Halloween was this past weekend and we turned deep into the dark side.  Goulies and ghosties walked the streets in my neighborhood.
So let’s turn to the dark side of your year-end fundraising campaign – and shine a light on mistakes many organizations make.
Here’s my Top 10 list of ways to sabotage your year-end fundraising [...]

Fundraising letters communicate a specific message to potential donors and call them to action. Creating an attention getting opening paragraph is important in making a good first impression and in getting the rest of the letter read. Here are 5 Attention Getting Strategies for Fundraising Letters [...]

Following up on Lori Rice’s article, Customize Communications to Increase Donor Loyalty, I’d like to explore three practical ways that you can personalize your fundraising letters.
In other words, the logistics of how to get away from “Dear Friend” and other impersonal elements that take away from the power of direct mail.
Steve Maggio of DaVinci Direct, [...]

You may have heard of the three R’s of education - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Today we’ll look at what I call the “Three R’s” of Fundraising Letters and hear from one non profit who implements all three of these ideas. […]

Fundraising letters sent through the mail are one of the most popular ways to request donations.   However, if you’ve never written a fundraising letter before, you may have lots of questions…
How do you start the letter? How can you persuade the reader to donate without being too pushy? What will make someone take notice of [...]

The first step in having a successful direct mail fundraising campaign is having an understanding of the fundamentals — what direct mail is, what it is not and what to expect with a direct mail campaign.  These are three typical questions that many nonprofits who have not done a fundraising letter campaign before may ask.  [...]

1. Failure to ask for a gift. Don’t assume that your donors will know what you want them to do. Ask for a gift.  And make sure to include a reply envelope to make it easy for your donors to send their gift to you.
2. Using a dirty list. Keeping your list clean is one [...]