DONORS> Thanking all donors?

Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 17:35:22 +1100
From: Robyn Allcock

Richard

Could see that your original post was tongue-in-cheek, but it also strikes
me that, while I agree with you wholeheartedly about the advantages of
'positive contacts', I have to admit that my attitude to shopping is
different from yours. If the person serving is friendly, there is a good
chance I won't come back - because it feels like it will take a lot longer
- I have often found myself avoiding shops where the staff are friendly for
that reason.

This raises a question about the effect of differences in human personality
on our campaign results and, on that note, I was fascinated to read some
articles by an American fundraising copywriter named Tom Ahern, who
discusses the different reactions people may have to a piece of writing,
based on a standard definition of personality types.

Obviously, at a practical level, we are not in a position to divide our
donors into categories in that way - there will probably never be a
donorbase which allows you to write specifically to 'type A'
personalities. However, it makes sense to assume that personality
differences which seem relatively easy to categorise in another context
(i.e. through psychological testing) may have a profound effect on our
results.

Cheers
Robyn
[email]propopuli@optushome.com.au[/email]

Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 16:05:33 +1100
From: Robyn Allcock

John

Just a reflection - I was thinking about fundraising in the UK and the way
people see direct mail andfelt I should point something out - in Australia,
we have little choice but to use direct mail as our main form of
communication with donors at all levels. To see why, all you have to do is
look at an atlas!

Can you imagine how difficult it is for a Fundraiser running a national
campaign from Sydney (which I have done on many occasions) to maintain
regular contact with donors in Perth by any other method? (Perth's further
away than New Zealand.)

Though this would apply to Canada, too - because like us, you/they (not
sure whether you're a Brit or a Canadian!) have a large land mass and
sparsely distributed population.

So it probably no surprise that find that Canadian ideas in program
marketing tend to be more relevant to us than those developed in places
like the UK in which costs of strategies such as telemarketing and
face-to-face are so much lower because the donors are located over a much
smaller geographical area.

Robyn
[email]propopuli@optushome.com.au[/email]

Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 15:48:11 +1100
From: Robyn Allcock

John

I agree - to my mind, defining 'direct mail donors' in that way is a very
strange approach to take - and I think it suggests a poor level of
comprehension of the methodology of donor communications.

On email as a replacement, tests of that kind are already well underway in
Australia. I doubt it will replace mail in the short term, but our postal
service providers report that 'the personal letter is dead'. Today, most
Australians receive mail from businesses only - letters are rare as a means
for communicating with friends, which suggests to me that the understanding
we have of mail as a part of relationship marketing may need to change as
email becomes more widely used for that kind of interaction.

However, the conversion from one medium to another may not be so easy. I am
not aware of any research which has been done on the area to date, but
anecdotal evidence suggests that, even among those who choose it as their
main form of interpersonal communication, email does not work as well in
generating a response as mail - and that extends to cases in which people
chose to use a website to make their donation - i.e., they're more likely
to use the website after receiving a letter in the post than an email message.

Cheers
Robyn

[email]propopuli@optushome.com.au[/email]

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:56:52 -0000
From: Nigel Parkes

I agree with John that Direct Mail and Direct Marketing are two very
different disciplines, (you taught me that John!) having evolved into the
area of Interactive marketing from Direct Marketing and Direct Mail before
that.
I think the process of Direct Marketing will be given a new lease of life by
e-fundraising(especially given the new developments in anti-spamming
software).

With e-fundraising you place the donor much more in control of the process,
he/she won't be visiting your website or opening your emails unless he/she
supports your aims, then your website becomes a major part of your brand
(depending on how easy you make the interaction).

However I've never seen any formula that can predict the future worth of
your 'baseline' donors and how much to spend on them, which seems to be the
holy grail of Direct Mailers/Marketeers.

When I was in charge of our efforts for fundraising via the London Marathon
- we used to reckon that our 'edge' came through our speed in sorting out
worthwhile runners/fundraisers; from using our website to attract them (the
keen ones knew what they were looking for! and used search engines
specifically to find the words'Golden Bond')we responded by using email to
very quickly find out if they knew what they were committing to!

Direct Mail was revolutionised by the invention of the printing press,
Direct Marketing revolutionised by the invention of the database - the
internet, and e-fundraising must be the next step by virtue of it's speed
and interaction?

(of course I speak from a UK Perspective where people aren't entirely
comfortable with on-line transactions yet, and there will always; always be
a place for developing those major donors with a personal touch).

Regards

Nigel Parkes

Shaw Trust

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:13:49 -0000
From: Richard Hick

Just to clear up a misunderstanding of my posting... it does take longer
to treat the supermarket customer well and thereby costs us more
indirectly, similarly thanking our donor. Our donors are likely to
support more than one cause and one of them is probably thanking them
right now - so an expectation of a certain level of service is already
established for that supporter. If I'm treated well and thanked in the
supermarket that's where I'll shop and never grumble - and similarly it
will have an influence on which cause I support.

Richard Hick
[email]Richard.Hick@mariecurie.org.uk[/email]

Did you know that 8 out of 10 people support a charity in their lifetime
but only 4% at their deathtime through a gift in their will?

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 14:05:29 +1100
From: Robyn Allcock

Went to a relationship marketing conference in Singapore about 5 years
ago. The American coffee chain 'Starbucks' had just opened there and the
marketing plan the company had used to generate its phenomenal growth
received a lot of mentions at the Conference. Apparently (when the company
was being managed by the person who started it - may have changed since),
the staff were briefed to have a regulation number of 'positive
contacts' with the customer - as I recall, it was 5 - BEFORE they buy the
coffee.

So, after the conference, the Australian contingent set forth to find the
local Starbucks. Sorry to say the most we got was a possible 5 scowls, but
I liked the concept!

One thing I always notice when returning to Australia after an overseas
trip - somebody has turned the 'smile' switch on again - and it's such a
relief.

Have a nice day.

Robyn Allcock
[email]propopuli@optushome.com.au[/email]

Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 07:13:23 EST
From: John Rodd

To add to Robyn's Australian contribution, I believe - no, I am sure
- there is a widespread misunderstanding of 'direct mail.' Working in
Canada it has
been an eye-opener to be told repeatedly that the 'annual fund' donors (those
given modest amounts each year and mostly by mail) are the wellspring of most
intermediate and major gifts (though not capital), the seed corn for planned
giving and legacies, an a base of support from which to build up and build
out.

We try at Stephen Thomas to see annual fund (direct mail) donors as the
start of a continuum with intermediate and major givers, etc., and lose the
silo mentality that often corrals large pools of 'direct mail' donors and
does not see them as the valuable baseline resource they are.

John Rodd
Director Data, Research & Systems
Stephen Thomas
'Making data come alive!'
184 Front Street East, Suite 501
Toronto, Ontario M5A 4N3
Tel: 416 690 8801
Fax: 416 690 7256

Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:47:32 -0000
From: Larry Boyd

(Does anyone else have a 'good news' story to tell about the value of
donor communications?)

I am the first full time fundraiser for my organisation. My
predecessors were, in a rustic way, very good at relationship
building. They didn't communicate much to donors but when they did,
they gave real attention.

In the USA, they would have called her the archtypical little old lady
in tennis shoes. She gave about £100 pounds per year. The notes said
she liked to be written to on scrap paper and never used the
telephone. Years ago, the organisation's founder had helped her find
some pink bed socks after she lost hers.

About once a year, she would take the train 60 miles to spend the day
washing tea cups and helping around the office. We arranged the visits
with letters written on scrap paper and pick her up at the station.

She last visited in April 1998, sent £50 pounds in Nov 1998 and died
in Dec 1999. She left us a legacy of £33,317 pounds.

Her last letter hangs in the office. Our legacy promotion plan is
titled Pink Bedsocks.

++++++++++++++
Larry Boyd
Tools for Self Reliance
Website [url]www.tfsr.org[/url]
++++++++++++++++
Practical help for practical people

Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:05:39 -0800
From: Ronald Biava

Richard, you must be joking when you grumble about 'thank you and have a
nice day' putting up the cost of your groceries. How? Are cashiers that
can smile and say simple things in English paid more that much more than
others? Having lived many years in a city where the most I'd get from
cashiers was a grunt, I confess I enjoy 'Good morning, how are you? Did you
find all that you wanted? Thank you, have a nice day.' It's common and
even sincere here in Oregon, where I live now. The practice has reminded me
how important it is that we should never be casual about our appreciation of
donors and their gifts. I still believe every gift merits a 'thank you',
and although I hope that expressions of appreciation will lead to further
gifts, I try never to be overconfident and expect them.

Ron Biava

----------------------------------
Ronald L Biava
University Relations &
Fund Development Counsel
[email]ronbiava@earthlink.net[/email]
+1 503 675 0291 voice
+1 503 699 1397 fax
+1 503 437 2985 mobile
P O Box 69203
Portland, Oregon 97239 USA

Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 19:02:54 +1100
From: Robyn Allcock

Nigel

Thought I would just add to my defence of direct mail - a positive story of
the kind you so rarely hear.

A few years ago, I started working with a national organisation with a
donorbase of about 5,000 donors - far too few!

They had been in existence for many years, but there had been little work
done on their fundraising at a professional level. Most of the income came
from a donation form which was inserted in their quarterly magazine.

The first thing I did was to write a personalised letter to current and
lapsed donors. It was signed by the CEO and I used our normal letterhead,
with his signature printed in blue ink to contrast with the black text.

To my surprise, many of our donors wrote back! So the campaign was a
raging success, but I was left with a pile of letters, some of which were
very lengthy. People wrote telling us why they had become donors, how they
felt about our services, why they sympathised with the cause, etc... all
well worth knowing but, if we were to respond, the size of the workload
they had generated was daunting.

At the time, my only staffing was a part-time data entry operator and a
full-time Admin Assistant. So the data entry operator worked on the short
letters, just inserting a phrase or two to personalise the 'thank you'
letters. And the Admin Assistant and I answered the rest.

I wondered where this would lead - especially when, after the second
campaign, the letters continued.Then, I realised (by looking at the data
entry records) that the donations accompanying them made up the bulk of our
income!

Eventually (as we began to see how things were unfolding!), the Admin
Assistant became a full-time letter writer. The number of donors on the
list trebled in a little over two years and income doubled - while costs
were held at 25%. And, in my view, all this was made possible by the
development of closer ties with our donors.

Not only did they give us more, some of them (about 150) went out into the
community and ran their own acquisition programs - and, in two States
alone, that gave us an additional income of around $100,000 in the first year.

So I rest my case. (Does anyone else have a 'good news' story to tell about
the value of donor communications?)

Cheers
Robyn Allcock
[email]propopuli@optushome.com.au[/email]