. Details of all these are listed on the UK
Fundraising events page at

[url]http://www.fundraising.co.uk/events.html[/url]

If these aren't possible for you to attend then I would be happy to arrange
another date.

Sadly, the Prospecting for Gold course isn't being run this October as
planned. If you'd like to attend a future course then contact Charity
Consultants Ltd (who run the course and many others) on 01189 401016.

Thanks for the kind comments from various list members. And no, no money
changed hands to get this free advertising ;-)

______________________________________________

Howard Lake
List manager of FundUK, for discussion of fundraising in the UK
[email]funduk@dircon.co.uk[/email]
Fundraising UK Ltd
+44 (0)181 640 5233
FundUK is kindly supported by Direct Connection [url]http://www.dircon.net[/url]

______________________________________________

Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 14:53:55 -0700
From: Nigel Parkes

stewart lucas wrote:

> Went to a brilliant one day course by Howard Lake on exactly that. It was
> run by a group called Prospeting for Gold. Can find contact number if people
> want it. It was very very intresting and has opened up all sorts of new
> avenues. He also has a very good book on the market about fundraising via
> the internet. Again if you are serious about using this medium it's worth
> getting. A final point is tht in Briatin (sorry anyone anywhere else) C.A.F.
> offer free web space for cahrties.

I can also reccommend Howard's book on Fundraising on the Internet as a
starting point - particularly the idea of friendraising; but the
technology isn't widely available to donor or fundraiser yet, or is it?

I think you'll find that Future Publishing also offer a good deal
(possibly free) on web sites.

Sprog

Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 13:20:33 +0100
From: stewart lucas

At 14:41 31/08/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Re e mail and it potential, Sprog theories etc.
>
>Howard Lake if you are listening to all thi, I think it's High Time that
>you gave us a tutoriall on e charity mail and its potential, interactive
>web sites, the works.
>
>It could be face to face and some of us, me included , would be willing to
>pay to learn.

Went to a brilliant one day course by Howard Lake on exactly that. It was
run by a group called Prospeting for Gold. Can find contact number if people
want it. It was very very intresting and has opened up all sorts of new
avenues. He also has a very good book on the market about fundraising via
the internet. Again if you are serious about using this medium it's worth
getting. A final point is tht in Briatin (sorry anyone anywhere else) C.A.F.
offer free web space for cahrties.

Stewart-Henry Olav Lucas
Fundraising Manager

Manchester Settlement
31 Bosworth Street, Beswick, Manchester M11 3AP
Tel 0161 231 1114 Fax 0161 231 1115
[email]stuart.lucas@mcr1.poptel.org.uk[/email]
A registered charity

Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 14:41:43 -0400
From: John Rodd

Re e mail and it potential, Sprog theories etc.

Howard Lake if you are listening to all thi, I think it's High Time that
you gave us a tutoriall on e charity mail and its potential, interactive
web sites, the works.

It could be face to face and some of us, me included , would be willing to
pay to learn.

Yours

John Rodd

Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:48:11 -0700
From: Nigel Parkes

Simon Coles wrote:

> A good point.
>
> In theory, email is an excellent tool for mass personal communication. It
> is just immature - and that immaturity shows in 750-odd out-of-office
> replies.
>
> Personally, I think the potential for email systems to go so badly wrong so
> quickly, means email should be treated as explosives - tremendously useful,
> to be used carefully, with control & monitoring systems.
>
> Some examples of things that organisations can do to reduce the problems
> they get with email:
> - listservers which have an "overload" trip in them. I use Listserv,
> which will suspend a list if more than xxx mails have been sent in
> a 24 hour period. Would be nice if you could do this to people as
> well - "suspend this person's subscription if they send more than
> 3 messages in an hour" etc.
> - mail systems which have safety features in them, for example:
> - mail to external accounts has to be approved by others
> - mail to multiple accounts has to be approved by others
> - the system knows that certain people have expressed a
> a preference not to be bombarded with mail etc.
> - incoming mail is tracked, and logged into a contact
> management
> system. Replies etc are generated & chased.
>
> All the above is perfectly possible, it just isn't common (yet).
>
> With the correct systems & procedures in place, I think email will be a
> very cost effective fundraising tool - and you'll be able to sleep at
> night :-).

Simon, thank you for your technical input.

My point is that we can recognise junk 'snail mail' by it's envelopes.
Email is a very 'in your face' medium that demands attention because you
can't pick up any peripheral clues about it's importance; maybe what we
need is electronic envelopes for our email or some way of flagging them
for what they are- but then we might lose the very edge that email could
give us?

I'm going back to sleep ;->

'Sprog'

[email]nparkes@shaw-trust.org.uk[/email]

These are my views, Shaw Trust just pays me.

Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 11:09:41 +0100
From: Simon Coles

>As a fundraiser thinking about the potential of communicating with the
>internet via email as an advertising and fundraising tool, it highlights
>an issue.
>
>It's easy to send the wrong message (any wrong message) and multiply
>that mistake very quickly in a very personal medium.

A good point.

In theory, email is an excellent tool for mass personal communication. It
is just immature - and that immaturity shows in 750-odd out-of-office
replies.

Personally, I think the potential for email systems to go so badly wrong so
quickly, means email should be treated as explosives - tremendously useful,
to be used carefully, with control & monitoring systems.

Some examples of things that organisations can do to reduce the problems
they get with email:
- listservers which have an "overload" trip in them. I use Listserv,
which will suspend a list if more than xxx mails have been sent in
a 24 hour period. Would be nice if you could do this to people as
well - "suspend this person's subscription if they send more than
3 messages in an hour" etc.
- mail systems which have safety features in them, for example:
- mail to external accounts has to be approved by others
- mail to multiple accounts has to be approved by others
- the system knows that certain people have expressed a
a preference not to be bombarded with mail etc.
- incoming mail is tracked, and logged into a contact
management
system. Replies etc are generated & chased.

All the above is perfectly possible, it just isn't common (yet).

With the correct systems & procedures in place, I think email will be a
very cost effective fundraising tool - and you'll be able to sleep at
night :-).

Simon

--------- My opinions are my own, NIP's opinions are theirs ----------
Simon J. Coles Email: [email]simon@nipltd.com[/email]
New Information Paradigms Work Phone: +44 1344 778783
[url]http://www.nipltd.com/[/url] Work Fax: +44 1344 772510
=============== Life is too precious to take seriously ===============

Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:41 +0100
From: FundUK List Manager

Sprog wrote:

...
>a very personal medium could be used in an
>increasingly impersonal way. Given the future direction of (successful)
>advertising and fundraising toward a one to one relationship and the
>ease with which we can communicate with greater numbers of people at the
>touch of a button.. Are the two going to be compatible??

Yes, they are compatible, in my view. I think the use of e-mail in an
"impersonal way" is simply another manifestation of junk mail, or similar
badly-targeted communications. The ability that e-mail confers of making
mistakes faster and on a larger scale is a side-issue. Who hasn't realised
after giving the mailing house the go-ahead that you've forgotten to
exclude or include on the disk a group of donors and supporters?

I see the value of e-mail as its flexibility and speed. Not only can we
send personalised messages to individuals as we can with paper-based direct
mail, but we can also use the same medium to allow the donor to request the
precise information s/he wants, when s/he wants it. The mix of "pull" and
"push" (to quote some Internet marketing phrases) afforded by e-mail, in
the form of direct communication, auto-responder messages, and e-mail lists
(whether open or closed, for announcements or discussion), surely offers a
powerful array of tools for fundraisers. How to *combine* these methods of
approach, to track them and to integrate them with the other communication
channels already in use by fundraisers is a major challenge. Anyone had any
success with that side of e-mail marketing/fundraising?

______________________________________________
Howard Lake
List manager of FundUK, for discussion of fundraising in the UK
[email]funduk@dircon.co.uk[/email]
Fundraising UK Ltd
+44 (0)181 640 5233
FundUK is kindly supported by Direct Connection [url]http://www.dircon.net[/url]
______________________________________________

Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:19:13 +0100
From: Gerry Beldon

In message <34030B28.4059@shaw-trust.org.uk>
"Nigel Parkes" writes:

snip

> As a fundraiser thinking about the potential of communicating with the
> internet via email as an advertising and fundraising tool, it highlights
> an issue.

> It's easy to send the wrong message (any wrong message) and multiply
> that mistake very quickly in a very personal medium.

snip

Given the future direction of (successful)
> advertising and fundraising toward a one to one relationship and the
> ease with which we can communicate with greater numbers of people at the
> touch of a button.. Are the two going to be compatible??

This is an interesting question, which extends beyond e-mail.

How many managers/trustees lack the patience for the one-to-one
communication which we know is most successful? Too many want
instant results, using mass communication technology, without the
investment necessary to give at least a semblance of personalisation.

We're after the quick buck in too many cases. e-mail and other forms
of personal communication can be used very effectively as "ties that
bind", keeping donors interested in our causes, but I'm not sure that
they are appropriate for getting new names. Even conventional Direct
Mail seems to be losing its edge, unless the inverstment is huge.

Having said all that, where's Gareth? He's got some experience of
finding supporters via the 'net, n'est ce pas?

Gerry
--
Gerry Beldon
GERRY BELDON INDEPENDENT FUNDRAISING
phone/fax : 0191 251 6720 mobile : 0976 405721
e-mail : [email]gerry.beldon@zetnet.co.uk[/email]