Monthly Giving Around the World

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By Pete Carter, Senior Vice President

Monthly giving across the pond represents a significant portion of overall charitable contributions. In fact, several charities in the United Kingdom (Oxfam, for example) have several hundred thousand monthly givers. How do they do it? Is it even possible to replicate these results in the United States?

First, it’s important to understand that these monthly givers are not contributing via check. Paper checks are so last century. In Europe, and particularly the UK, monthly givers generally sign up via what they call “direct debit,” or what we call electronic funds transfer (EFT). So when conducting a monthly giving (or sustainer) recruitment campaign, don’t even think about accepting monthly mailed checks.

It is true that unlike in the United States, in Europe, it’s extremely common for consumers to use direct debit or “easy pay” for their personal bills. So if you think EFT will be too hard to sell to your donors, then a credit card option will work pretty well, too. However, it’s important to be aware that a sustainer file built on credit card giving will suffer from greater attrition than one based primarily on EFT.

These are the 5 most common techniques used around the world for recruiting monthly givers:

1.  Face-to-face: Street canvass and door-to-door campaigns are very common in Europe. Some groups rely exclusively on this technique for recruiting new monthly givers.  Face-to-face campaigns are gaining popularity in the United States. I was recently visited at home by a representative for the ACLU. I let him conduct his initial ask; after which I told him I was only going to make a one-time gift, which he seemed happy enough to take. This technique is expensive, which is why relatively few groups make use of it in the US. But if your organization is well-known, and if you target with careful accuracy, you might be able to build on this technique’s track record of success.  

2.  Telemarketing: Telemarketing is the bread-and-butter of most American monthly giving programs. Targeting those who just joined with a combo “thank-you” and “here’s another opportunity to help” telemarketing message has proven enormously successful for many organizations.

3.  Television: Remember that Sarah McLachlan infomercial you’ve seen with sad puppies and kittens late at night? That’s the ASPCA using direct response television to recruit monthly givers.  Television spots come in two varieties: long-form (usually 30 minutes or longer) or short-form (commercial sized, perhaps 30 or 60 seconds). Depending on length and placement, these spots can be very expensive, but we wouldn’t continue to see them if they weren’t working.

4.  Direct Mail: Mail is less expensive than the first three options, but generally has a lower positive response. The good news: these monthly givers tend to be the most committed.

5.  Online: The least expensive option, and one that allows for the greatest flexibility. Think of the price point options you can test, or the premium offers, or messaging points! If you don’t have initial success engaging donors with an online recruitment campaign, try it again with a different spin.

Are there any techniques that we’ve left out? And which have been the most successful for you?

Subject Lines Matter

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This is the first entry in a three-part series on getting donors attention. Check us out next week for our entry on direct mail teasers!

By Charlotte Kresse, Director, Interactive Department

As online marketers, we’re all guilty of it.

We spend hours working on strategy, copy, data segmentation, etc. only to think of our subject line as an after-thought.

But our brilliant message is all in vain if no one sees it.

Think of the subject line as the online version of the teaser on a direct mail envelope. In direct mail, someone decides in seconds whether to throw away a letter or open an envelope.

And a subject line often determines whether  someone opens your email or clicks delete.

So, here are a few tips to help you write effective subject lines:

• Front Page News. Take a look at headlines for inspiration and use what’s in the news. Any editor worth his salt knows how to write a headline that contains key facts in limited space to entice us to read on.
• Action-oriented and Specific!  Use deadlines, embrace action verbs, and be concrete about the issue at hand.
• Reel Them In. Use the subject line to connect with the recipient and bring the message closer to home.  Localize messages by referring to their community or home state.  “You” is always a powerful word in direct marketing or test including the recipient’s name.
• Size Does Matter! When it comes to subject lines, there is a good reason to keep it brief: there is a limit on characters that display in the user’s inbox. Keep your subject line at approximately 45-50 characters (or less, if you can!).
• From Line. Don’t overlook the “From” line.  The most effective are from an actual person and include the organization’s name.
• Proof is in the Data. It is important to monitor your own success. Looking at the open rates of your own messages will help you glean what works for your audience.
• Test, Test, Test. Enough said.
• There Is No Silver Bullet. What works today, may not be effective tomorrow. That means that even if you were able to write the best subject line in the history of email, you will still have to write a new subject line for your next message.

Final Thoughts

There is no magic formula. Something that’s highly successful for one campaign might underperform for another. Nonetheless, these tips will point you in the right direction. What tips do YOU have?

The “F-word” and Five Other Words to Get a Rise Out of Your Online Donors

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By Lon Chapman, Executive Vice President

In online marketing, there is always a new shiny object to grab our attention. And because of this, we are fooled into thinking that the rules of marketing must be equally as dynamic. We want them so badly to be dynamic; the same-old, same-old rules just seem so, well, old-fashioned.

But marketing is marketing. And the rules really haven’t changed since the stone age of marketing. That’s because though the tools of marketing may evolve, human behavior endures.

The fact is, direct marketing tenets are far more elastic than most of the medium that they govern.

So what motivates people to give to your organization online is not that different from what makes them give over the phone or in the mail – or in direct solicitations.

At the risk of sounding like the “old folks” I derided as being “so yesterday” when I first entered the direct marketing world more than a handful of years ago, this blog topic was first published as a newsletter article I wrote about direct mail marketing in a pre-Google/Twitter/Facebook world.

Back then (and still today), everyone was looking for that magic teaser that would make our donors want rip open the envelope to see what was inside, and ultimately give.

The guiding principle was and still is an economy of words – getting your message across in as few words as possible.

When I revisited this topic, I was not really surprised to find that the rules are as applicable today as they were when I first wrote this article. In fact, in some ways they are even more so because these days donors are responding as much to consumerist values as they are to philanthropic motivations when deciding to whom to give.

Simply put, donors are looking for the biggest bang for their buck.

The following six words all are “value” words. They supplement and complement your argument to give. But be warned that by themselves they are NOT a reason to give, they are simply motivational. However, combined with your argument to give, they can be magic. They will tip the decision process on whether to read your email – or open the envelope – in your favor.

FREE Yes, the “F-word”. The impact of this one word to getting response cannot be underscored enough. It is every marketer’s friend, commercial and non-profit alike. Embrace it.

NEW There is something enticing about that which is new. It says to a donor: “This is not the same old stuff you have seen before.”

SIMPLE Process driven aspects of the appeal whether it be filling out a survey or contribution page seem less laborious.

FAST The internet was built on immediate gratification. Plus, everyone says they are way too busy … except when it comes to watching YouTube.

URGENT It’s a toss-up between “urgent” and “important” as to which is more impactful. Regardless, “urgency” is a primal copywriting “hook” for a reason.

YOU This is probably the most important of all the words – even more so than FREE – for its sheer versatility and impact. As marketers we can never forget that our job is to make the connection between the consumer/donor and the product.  Without the “you”, there is no connection.

As important as these words are, there are definitely more. Which do you think are the most important ones?

Social Media Case Study: Facebook plus integrated marketing helps raise $950,000

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Daniel Burstein recently wrote an excellent article in MarketingExperiments.com on how Adams Hussey & Associates client California State Parks Foundation took advantage of the power of social media to dramatically grow their web presence and raise close to a million dollars. The response to this article was so overwhelming that it was followed up with an interview with Adams Hussey & Associates' Senior Online Account Executive and Strategist Brenna Holmes, who advised the organization and helped to implement their online strategy. The text of this interview is below, and to view it in its original form, please follow this link.

Recently, I wrote about a case study that included excellent use of integrated marketing and social media – Facebook Case Study: From 517 to 33,000 fans in two weeks (plus media coverage). The MarketingExperiments community of marketers wanted to get a deeper look at the details, so I figured, why not go straight to the source?

Brenna Holmes, a senior online account executive and strategist at Adams Hussey & Associates (AH&A), was the digital brand strategic advisor on this campaign for her client, the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF). I asked her many questions from our audience along with a few of my own…

Let’s start with your role in this campaign. Social media operations is a huge challenge in itself. We’ll get to what you did in a moment. But first, how did you get it done?

Brenna Holmes: In the case of this urgent campaign, not only did I serve as an advisor, I also helped with implementation for all things social – optimizing their existing Facebook fan page with the custom welcome tab and many personalized Facebook Markup Language (FBML) widgets. Later in the campaign, I started and managed their Twitter account.

CSPF is a very small and tightly knit organization. Their Director of Membership, Greg Zelder, and Director of Communications, Jerry Emory, are my daily contacts and it was (and is) in collaboration with them that we got a full-scale multichannel campaign up and running within one week of learning of the Governor’s proposed budget cuts.

The first thing that catches my eye about this case study is the quick, large Facebook fan page growth that led to positive media stories. But when you explore this success a little deeper, it’s not just a case for social media marketing, but integrated marketing as well. Can you give us more details on how you used multichannel marketing?

BH: At AH&A, we LOVE multichannel integration. As a direct mail fundraising shop that has expanded to include pretty much in-house everything (online, telemarketing, creative, production, and analytics), practically every campaign we plan has multichannel components.

And this case was no different. CSPF had been a direct mail and telemarketing client of ours for many years, but 2009 was the first year that my department began working with them.

Actually…the budget cuts issue made us start our contract a month early! Within 48 hours the organizational website was redesigned to accommodate an Action Center, daily homepage updates, graphic social media sharing links, and embedded YouTube videos made by both the organization and passionate supporters.

The update explained the imminent threat parks were facing and put a deadline – Friday, May 29 – and a goal – 5,000 fans. “This year’s cuts are ten times as bad, so we need ten times the fans on Facebook.”

Once supporters became fans, they were presented with an action item asking them to visit CSPF’s site to sign an email petition to the California legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger. We also set up and managed CSPF’s paid online advertising on both Facebook and Google to drive supporters to become fans and/or sign the petition. All this Web outreach was supported by an aggressive email petition and donation campaign to the house list and partner organizations in California.

The online campaign was mirrored in direct mail with three “urgent grams” that were in people’s mail boxes by the end of the week – one to high-dollar donors ($1,000+), one to all other members, and one to prospects. All three pieces netted funds and raised more than $200,000 in just over a month. Telemarketing was also excellently leveraged – existing campaigns were halted and new scripts were implemented, raising more than $88,000 in the first two weeks of the campaign.

That whole week in May, Foundation staff members were being interviewed and the story was picked up by SF Gate, Huffington Post, LA Daily News, Frommers, etc. They even made it onto Digg! By early June the Facebook growth was being referenced in mainstream news articles and on other environmental and California-based nonprofit Facebook pages.

Were these other channels used to primarily promote Facebook over the CSPF website?

BH: Facebook was never promoted over the website. Facebook promotion was always either in conjunction with site promotion (general “Find Us on Facebook” links) or as a secondary ask (“Thanks for taking action! If you are on Facebook, click through to join the conversation”).

Other than the specific “Friend Get a Friend” outreach on Facebook and some of the Facebook ads, we were primarily driving supporters to the online Action Center to sign the petition, make donations, and later on, print Save Our State Parks signs and upload their photos from the SOS weekends of action.

When people visit the CSPF Facebook fan page for the first time, they see a pseudo landing page that encourages them to become a fan or go to the CSPF website. I love the landing page, it’s a very clear way to communicate with your audience about the actions you’d like them to take (instead of just showing your wall to new visitors). Why did you decide to send users to a pseudo landing page instead of the wall?

BH: I’m a big fan of introductions, and maximizing the personalization of user experiences online. It’s a pet peeve of mine when sites (Facebook or other) don’t recognize that I’m new to the site.

So much of the online experience can be controlled from the backend to give a more customized experience. In my opinion, it would be silly to not take advantage of that with something as simple as a welcome tab.

We are trying to put the most efficient but comprehensive view of CSPF out there so people can absorb it in the seven seconds we have before they decide to click elsewhere. A cluttered (or worse barren) wall just doesn’t give the right first impression in my opinion.

And the Facebook landing page doesn’t solely encourage them to become a fan, it gives them other options as well.

There are three asks. This allows supporters to choose how they want to interact with the Foundation. The easiest is, of course, to “Like” the page. Then if they want to do more they can take action or join. The vast majority simply “Like” the page and move onto the “Wall,” but we have seen some petitions and new memberships coming in from these source-coded links.

This campaign helped raised several hundred thousand dollars for CSPF. (Congratulations!) How much came through Facebook, and how much came because of the other channels you used?

BH: Unfortunately we weren’t as proactive in source coding all the links on Facebook as we should have been from the very beginning, so the majority of donations do not show as coming from Facebook during that first burst of activity. However, we do know that 60% of our page connections are self-professed annual members.

In late July/August, we launched a social-media-only campaign promoting the Frequent Visitor membership level ($125 to get an annual parks parking pass) on Facebook and Twitter. Social media allowed us to quickly take advantage of the Parks Department halting annual pass sales for almost two weeks. In that campaign, CSPF gained over 700 new members from social media at the $125 level.

I can also tell you that while the entire integrated campaign earned $950,000, almost $300,000 was raised online and 46% of that came from supporters new to the e-file (either joining as annual members or by giving non-membership issue-based gifts). The e-file also tripled in size as the fan page grew and paid membership grew by 10% in the first two months.

We are much more meticulous about this now and see a steady stream of new memberships, renewals, and issue-based gifts coming in from both Facebook page promotions and the Facebook ads. (Stay tuned for this November’s Yes For State Parks ballot issue get-out-the-vote work on Facebook.)

What was the budget and team size? Social media seems very labor intensive, very manual.

BH: The online team size was only four of us – me, my vice president for strategic brainstorming, along with Greg Zelder and Jerry Emory at CSPF.

CSPF is on a monthly retainer with us, which includes all work except creative development. We have a larger offline staff that works closely with CSPF to get all the other pieces rolling and now CSPF has added another Web person internally to help out, but during last year’s campaign it was all hands for Greg and me in getting the online pieces up and running and properly maintained.

Social media is labor intensive, but if you have an urgent issue like this one, you drop everything to get it done and done as well as possible the first time around.

What is your follow-up plan for all these new Facebook fans that you have engaged?

BH: I’ve been managing the fan page for over a year now and it continues to grow. CSPF has, on average, a 15.5% month-over-month fan “connection” growth.

CSPF’s Communications Director is very hands on with the content generation and they post at a minimum of twice a week – a “feel good park story” every Tuesday and every Thursday there is a post for the new World’s Best Bike Commute blog that chronicles Jerry’s bike commute across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Greg and Jerry are also very good at posting from their mobiles to keep the page updated with pictures and information from the many live events CSPF holds throughout the year. Ideally I’d like to see a daily update to Facebook, but current staffing constraints at CSPF won’t allow for it. We are currently also working on some fun new content that will only be viewable after supporters “Like” the page.

How much are Facebook fans really worth? Are they very valuable? Or do they just “Like” something because they saw that their friends did?

BH: We find CSPF’s fans VERY valuable, whether they are the active donors or not, many are very outspoken evangelists for the cause. We are actually undertaking a much more robust tracking regime to identify the most engaged Facebook connections so we can do some additional personalized outreach.

Lately, the words Facebook and privacy seem to go hand in hand…

BH: We haven’t had any issues regarding privacy so far. Everything we do is on an opt-in basis and we are very proactive in answering fan questions – even going so far as to help a fan organize her newsfeed content so as to not be “overwhelmed” by our updates.

There are now a plethora of invites to social causes on Facebook. How does one cause really stand out from another?

BH: This is no different on Facebook than in other direct marketing media. Donors and activists have more choices of where to spend their time and money now than ever before. You stand out by staying engaged and listening to your base. Encourage them to be part of the process and they will extend your voice a thousand times over.

Can for-profit marketers use the same tactics you describe?

BH: I think that many of the tactics are the same whether the organization is non- or for-profit, and we “steal” concepts from commercial organizations ideas all the time. Typically the defining issue is cost, since corporations tend to have larger marketing budgets than nonprofits they could conceivably get even more value from social media like Facebook.

For the budding social media marketers out there… what applications have you found to be most valuable in engaging Facebook users?

BH: Custom FBML wall widgets and tabs are a must – like the welcome tab and our Get Involved menu of options. If you have a blog, sync it up with the Notes RSS. Sync your YouTube uploads and add as many of the newly released social plug-ins to your website as feasible. You want to engage supporters where they already live online.

Daniel originally found this case study in the brand new Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook. If you’re looking to improve your social media marketing, you might benefit from the Handbook’s case studies (in addition to the one I covered above, there are ten more in the Handbook).

If you have any additional questions about our interactive marketing or digital brand management services, please leave a comment below.

Dear Jim... - A New Monthly Nonprofit Fundraising Blog Series -

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The Abigail Van Buren of fundraising gives it away for free.
By Jim Hussey

I’ve decided to offer my advice to all of you out there with questions about your fundraising troubles - a sort of “Dear Abby” column for the fundraising forlorn. I'm even willing to dole out this advice free of charge. Those with questions need not fear a monthly retainer bill or any other type of charge. Just please don’t tell any of my clients I'm giving it away for nothing! :-D 

Since this is a new idea, I have no letters to answer — yet (though I expect my inbox to swell soon!) — so to start the ball rolling, I’ve simply forged some on my own, based on questions I frequently hear. I'm hoping it’ll inspire you to comment with your own queries.

Dear Jim,

I come to you with an urgent problem. My boss has told me that I need to conduct “regression analysis” concerning previous fundraising campaigns for my organization. I hate to admit it, but I don’t even know what regression analysis is. I don’t want to appear stupid to my boss … can you please help me by explaining this term?

Sincerely, Unanalyzed

Dear Unanalyzed,

This term is a catch-all phrase for any type of analysis that utilizes previously gathered information. For example, if you want to figure out if men or women are more likely to respond to one of your fundraising solicitations, you can take the response data of previous campaigns and compare these results to the initial audience. Let’s say the results show that 50 percent of the original audience was male, yet 75 percent of your respondents are female … then you've figured out that women are your best prospects. Regression analysis also can be used to determine a multitude of other factors, such as seasonality, and retention and attrition rates.

Dear Jim,

My nonprofit organization is about to celebrate an important anniversary, and my boss wants me to develop a fundraising campaign around this date. Is this a smart thing to do?

Sincerely, Perplexed

Dear Perplexed,

Anniversaries can serve as an indicator to potential donors that your organization has stamina and isn't a fly-by-night operation. However, it’s always critical to remember that donors never provide you with a reward for past service. Donors always contribute toward a current or pending situation. A sense of urgency almost always is a requirement to any successful fundraising campaign. So proceed with your anniversary campaign … but put most of your focus on the present and future.

Comment with your Dear Jim questions and I'll answer a few each month! 

Don’t Write Off Direct Mail

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