FundraisingCoach.com » Question Marc?

Fundraising for your next walkathon

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:12:16 +0000

Lately I’ve been getting lots of questions about how individuals can fundraise for walkathon events and many other -athons: bike-a-thons, bowl-a-thons, etc.

So I wrote down some of the basic advice I was giving. When I finished, it was a 5-page article!!

Rather than post that long an entry here, I’ve put it in the Articles section. The link is:
How to Fundraise for Your Next Walkathon.

Learn how you can set up a brand new fundraising program, or re-tool your existing fundraising, to raise serious money for your cause. Purchase this full-day fundraising seminar you can download right to your desk and start learning today!

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Fundraising letter for acquisition mailing

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:06:52 +0000

Last week, I received this question about a fundraising letter acquisition mailing.

Hi Marc,
We are doing an acquisition mailing to patients of Local Community Clinic on behalf of Local Community Clinic Foundation, a 501c3 that offers support to the Clinic and the Community. The mailing is huge – just over 100,000 – and we are trying to keep this within our budget abilities without losing the personal touch for the end readers. The burning question is in regards to using a window envelope. We can use artwork on the envelope that says “a Special Invitation” or something to that nature so they know it’s not a bill, or we could really break the bank and use a regular envelope, whicn will require extra matching and printing. In your research and work, are you aware of any trends in aquisition mailings that use a window envelope vs. a non-window envelope? When this is to an audience with a relationship to us, what percent return on average should we expect? Not more than 1%?
Thanks,

Tesla Jabinski

Director, Fundraising and Development
Local Community Clinic

Here’s my answer:

Hi Tesla,

Great questions!

Even though these folks have a relationship, they still see it as a transactional, business relationship. If you’ve ever been a patient and had to pay bills, you’ll know what I mean.

So I’d still use the 1% benchmark. Actually, I’ve been told (and experienced myself) that acquisition mailings lose money. You do them because of the life-time value of the donor. Once a person gives, they’re far more likely to give again. So be sure to remember that when analyzing the results.

As for the envelope, your #1 goal is having them open it. That’s all. So I’d say go for a window with no teaser. They’re already used to receiving that from your organization. Plus it does help down the cost!

Marc

Do you agree? Share your comments below!

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Nonprofit Executive Director and Fundraising Revisited

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:10:27 +0000

A few weeks back, I posted this question:

Q: As an E.D., what percentage of my time should be spent on fund raising? I am relatively new at this and want to balance my schedule.

My answer was something like, “100%.”

And I got some comeuppance. Here are some of the comments:
Roger Carr responded:

I appreciate that you are a fundraiser, but I am concerned with the answer you gave (and with many of the answers I have been reading lately from other fundraising consultants)…Raising money is not the purpose and mission of most nonprofit organizations.It is one of the required tools to carry out the mission. If most or all of the ED’s time is spent fundraising, there is probably no reason for the organization to exist. A significant amount of time also needs to be spent in areas such as program development and advocacy in support of the cause…Fundraisers need to understand there is more to a nonprofit organization than fundraising (although I agree it is a critical part). Do you agree?

In a conversation, my friend Rob Hatch asked largely the same thing.

Then Mazarine Treyz said:

I agree with Roger and Marc, equally. We’ve got to fundraise AND oversee programs as executive directors. Depending on what stage of crisis the nonprofit is in, I would say, allocate more or less time to fundraising. At least 50% of the time is a good start anytime, and 100% of the time if the nonprofit is really in trouble.

And Katie from NE posted a comment that made my day:

Since I work in a nonprofit that exists to raise money for a hospital, I can easily agree with Marc, but yes, for most nonprofits there is programming and advocacy, too. I would mention that there is fundraising potential in programming and advocacy efforts that shouldn’t be overlooked, and just because you are “working on our outreach” that doesn’t mean that the outreach activity might not also present a fundraising opportunity. For instance, if you are lining up volunteers to read with recent immigrants, you might also look for ways to bring board members or supporters in for an open house or other event to both orient the volunteers and make them feel important and appreciated, and help dial in your potential major donors to the core mission. Fundraising can be a part of nearly everything you do.

“Fundraising can be a part of nearly everything you do.”

I think Katie summed up what I’d meant to say.

But the conversation’s just starting. What do you think? Is fundraising taking away from mission? Or is there a way that fundraising it be part of “nearly everything you do” in your nonprofit?

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How much time should a nonprofit executive director allocate to fundraising?

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:47:43 +0000

Not long ago, I received this great question:

Q: As an E.D., what percentage of my time should be spent on fund raising? I am relatively new at this and want to balance my schedule.

A: Interesting question. I’m tempted to say 100%.

But there are so many variables:

If fundraising is your only income stream – you must be constantly fundraising
If you’re a small nonprofit – you must be constantly fundraising
If you have a staff to fundraise – you must trust them to do their job, and be constantly fundraising in sync with them yourself

I really know of no hard and fast percentage. But you can see my bias.

Marc

(Although shorter than most answers, the ED found this very helpful. Perhaps its brevity helped make it helpful?)

[Do you have a question about nonprofits or fundraising that you'd like considered for Question Marc? Send it to marc@fundraisingcoach.com.]

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Are there creative ways to publicly thank donors?

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:34:08 +0000

Q:My organization is building an endowment fund and several people have made generous donations in the past few months. Of course, we’ve thanked them personally, but we want to find a more “public” way of recognizing them. We will include them in a special list in our Annual Report, but you have any additional recommendations or resources on donor recognition categories, donor recognition events, donor recognition memorabilia (like a big plaque with their names on it!), etc.?

Thanks for your input!

Katie Powell, Director of Development
Family Service of Chester County
West Chester, PA

Great question! And congratulations on growing your endowment! That is such a critical investment in your future!

There are literally an unlimited number of ways to creatively thank donors.

I’m a fan of publicly recognizing donors within the institution and giving them something to remember us by as well. The first tells the story of philanthropy and community support to the people we serve and those that visit us. I know many people use a donor wall done by companies like Partners in Recognition. Simple plaques from a local sign shop can be great too (if they look substantial, not cheap). These can include the story of the organization with images etched in. And then have a donor list that is either permanent or reprinted each year.

But if done well, giving donors something resells the donor on the great investment they’ve made. For a recent ribbon cutting, I purchased very nice scissors at a local craft store and had the event name and date laser engraved on them at a local trophy shop. One was used to cut the ribbon, but each family member received the keepsake. I had visions of them putting them on display in their offices and helping us market the organization by telling their friends.

As long as your donors know they were being publicly listed and thanked, have fun with this. Perhaps you can get paperweights with customization and use them to thank donors for investing in stabilizing the organization. Or a small ship thanking them for helping create a keel to keep the organization stable and upright as it navigates the future.

Public events can be great. Dinners are standard, but other events may have more significance. Ribbon cuttings with a crowd of staff and clients cheering and applauding are one such event. Concert recitals by students benefiting from the scholarship or donation are another. Events allow people to hear from the CEO of the organization as well as the grateful staff or clients benefiting from the gifts. As importantly, it allows the donors to publicly share what moved them to make the gift. Very helpful to you for making future asks of other donors.

Remember that not all donors like being thanked the same way. Many would prefer low-key thank you notes. But many also like the recognition that comes from more public displays of thanks.

So go for it! Have fun with this!

Marc

P.S. In my experience, and that of many of my clients, any of this type of recognition costs far more then we expected. That’s why it’s really important to budget it in to the overall goal.

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Printed Donor Lists: To do or not to do?

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:34:19 +0000

Q: What are your thoughts about including an annual roll of donors in a (printed) annual report? Our staff is split 50/50 on whether that is still useful, necessary, or appropriate. Thanks.
Katie Benston, Dir. of Annual Support
Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region
Charlotte, NC

A: This is a very common question! We all know we’re supposed to thank donors. (Although it seems few nonprofits actually do!)

I have no idea why anyone would think a donor list in an existing annual report would be inappropriate. After all, you’d only include donors who’ve given permission (otherwise they’d ask to be anonymous).

So if you already do a printed annual report, I’d say print the list! Lists give people an excuse to look — if only for their own name. And if you tier the donors by giving category, some may be motivated to boost their giving.

Some organizations are moving away from annual reports because of the cost of printing and mailing. You may want a smaller annual report. Or add the annual report to something useful, like a calendar. Or design it to use it as a year-round marketing piece.

But here’s a word of caution: resist the urge to go 100% digital.

I was on the board of a national nonprofit association that went all digital in its communications. We lost so many people. For 65 years, we’d trained people to get used to seeing mail from us. When that stopped coming, they’d figured we’d ceased to exist. Plus, we didn’t get updated addresses because emails don’t often come with “return service requested.”

If you do create a printed list, just know you’ll always make mistakes. No matter how hard you try, someone will be listed wrong or someone’s name will be wrong.

I used to think this was a reason to discontinue the list. But no more. Adrian Sargeant reports that donors who complain and have their complaint addressed actually become more loyal to the nonprofit!

So go ahead, print the list! Let those donors, and your entire community, know you’re grateful!

[Do you have a question about nonprofits or fundraising that you'd like considered for Question Marc? Send it to marc@fundraisingcoach.com.]

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Perfect opportunity for a corporate ask?

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:04:22 +0000

Q: Hi Marc! You seem to know much about fundraising…any great ideas on a fundraiser for Cub Scouts…we need to raise $1500 for a new pinewood derby track…however the pack is in an area that the people don’t have tons of money…HELP! I need a jump start. TY Katherine

A: Well that seems perfect for corporate sponsorship! You could ask 5 businesses to contribute $500 each and give them recognition on the track (logo or something).

Or better, ask one for $1000, 2 for $750, and 3 for $500!

I’m sure you can use the extra money for something.

Any business fits since this will be seen by many over the years. But automotive parts stores and car dealerships may be a cool fit for this project.

If you do ask for more than the cost of the track, be sure to ask them to support your Cub Scouts with a gift, not the track. That way the money is the troops money, not solely dedicated to the track. But I’d recommend all the recognition go right on the track since that is very visible and something even nominal Cub Scout families remember.

Marc

PS Studies consistently show that poorer people are generally more generous then wealthier folks.

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5 tips on choosing your nonprofit URL

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:42:16 +0000

Q: Marc, I’m embarrassed to admit that we don’t yet have a website. But do you have any advice about choosing a domain name?

A: Great question! Getting a memorable domain name is a very important step in online fundraising. All fundraising, really. Donors often check out an organization’s website before making a gift. So putting thought into your domain name can help you raise more money.

Generally, of course, you’ll want to choose the name of your nonprofit. But here are some things to think about as you decide.

Keep it simple
Try saying it aloud. Pretend you’re on a conference call and you say, “Hi, this is [your name] from [your website].”

Can all the other callers remember it right away? Or do you need to explain anything?

Your domain name is your best advertising sound bite, so make it work for you.
Try to avoid repeated letters that end one word and start the next
For instance, if your name were Mel and you gave salads to the homeless, naming your organization “Mel’s Salads” makes great sense. It looks fine in print. It’s easy to remember.

But www.melssalads.org can make for a confusing web domain. Those repeated “s”‘s can make it hard for people to enter the web name correctly into a browser. It might be better to try something like www.saladsbymel.org or something quirky like www.tossedbutnotforgotten.org
Avoid numbers
This goes with rule number one. Numbers in a name–”4″ instead of “for”–can look cute in a domain name. But if you were being interviewed and gave your website as “www.salads4you.org,” you’d probably feel compelled to explain that it’s the number not the word.

Or the interviewer might say “F-o-r?” Then you’d say, “No ‘four’ but the number not spelled out…”

People would be more apt to remember “confusion” rather than your mission. Not good.
Try to get the “.com” name
As a nonprofit, you’ll want the “.org,” but go ahead and get the the .com too. No matter how familiar .org may be, people still default to .com when typing in a web address. So help them find you!

While you’re at it, try getting all three .com, .org, and .net. Wish I’d done that for FundraisingCoach.com! The other two are now taken.

These extensions (.com, .org, and .net) have a lot more credibility with people than .info or .me or .us do. On the web, credibility is essential. So you might as well start strong.
Register other web names
Web domains are cheap. So registering multiple names can be a cost effective way to protect your web presence. One great strategy is to register possible common misspellings of your web address just to make sure people get to their site.

For instance, many people mistakenly spell my last name with two “t’s.” So in addition to MarcPitman.com, I’ve registered MarcPittman.com.

I have a blast registering many other names too, things that sound fun or might be domains I can use at some point. If you think of a tag line for your organization, or a motto, or anything else, it can be useful to register it as a domain, just in case you’ll want to use it in the future.

BONUS: Once you’ve registered your URL, try writing it with “camel back” or “mixed-case” spelling. For instance, instead of www.fundraisingcoach.com, I usually write www.FundraisingCoach.com. The first is elegant in symmetry. The lower case letters can make it look almost sleek.

But the second is generally easier for people to remember. What would you prefer? To look good? Or to have people remember your site?

Those are my tips. Use the comments below to make your suggestions.

[Do you have a question about nonprofits or fundraising that you'd like considered for Question Marc? Send it to marc@fundraisingcoach.com.]

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5 tips for increasing traffic to your nonprofit’s website

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:50:48 +0000

Q: Do you know of the best way for my web site www.aidsadvantage.org to come up on search results when people type in the words “Aids, South Africa, Africa”? I wish to increase traffic to my web site and since this is unfamiliar territory I thought you could help me with this.

A: Great question! I’m not an SEO expert, and I’ve never played one on TV. But here are some tips I’ve learning along the way. They’ll help raise your nonprofit website’s visibility with search engines so that people will find your site much more easily.

Figure out what search terms people are currently using to find your site.
You could use Google keyword search or sites like SpyFu.com to see what similar sites to yours are using for keywords, how often people are using those terms, and how high they rank in search results.

Once you know what people are searching on, you can determine if the words you thought were the best keywords are really the best or if you can tweak them a bit.
Use those likely search terms in the “keywords” meta-tags.
This is an HTML thing so you might want to check with someone a bit more technical in your office.

If you’re using WordPress like I do, check out the very handy All In One SEO Pack plug in. This let’s you easily modify your site’s meta tags. More importantly, it helps you easily create meta titles and descriptions for each blog post or page you put up. (The meta description is the part that shows up in a Google search. It’s also what is grabbed when you post a link to Facebook.)
Strategically use those key in the verbage on your site.
I’m not advising creating garbage content. You’re not trying to “trick” search engines. You are trying to help them find your site when people search on terms related to your cause.

When I looked at the pages on FundraisingCoach.com in light of search terms I was interested in, I was shocked to see that I talked alot about seminars and trainings but never used the terms “fundraising seminars” and “nonprofit trainings.” People searching on “seminars” could be looking for just about anything. Obviously people that searched on the “fundraising seminars” were a better fit to my site than people just searching on the generic “seminars.” So I tweaked my pages to say “fundraising seminars”!

You can do the same thing with the terms that would help you. Instead of “AIDS,” you might want to try “AIDS prevention.” According to Google’s Keyword Tool, there were 5,000,000 searches on “aids” last month; only 22,000 on “aids prevention.” That could mean that the field for “AIDS prevention” is a lot less cluttered than just “AIDS.” It’s easier to be found in a less cluttered field!
Write articles on your site, and post them on a regular basis.
When it comes to search engine optimization, content is king. If you have interesting content, people will link to you and search engines will crawl your site.

Apparently you have some ability to “train” the “spiders” that roam the web for search engines. They’ll learn to check your site more frequently if it’s updated more frequently. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a blog that you post to on a regular basis. Blogs are an easy way to keep your website fresh.

Once you’re written an article, you can re-purpose it by posting it to sites like EzineArticles.com. These sites let you link back to your site, which helps build credibility with search engines too.
Google Analytics
I HIGHLY recommend you sign up for Google Analytics. It’s free and offers a very robust set of tools to help you understand how people find and use your site.

After signing up, you simply insert a piece of code on each page you want tracked and you get to see who’s visiting, what browser’s they’re using, where in the world they are, what search terms they’re using to find you, how long they’re on your site, what pages are most viewed. It’s pretty amazing.

That is a great starting place. Hopefully I didn’t get too technical!

If you want more, people I listen to on Twitter, folks like @fmbillwatt, @tassoula, @DJNoRequest, recommend checking out:

[Do you have a question about nonprofits or fundraising that you'd like considered for Question Marc? Send it to marc@fundraisingcoach.com.]

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When is the best time to host a fundraising movie event?

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:55:25 +0000

With the first blog post of 2010, I’m starting a series of posting questions I receive and my answers to them. Sort of a “Dear Abby” for fundraising. I’m calling it “Question Marc” — pun fully intended!

It’d be great to have you take part. If you have a question about nonprofits or fundraising that you’d like considered for Question Marc? Send it to marc@fundraisingcoach.com. I won’t be able to answer every question, but I just might be able to answer yours!

Q: I ran across your blog while researching a fundraising event I’m putting on for my search and rescue team. I’m trying to determine if it might be more profitable to hold our event (a movie showing) on a weekend or week night. Can you point me to any information which might help me?

A: Great question! The “correct” answer depends on the locale more than anything else.

In some communities, you could pull it off right after work. This is particularly true if you’re located in areas where people travel in to work. They’re already in the city, so they may be more likely to stay for an event (more likely than they would be to come in for a weekend.)

But if it’s a couple hours, you’ll probably need to supply a dinner for people. That could get expensive (unless you get the food donated).

A weekend afternoon might allow you to save money on food expense. Holding a movie from 2-4 would only require appetizers, not a full meal. Weekends can work better in communities where people live (rather than commute to).

Since you’re hosting a movie, you could ask a manager of a local theater. She would know when they see the biggest audiences.

It may help to check with Morrie Warshawki. He is the king of fundraising houseparties which usually use movies as a center piece. He may have ideas on his site: www.warshawski.com.

[Do you have a question about nonprofits or fundraising that you'd like considered for Question Marc? Send it to marc@fundraisingcoach.com.]

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