She Planted Trees So Others Could Enjoy The Shade

July 10, 2008

This morning our friend and long-time colleague Polly Agee, 61, will be buried in the National Memorial Park in Falls Church, Virginia

Personally we mourn her death (and have had quite a good wake telling “Polly stories”), but we most of all want to note her passing because she contributed so much to the small, but critically important and uniquely back-biting branch of American fundraising focused on social and political change. A contribution for which all fundraisers, regardless of politics or discipline, should be grateful

For nearly 10 years in the early days (‘70s) of the liberal advocacy movement through the late 80’s Polly was in the foxhole with us. Developing systems that are still used to this day…developing training systems still used to this day…and developing an intolerance for the mediocre that seem to have been all too recently forgotten.

As the Senior Vice President of Craver, Mathews, Smith & Company, Polly helped us launch and build many of the liberal advocacy organizations that are household names today. The National Organization for Women, National Abortion Rights Action League, Greenpeace, The Cousteau Society, and Common Cause. While at CMS she worked on dozens of United States Senate campaigns for Democratic candidates and the presidential campaigns of Morris Udall, Edward Kennedy and John Anderson. Not to mention the Democratic National Committee, The Democratic Senatorial Committee and the Democratic Congressional Committee.

Never one to suffer fools lightly Polly had a temper, but one tempered by an iron-willed discipline to get the most out of every opportunity and every person she came in contact with. And she succeeded. Today, there is a generation of seasoned direct response fundraisers in the advocacy and political arenas that are tougher and wiser because of Polly.

Polly “retired” ( her own words) in the early ‘90s. AND… then went on to start several new careers. Her energy went toward women’s equality and democracy. As Ellen Malcolm, the founder of Emily’s List puts it:

"She always had infectious enthusiasm for women candidates and so many progressive causes. And if there was ever a set-back or special challenge, Polly was ready to give a helping hand. So many of the elected Democratic women we see in public life benefited from Polly’s generosity and help.”

She trained a generation of fundraisers, but wasn’t one bit willing to stop there.

In her final years she went into life coaching and established New Directions Life Coaching which helped, trained, and mentored many.

When a pioneer dies we all should pay attention — and also pay homage.

Polly, honest to God, we’re paying attention. Don’t get mad. We’re just saying “Thank You!”

Roger and Tom

P. S. A memorial service for Polly will be held in early August. We’ll keep you posted as to dates and times.

 

 

 

Posted by rcraver | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, advocacy, direct mail, direct marketing, fundraising, politics | 7 Comments 

Bringing Donors Closer To The Cause

July 3, 2008

Mal Warwick’s e-newsletter is always full of excellent practical direct marketing advice for fundraisers.

Mal has been running a series featuring online fundraising and engagement "best practices" as seen by Tom Gaffny, EVP at Epsilon.

You should tune into this series, where Tom is walking through his top twelve techniques for bringing donors closer to the cause. We’ll cheat and show you the list here:

  • Be relevant—be local
  • Highlight the video
  • Engage constituents
  • Leverage techniques that work in the mail
  • Send information in bite-size chunks
  • Work at channel integration
  • Personalize your organization
  • Be visual—be provocative
  • Say “thank you” in different ways
  • Ask friends to “get the word out”
  • Be timely—be there
  • Highlight your partners

But if you don’t read the series, you’ll be cheating yourself!

Tom

 

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, direct marketing, online activism, online fundraising | 1 Comment 

Thank You For Stealing

July 1, 2008

 

The maxim very successful fundraisers live by was set forth by George Bernard Shaw 80 years ago: "The mediocre borrow, genius steals."

In short, when you see a winning concept, campaign, technique, whatever, just steal it. Adapt it. Run with it.
Which brings me to today’s plea: All of us need to be sending more samples of good and great campaign or one-off efforts to SOFII the marvelous fundraising attic (aka: swipe file) where you can find all kinds of useful, informative and stealable stuff.
SOFFI just posted its June additions yesterday. For example:
§ActionAid’s controversial Bollocks to Poverty campaign.
§ Inspirational direct mail from a seven-year-old schoolgirl.
§ How Giving Scotland turned a crisis into a triumph.
§ A simple but brilliant idea for involving business people in the fight against heart disease.
§ Croatia’s campaign for mobility and independence for blind people.
§ A small organisation’s low-cost solution to recognising donors.
§ Hannah’s make and bake cake and biscuit sale.
§ The launch of a high level monthly giving product designed to upgrade donors in their thousands.
§ How a beautiful flower, the Edelweiss, became an involvement device and a symbol of hope for a hospice in Romania.
§ Make–A-Wish and upgrade your donors.

§ Twenty years before Barack Obama, the tale of an African American’s bid for the White House. Common Cause takes on the excesses of the American legislature. [Hey, this is copy I wrote 20+ years ago, long before "mid-level donor programs" were even a glimmer in whatever consultants’ eyes and it’s still good, he says, in all modesty :) ]

Seriously, so much great thinking, great creative and great innovation occurs every day in our trade, but we need to be far more energetic in sharing it with the rest of our world.

So please, vow to take 15 minutes, find one or two samples and get it up on SOFII’s site.

Thank you for stealing.

Roger

Posted by rcraver | Filed Under Uncategorized, advocacy, cause marketing, charities, communications, copywriting, creativity, direct mail, direct marketing, drtv, email marketing, fun | Leave a Comment 

Database Marketing Reality Check

June 26, 2008

Nick Rongione of Kintera recently wrote this article in Fundraising Success extolling the virtues of truly integrating — and then actually using — all the data your organization captures, or could capture, about your supporters.

His point: the more complete behavioral profile you can build of each supporter, the better you can target and customize your communications (of whatever kind … fundraising, action alerts, programmatic updates) to them, and therefore — given the greater relevance of the communication to that individual — the more likely they will respond as desired.

Sounds terrific in theory. But is it only theory?

Is the picture Nick paints Nirvana … beyond the resources and marketing sophistication of 99.9% of nonprofits (believe me, the biggest corporate marketers struggle with this). Even if you were determined to capture the data, would you subequently choke on it?

Alternatively, have nonprofit marketers found that less ambitious uses of data on individual supporters yields plenty of additional response, whereas going the "last mile" toward microtargeting just doesn’t yield sufficient incremental bang for the buck?

How many organizations, for example, peg a renewal ask to the individual donor’s previous year’s giving history? How many recite that history back to the donor, as a way of showing recognition? That’s a pretty straightforward — and evidence indicates, rewarding — use of individual donor data. But even this fairly elementary example assumes that donor data from all channels has been collated into individual donors profiles to drive the asks … and even the choice of re-solicitation channel(s).

Nick wants you to go even further … he wants that renewal notice, for example, to also thank the donor for responding to eleven action alerts, riding in the bike-a-thon, and placing your organization’s fundraising widget on his/her favorite social network page.

I’d really like to know … how many of you are proceeding down that path? And if you are, what are you reaping as the incremental benefits?

Is fully integrated database marketing a consultant’s fantasy? Or does it actually happen somewhere in real life?!

Tom

 

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, database marketing, direct marketing, marketing metrics | Leave a Comment 

Postal Mail Lives

June 10, 2008

Agitator aficionado Bob Roth alerted us to a piece in e-Marketer reporting on the just-released “2008 Channel Preference Survey” from email marketing firm ExactTarget.Bottom Line: The preferred personal comunications channels — phone, email, text and instant messaging — are not necessarily the preferred channels for marketing. On a scale of 1 to 5, respondents gave direct mail an average score of 3.9, followed by e-mail at 3.7. All other channels averaged under 3. More than 75% of the 1550+ folks surveyed reported making a purchase in response to direct mail. And nearly two-thirds said they had made a purchase because of a marketing message received through an e-mail.Take a look at the Age and Channel breakdown on this chart prepared by e-Marketer:
 Take a moment to download and study the ExactTarget Channel Preference Survey. Among the points I found worth noting:

  • New marketing channels are being layered on pre-existing ones instead of replacing them.
  • Overall, direct mail has the highest acceptability score of all channels. E-mail received the highest score across digital channels compared to SMS and instant messaging.
  • BUT…there is a quite different attitude between direct mail and e-mail when it comes to unsolicited promotions. Send an unsolicited promotion through direct mail and consumers do not mind. Send the same message through e-mail and it’s SPAM.
  • Be careful about invading personal space. The survey found that the closer you get to the individual, the more likely consumers are to sense that their personal space is being violated. Direct mail and e-mail can feel anonymous if the consumer chooses. However… as Morgan Stewart, Exact Target’s Director of Research and Strategy notes: “phones, text messaging, and social networking sites feel more personal. Let’s face it, regardless of the ‘relationship’ a consumer has with a company, interaction through these channels can feel creepy, pushy, and just generally uncomfortable.”

Finally, if you really dig into this survey you’ll get some fabulous tips on what channels are best for what types of communications and why here at The Agitator we keep harping ad naseum about the importance and benefit of multi-channel integration.RogerP.S. The results of this channel preference survey agree with our just-out-of-the-field DonorTrends Survey of Online and Offline Donors. Our analysts and editors are now at work preparing twelve specialty survey reports dealing with everything from generational and channel differences in giving, to a report on the top-ranked nonprofits in each major fundraising sector from animal rights to human rights, and a range of other findings and actionable recommendations. Stay tuned for release dates.

Posted by rcraver | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, Uncategorized, demographic trends, direct mail, direct marketing, fundraising, marketing metrics, new media | Leave a Comment 

“I’m Agitated Alright!”

April 28, 2008

So said Kim Cubine, a principal at fundraising firm Adams Hussey, in a recent email to The Agitator. Kim, a veteran direct marketing fundraiser, was taking exception to some observations about online fundraising versus direct mail in a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article.

Would you like to vent, we asked? Here is her Guest Agitator post …

Dear Tom & Agitator Editorial Team,

I am surprised not to have seen more attention given to the cover story article featured in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Clearly their publishers do not read The Agitator.

I cannot be the only person who feels that this article totally misrepresented what is happening in direct marketing today. They did not interview anyone that manages both online and offline for their clients that can discuss how donors are moving between channels to make their contributions. So while direct mail
contributions may be down (we are also in a recession) and online contributions increasing, why didn’t they discuss how the mail prompts many individuals to go their computers, get more info and voila — make a gift.

"Direct mail is on life support," says Michael Hoffman, chief executive of See3, a Chicago consulting firm that specializes in nonprofit fundraising and communications. "Charities that have relied on direct mail to get new donors have to start thinking about what’s next, or they will wake up one day and find that an aggressive start-up has taken their place."

This is an outrageous statement in my opinion. Any marketer worth their salt is always thinking about what’s next. And next is multi-channel marketing.

I did not see any statistics where the first time online donor was cross-referenced with a direct mail prospect list to determine the overlap. It’s not just coincidence that organic giving to an organization’s website spikes when prospecting mail is arriving in homes. I suppose it is the reverse of "clicks-to-bricks".

We also have analysis for an aggressive marketing client that shows that donors do indeed move between channels and that nearly half of first -time online donors make their next gift by mail or by phone.

Some of the campaigns listed in the article are super cool. But most nonprofits don’t have the ability to send mosquito nets, plant a tree in the rain forest, enlist a flight attendant to make a personal pitch to a captive audience (no peanuts for you if you decline).

Most nonprofits have to roll up their sleeves and do their fundraising using the old fashion way - test/analyze/test again!

Thanks for letting me vent.

Kim Cubine

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, direct marketing, online fundraising | 3 Comments 

Bringing Your Donors “Inside”

March 13, 2008

Direct marketing guru Denny Hatch offers his analysis of the Obama online fundraising phenom. As usual, an entertaining and insightful read. And you get his critique of Clinton’s "ringing phone" TV ad as a bonus.

His key point … the cacophany of email messages he has received from the Obama campaign indeed work because they share one over-riding attribute … they bring you inside the campaign.

As Denny puts it: "The smell of stale coffee and pizza dinners along with crazed deadlines and late, late nights practically leaps from your computer."

It doesn’t matter whether you’re raising money online or in the mail or on the phone, if your communications can really deliver that same sense of bringing the donor or prospect inside your organization’s programmatic work or advocacy, you’re on the way to a successful appeal. 

Tom

P.S. Denny claims he hasn’t made his presidential choice yet.

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Denny Hatch, Pushing the Creative Envelope, direct marketing, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

Count The Ellipses

March 4, 2008

Lately I’ve noticed that in my blogging and other online copywriting I’ve fallen into the habit of using more and more ellipses.

I hadn’t really thought about it. It just somehow felt right … something about the pacing.

So this article from Marketing Sherpa, The Glory of the Ellipsis, jumped out at me.

Their observation: "The art of getting a paragraph — or a long sentence — read is all about catching the eye." That’s the job of the five letter-free spaces created by an ellipsis.

Now I feel reassured that there’s a method to my madness … as unconscious as it has been. But now that I know why ellipses work, I’m worried that I’ll think about them too much … and begin to overuse them! Oh well.

Experienced direct mail copywriters know these tricks of the trade for holding the attention of their readers and moving them through a multi-page letter. One more case where certain marketing tactics transfer readily from one medium to another … and maybe in this case, with even greater impact.

But how much of your online copy is written, or at least edited, by experienced direct mail copywriters?! Too little I suspect. Count the ellipses!

Tom

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Pushing the Creative Envelope, copywriting, direct marketing, online publishing | Leave a Comment 

Online Fundraising Trends

February 7, 2008

Regular Agitator readers know that we regularly write articles and white papers with titles like Don't Throw Away Your Postage Meter! In other words, we think there's a ton of money still to be raised via direct mail.

That said, we're not Luddites. The future belongs to online fundraising, with direct mail occupying important niches as well as helping close the sale in multi-channel fundraising campaigns.

Here is a good article by Vinay Bhagat, Convio's founder and chief strategy officer, reviewing current trends in online fundraising. It's a “must read.”

Convio's data shows median online fundraising growth at 23%, comparing first six months of 2006 to the same period in 2007. Some sectors, like Environment & Wildlife, Visitation (museums, zoos, performing arts) and Education grew over 50%. And the median growth in e-list size over that window was 32% … many of these donors and prospects being new and younger.

While touting online fundraising, Vinay also provides important illustrations from Defenders of Wildlife and the ASPCA on the efficacy of multi-channel integrated fundraising.

For example, ASPCA uses a four-part email series, combined with a six-part direct mail series, to convert 5% of all new website registrants to donors within their first 12 months. That's impressive!

Good observations, Vinay!

Roger & Tom

Posted by admin | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, direct marketing, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

12 Tips For Successful E-Campaigns

January 31, 2008

Thanks to Margaret Battistelli at FundRaising Success for publishing these twelve best practices for e-efforts.

They're proffered by Tom Gaffny, EVP for fundraising at Epsilon. As part of his homework, Tom made online contributions to 145 nonprofits and tracked their subsequent actions.

Here's the stunner: 49 groups (one-third) never even acknowledged the gift. For the sake of the stunningly incompetent fundraisiers involved, their careers and families, I hope Tom never releases the names of those organizations!

No question, there are at least 49 folks in those groups who oughta be fired!

Now, for those who believe in acknowledging gifts, here are Tom's recommended best practices:

1. Be relevant. Be local.

2. Highlight video on your website.

3. Engage constituents (quizzes, games, video, etc)

4. Leverage techniques that work in the mail (matching gifts, headlines, Post-its, etc)

5. Send information in bite-sized chunks.

6. Work at channel integration.

7. Personalize your organization.

8. Be visual.

9. Say thank you in different ways.

10.Ask “friends” to get the word out.

11.Be timely. Be there.

12.Highlight your partners.

Tom

Posted by admin | Filed Under You Oughta Be Fired, direct marketing, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

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