Spearheading End of Year Appeals

Alliance for Biking & Walking Mutual Aid Webinar

Wednesday, September 24, 2014
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Te best time to start planning your end-of-year fundraising campaign was last month. Te second best time
is NOW. On this webinar, development directors from two prominent bike advocacy organizations joined us
to discuss planning fall giving campaigns.
Insight from Lili Afkhami
Development Director, League of American Bicyclists
Te ideal mailing date for an end-of-year appeal is mid- to late October. You should
start your planning no later than mid-September. A reasonable turnaround time for an
end-of-year appeal is about one month, but it can be shortened to two weeks for design,
revision and printing if necessary. Printing will take 5 days to 2 weeks, depending on the
urgency and complexity of the job. If your resources are limited, ask your designer to
create a template that you can use for appeal letters over and over again.
Before you begin working on messaging, determine the purpose of the mailing for your
organization, especially if you will need buy-in from others
(such as leaders or other program staf). If this is your frst
outreach in a long time, you should consider the appeal to
be a stewardship opportunity as well as a fundraising oppor-
tunity: use the frst part of your letter to get your audience
re-invested in your organization. If you have already been in
regular contact with the recipients of the appeal, you can go
straight to the ask. (See examples from St. Marys College Seahawks appeal).
Tere are three critical pieces of a direct mail package:
1. Letter
2. Remittance slip. A list of suggested gif amounts on a remittance slip is called an
ask string. Te rule of thumb is to list your desired gif as the middle value in the
ask string, between higher and lower amounts.
3. Outer envelope
4. A reply envelope is also a good thing to have. You can skip it if you need to save
money on the campaign. If you do include a reply envelope, make sure its smaller
than the mailing envelope so it fts inside. Many organizations use a standard #10
envelope as their mailer and then select a #9 or a #6-3/4 as their remittance en-
velope. Click here for a chart of common envelope sizes. You can consider pre-
stamping the reply envelopes of your most select donors as a special service.
Te most successful individual appeal campaign in the Leagues history was conducted
last winter and Lili shared some of the elements that made it work:
A League board member had already pledged to give $150,000, so the fundraising
team used that gif to leverage their end-of-year giving by presenting it as a match
challenge for their other individual donors. Presenting an existing gif as a match
opportunity is a great way to inspire your donors to stretch and give a little more
than normal.
List your desired gift
in the middle of the
ask string, between
higher and lower
amounts.
Spearheading End of Year Appeals
Alliance for Biking & Walking Mutual Aid Webinar
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
2
Consider asking
donors for their
personal story along
with their response.
Cascades end-of-
year appeal is a
good way to pinpoint
donors with higher
capacity to give.
Te letters messaging included a personal story from the
match donor about bicycling and the important role the
bicycling community had played in her life.
Te appeal materials were custom-designed just for this
campaign, but were consistent with the Leagues brand-
ing across all programs and communications. See exam-
ples from this campaign in the Alliance Resource Library (members-only).
Premiums (small gifs to donors as incentives or thanks for their donations) are a con-
troversial subject in the world of individual fundraising. While premiums can inspire
higher initial response rates, many professionals discourage their use as they can en-
courage donors to see their donations as a transaction rather than a philanthropic gif.
Lili advises using premiums sparingly, if at all.
Te League relied heavily on e-mail and social media for its successful match challenge.
Several e-mail follow-ups are good; however, make sure to cover your bases by includ-
ing language thanking your donors if they have already donated. Donors may perceive
repeated asks afer theyve already mailed a check as pushy.
Dont ditch your mail campaign in favor of email yet. While the upfront cost is higher,
studies and experience continue to show that direct mail campaigns outperform elec-
tronic campaigns in response rates and long-term donor engagement.
You can try growing your list through purchasing or trading lists with other organiza-
tions, but list acquisition eforts have historically had low ROIs and the donors you get
will not have as great an afnity with your organization as those who become donors
afer already being involved in other ways.
Try including an opportunity for the recipient to send feedback or share their personal
stories. Te chance to share their stories on the remittance slip or ofer their thoughts via
a brief survey can increase response rates.
Insight from Tarrel Wright
Development Director, Cascade Bicycle Club
Cascade Bicycling Club sends out an end-of-year appeal to about 20,000 people every
year. Tis is CBCs only direct mail fundraising push, afer the development team found
their mid-year appeal to be unproftable.
Direct mail is actually one of the least efcient ways to raise money in the short term.
For example, CBCs 20,000-person mailing only yields about
$30,000 a year. However, the true value of a direct mail cam-
paign is its opportunity to pinpoint individuals who have the
potential to give at a higher level.
According to Tarrell, an individual who gives $250 or more as
a frst time donor is signaling that they want some attention.
Cascade Bicycling Club has an established system in place for
Spearheading End of Year Appeals
Alliance for Biking & Walking Mutual Aid Webinar
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
3
Segment your lists
by program interest
area and by donor
history.
cultivating potential major donor prospects from the annual appeal.
Donors who give between $250 and $499 in a single donation are considered mid-
range donors at CBC. Individuals who give this amount in a frst-time gif receive
a personal phone call from the development team to thank them for their gif and
learn more about their interests in CBC. Te team will try to schedule a meeting or
take the donor on a ride.
Donors who give $500 or over as a frst-time gif will receive a personal phone call
from Tarrell, the Executive Director, or a member of the Board. Tese individuals
are fagged as Major Gifs prospects and are assigned to the Major Gifs team for
stewardship.
Tere are many ways to segment a donor database to custom-
ize a major mailing. Tarrell discussed two of the more popular
ones: segmenting by program interest and by donation levels.
Donors can develop afnities for very specifc programs, such
as club rides or programs that work with at-risk youth. If you
have a way of tracking this data in your database (such as event
registrations or other), you can tailor their appeal to focus on the program that theyre
most interested in. If your donors make a contribution with the expectation that their
money will support a specifc program, it is your responsibility to make sure that the
funds are actually assigned to that program.
Cascade Bicycling Club segments and personalizes its direct mail appeals based on dona-
tion history. Mid-range ($250 - $499) donors receive hand-written notes on their appeal
letters. If a donor has given a total of $500 or more in the past year, the development
team makes every attempt to ensure that the appeal letters note is written by someone
the donor knows at Cascade. Board members are expected to give some time writing
notes on EOY appeal letters to major donors and prospects.
Cascade tracks the following information for its appeals:
Response rates, both overall and subdivided by prospect lists or sources
Cost per dollar raised
Number of frst-time donors
Number of renewed gifs from last years frst-time donors (people who donate for a
second year in a row are in the sweet spot for becoming engaged supporters)
Number of people who give at the mid-level range
Number of people who give at $500 or more
In addition to tracking campaign-specifc metrics, Cascade also follows the giving
amounts of mid-level and major donors over time. Ideally, all long-term donors will
increase their annual gif every second or third year.
If you have a database you can trust, one of the most efective things you can do is to
mention how much a donor gave last year (it shows you are paying attention) and ask
Spearheading End of Year Appeals
Alliance for Biking & Walking Mutual Aid Webinar
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
4
for a specifc amount for this year. If possible, customize the amount of your ask to the
donors previous gif either the same amount, or increased if the donor has been giving
at the same level for several years in a row.
If you have the data and the resources to customize the ask string in every letter, it can
be helpful to make the ask string variable based on the donors giving history. If you
cant do that level of customization, fnd out your organizations average individual gif
size and list that as the middle value in your ask string. If you can list the individuals gif
from last year even if its just in the letter and not on the reply card that can be an ef-
fective way to show your donors that youre paying attention to them.
Does your organization lack a well-established list? Dont panic. While a small donor list
can be a challenge, it can also be an advantage in that it allows you to do really personal
outreach, for example by hand-signing all letters and calling many or all of your donors
during your campaign.
Fundraising for Biking & Walking Organizations - Te Alliances members-only
Resource Library page contains plenty of information about fundraising for active
transportation advocacy organizations. For information about appeals, scroll to Part V:
Individual Giving.
Envelope size guide - All about Phillys ride-tracking GPS app.
Sample League of American Bicyclists appeal letter - Scanned copies of the appeal
materials that Lili referenced can be found on this Alliance members-only Resource
Library page.
Nonproft Marketing Guide - An online resource for e-books, webinars, and blog posts
about nonproft fundraising and communications. Tis website includes special resourc-
es for direct mail fundraising campaigns and appeal letters.
End-of-Year Appeals: Five Bad Habits to Kick - Tis Stanford Social Innovation Re-
view article suggests fve ways that nonprofts can make their end-of-year appeals more
efective.
Additional Resources