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Fundraising Tuesday: Envelopes Make Donors Want to Open Your Mail

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Did you get a lot of requests for donations in the mail last year? So did I. I just held a ruler up to the stack of mail that arrived in November and December of 2019. It was more than six inches worth of paper.

envelopes

Taller than a coffee cup. For sure. But more powerful?

The power of the nonprofit message all depends on whether we choose to open the envelope.

Direct Mail is You Against the World

Piles of envelopes coming through the mail: at home, we are used to that. As donors ourselves, we may have a routine: open the mail next to the recycling bin and pitch, pitch, pitch. Save that one for later. Pitch, pitch, pitch.

That includes the organizations we love and the organizations we’ve never heard of. The appeal letters are mixed in with the bills and the marketing mail. It’s all just a mass of paper, and the more we throw into the bin, the more we win.

We know that when we are at home, thinking like donors. But as soon as we get to the office, we forget it. Our nonprofit is so special, and its work is so important. Donors must be dying to see, open, and read everything we send them. Right?

Wrong. Our appeal letters are part of the pile, and it’s our direct mail against letters from everybody else in the world–until we do something that makes donors want to read them. Often, that’s the envelope.

Envelopes that Welcome Donors In

Statistically, one of the best ways to get your mail to stand out from the pack is to send it in an oversized envelope. Whether that’s a full sheet of paper or a greeting card size, it immediately calls attention to itself.

Oversized envelopes

As you can see, some of these envelopes use graphics to differentiate themselves, too. That’s even more important if you’re sending appeal letters in regular business-sized envelopes. An envelope with graphics…

Envelopes with graphics

..or an envelope that IS a graphic!

Envelope, all graphic

With or without a drawing or photo on the front, some envelopes beg to be opened because they have a compelling message there. United Farm Workers warns “Workers hung out to dry.” Don’t you want to open the envelope to find out what that mean, and what you can do about it?

In These Times magazine says, in bright red script letters, “Help the press protect democracy.” (They also used a colorful first-class stamp, which catches the eye–and is known to get a better result than a nonprofit imprint.)

What did your nonprofit do in 2019 to make sure your envelope would get opened?

What will you do in 2020, now that you’ve looked at these examples?

 

Fundraising Tuesday: End of Year? Your Foolproof Timeline

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October

October already???

Did you just have an “OMG, It’s October already” moment?

Your nonprofit may raise 30%, 40%, or more of all the donations you receive all year in the month of December. A lot of organizations do.

And a lot of them started planning their end-of-year campaign in September.

Will your nonprofit reach your donors before they’ve tapped out their charitable donations budget for the year? More important, when you ask them to give, what are you going to say?

Fear not. Communicate! Consulting presents your foolproof timeline for making your end-of-year fundraising a success.

What to do this week

Step one: Thank your donors. Whether you thanked them already, in multiple ways, throughout the year, or whether they haven’t heard from you since last December, they need to hear from you NOW. Show them your gratitude. Tell them, “You’re my hero!”

What to do this month

Step two: Figure out the story you want to build your appeal letter around. If you need permission to tell the story, reach out to get it. If you need a photo, or permission to use a photo, ask for that permission now. (Anything that takes somebody else’s input takes more time. Get started as soon as you can.)

Step three: If you use a graphic designer to put together your package (envelope, letter, reply vehicle), get in touch with them. And if you use a mailing house to send out your appeal letter, get in touch with them too. You don’t want any surprises later!

What to do next month

Step four: Write your letter.

  1. Make sure you call the recipient by name (not “Dear Friend”) and by the name they want you to call them by.
  2. Write a great postscript–before you even write the body of the letter.
  3. Use photos, bold type, italics, bullet points and other tools to break up the text.
  4. Tell a real story, and leave them feeling the end of the story depends on them.
  5. Write a different letter to longtime donors than you do to prospects. (Segment your mailing list!) For renewals, thank them for their last donation and tell them what happened “because you helped.”
  6. Ask people to give, in so many words, at least three times.

Step five: Print up your letter, envelope, and other pieces of your package.

Step six: Call your volunteers to help stuff and mail your appeal (unless you pay a mailing house to do it). And get it in the mail!

What to do in December

Cat waiting for mailStep seven: Follow up your appeal letter with email.

Step eight: Follow up your appeal letter with a phone call.

Step nine: Follow up your appeal letter with social media. (It might be their love language!)

What to do next

Step ten: Starting in December, and straight through Martin Luther King Day: thank the donors. Don’t just let your auto-responder do it: thank them with email, with a personal letter, with a welcome packet, with video, with invitations to events, on your website…as many ways as you can think of.

Step eleven: Find out more about the donors. Ask them to answer a question or two about themselves, or play detective.

Step twelve: Communicate! Through all your channels, tell your supporters stories that will inform them, entertain them, enlighten them, and make them feel closer to you.

When it’s October of next year, you want them looking forward to being asked for an end-of-year gift. (And if you need help doing that, call Communicate! Consulting. Now!)

Fundraising Tuesday: The Last Words Shall Be First

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P.S. postscriptMore than 100 appeal letters arrived at the Fischman household last November and December. About two-thirds of them came feet first.

By that I mean that, like your donors, I read the postscript right away.

The p.s. is one of the first things donors read after we open the envelope–probably right after checking to see whether you call your donors by our names. You will make more money if you get the postscript right.

So, how do you write a postscript your donors will love?

Include a Postscript

sad news, happy newsThe sad news is that 37 appeal letters didn’t include any postscript at all.

True, some of them were in a format that didn’t look like a letter. It’s hard to put a p.s. on a report or a sheet of coupons. (That may be a reason not to use those formats very often!)

But many of those 37 were classic appeal letters that came to the signature line and just ended. That’s sad–for the senders.

For your nonprofit, the happy news: it may have given your letter the chance to be noticed. If you used a postscript, good for you!

Make It Urgent

More than 30 letters used their p.s. to stress the reason for giving now.

I was glad to see that none of them said “so we can meet our goal”–that’s your reason to write, not their reason to give. None of them mentioned tax-deductibility, and that’s good: it’s not the reason most people give either.

Most of the time, nonprofits used the postscript to do one of two things:

  • Simply urge the donor not to wait (stressing how easy it is to give online), or,
  • Reiterate the reason to give. “Immigrant families are waiting to find out whether they will be deported. Help them get the legal help they need, today!”

The very best examples made the postscript into a story in brief. They referred back to the clients whose stories they told in the body of the letter and reminded donors, “You can be their hero.”

Experiment with a Call To Action

act nowMostly I advise nonprofits to keep the postscript simple. Ask people to do just one thing: give money. But 18 of the appeal letters I saw this year asked for an additional action.

Some of them requested the donor take steps to make their donation worth more, like “Check if your employer will match your donation.” Others suggested the donor take another action besides giving: fill in a survey, pick a design for a membership card, alert the organization when ICE was in the area.

I’m curious: did your nonprofit try an additional Call To Action in the postscript to your appeal letter? What was the response like? Did people who took that extra step give extra money?

 

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