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Ready to crack the code of direct mail fundraising? Appeal letters are a crucial tool for nonprofit organizations to engage donors and raise funds. But in a busy, media-saturated world, it can be a challenge to grab the attention of current and potential donors.
Today's episode is part one of a two-part series focused on the secrets of grabbing the attention of donors through direct mail. On this episode, Tim and Nathan discuss the first four of nine actions to take when using Direct Mail:
To sign up for the Fundraising Fundamentals workshop mentioned on this episode, click here.
The Hosts of The Practice of NonProfit Leadership:
Tim Barnes serves as the Executive Vice President of International Association for Refugees (IAFR) and can be contacted at tim@iafr.org.
Nathan Ruby serves as the Executive Director of Friends of the Children of Haiti (FOTCOH) and can be contacted at nruby@fotcoh.org.
All opinions and views expressed by the hosts are their own and do not necessarily represent those of their respective organizations.
Appeal Letters are a crucial tool for nonprofit organizations to raise funds and engage supporters. However, with busy schedules, it can be challenging to grab the attention of donors of small to medium-sized nonprofits. In part one of this two-part episode, Tim and Nathan will uncover the secrets to creating unmissable appeal letters that will captivate your audience and generate more revenue. Welcome to the practice of nonprofit leadership, a podcast specifically designed for executive directors of nonprofit organizations. With a touch of humor, your co-hosts, Tim and Nathan, work to provide encouragement, insights and practical strategies to help you be a more effective leader. And now here's Tim and Nathan.
Tim Barnes:Welcome to episode 106 of the practice of nonprofit leadership. I'm Tim Barnes and I'm Nathan Ruby.
Nathan Ruby:Direct mail is dead. Long live direct mail.
Tim Barnes:Wow, nathan, are you working on your best? King Charles, the third impression.
Nathan Ruby:You know what I was thinking about that, Tim, as I was getting ready to say that. But you know, my English accent is pretty bad, and so I thought, eh, I'm not going to risk it.
Tim Barnes:Well, you definitely didn't sound British, but you did give us a good segue into our topic for today's episode on direct mail.
Nathan Ruby:Yeah, that's right, tim, we're going to talk about direct mail today. It's getting to be, you know, it's getting to be kind of towards the end of the year and a lot of mail is going to take in place, a lot of fundraising by mail, and so we thought that I thought that this would be a good time to talk about direct mail. But, tim, this is not just an episode on direct mail, it's more like an extravaganza. It's a two part episode.
Tim Barnes:The bottom line is we actually had too much good stuff. We couldn't just do it in one episode. So, Nathan, let's, before we get started, maybe we should kind of define exactly what we mean when we talk about direct mail.
Nathan Ruby:Yeah, good, good question, tim. So the definition that we're going to use today is basically anything that you send out in the mail that has either a direct ask, a soft ask, which we'll talk about in a little while, or a general fundraising overtone to it. So that could be appeal letters or newsletters or annual reports, if you send out an annual report as a standalone. So some people may not include newsletters technically as a direct mail piece, but I do. I lump it all together so I can plan for it that way. Anything that you're sending out that's tied to fundraising is that's what we're calling direct mail in this episode and the next episode, and that's how I do it when I set up my fundraising.
Tim Barnes:I think it's important for us to say we are actually talking about items, that we actually go to the post office and put them in the mail and they come that way. Would you consider you wouldn't consider email, sending an email newsletter, sending email update? That's not what you're talking about here, right? No?
Nathan Ruby:no, that would be a separate. I split that up as an online strategy. Now you can use the same content. You create your content and as a hard copy, us post office you know sending out in the mail and you can. There's a couple of options when it actually comes to the online side. You can just make a PDF copy of the actual hard copy and send that out, or you could totally reconfigure it and make it as a standalone online piece. You could do either one, but no, what we're talking about today is hard copy. It's gone to the printer, goes in an envelope, goes to the post office and goes out. So I'm not including online strategies in this.
Tim Barnes:Okay, I think it's important because I think your first statement is really true. There are a lot of people who really believe the direct mail is dead, and yet direct mail still works.
Nathan Ruby:Yeah, it is Tim, and you know people say that they hate direct mail. But the reason you keep getting it all the time is because it works. I mean, whether it's from a fundraising perspective or from a corporate for profit. You know, a direct mail marketing campaign, people wouldn't do it if it didn't work, and you know it is. It is a way to generate revenue, it is for nonprofits and it is a way to generate positive net revenue. Now, we'll talk about this a little bit later too. Now, it doesn't automatically mean that every organization should be doing a direct mail program, but for a lot of organizations it does make sense.
Tim Barnes:Well, let's jump in here. I know you've got some key points today that you want to just share with us, that if we are going to do the direct mail, there's some things we need to make sure are happening with it, so why don't we jump right in?
Nathan Ruby:Yeah, yeah, we've got nine points to talk about direct mail and making your direct mail program more successful. And ultimately, what do we mean by more successful? We mean generating more net revenue. So nine things that you could do to make your direct mail program better. Number one is in any document, any direct mail piece I start out with whether it's newsletter, direct mail letter itself annual report I always start out with thank you, with thanking donors for supporting you and writing checks, and I looked at a couple of studies on this, and one study I read was it was a study about everyday language. Use around the world has found that in informal settings, people almost always complied with requests for an object, service or help, and for their efforts they received expressions of gratitude only rarely and about one out of 20 occasions. So what does this mean? If you're sitting at the table and you know, even if you're home with your family, you're safe to dinner table and I'm Pepper yeah, you know, please pass the pepper, because it's rude to reach all the way across the table. I mean, sometimes when you're at home, you know, maybe you do that anyway, but let's say we have our manners on Tim and so you ask your your 15 year old, please pass the pepper. And they do. And then how often do you say thank you? And so this study found out it was about one in 20, and I don't know when I first read that I thought that's, that's not right, it would be higher than that. But then I kind of thought about daily interactions and, yeah, it probably. It probably is more more close to accurate than we think. So a second study I read said people signal the need for assistance Frequently about every minute and a half, according to this, to this study and they usually get it. However, we requests were complied with about seven times more often than not. So if we are asking for help, if we're asking for assistance about every minute and a half and we're only getting a thank you one in 20 times, that means people have been conditioned to not receive a thank you. Well, guess what that means? If you do start out with a thank you, if you do make a thank you a prominent piece of your direct mail, then that sticks out to donors because they're not used to receiving that. And so you know, typically when I start off a, an actual will do, an actual appeal letter, I have got a thank you. In the first paragraph it is right up center, and Statements such as your gifts have made such an impact this year, or thank you for your generous support, or we couldn't do this without you. Something that that sets the tone right off the bat that says thank you, acknowledges what they've done in the past and gives appreciation and and thanks for that. So right off the bat I put that in there. That's in in my article, in the newsletter, in a direct mail piece, whatever the case may be.
Tim Barnes:So saying thank you is really really important and do you find that generally it's a good thing to do, but do you feel like it helps people be more receptive if they, if they do get a thank you, it's like, oh, they do appreciate me, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go ahead and continue to give.
Nathan Ruby:Yeah, it is, and it sets the tone. And I don't know, I don't know if people expect it for my letters, because I always start off that way, but I do think that it everybody likes to be shown, uh, appreciation. I mean if somebody comes up to you and if you've done something for your neighbor and your neighbor comes back the next day and says, my god, thank you for doing that. Well, it makes you feel good. I mean that just it makes you feel Like you've done something good. It creates a. In my opinion, it creates a closer connection Between two people and so, yeah, I think it just puts the, the donor, in a better frame of mind To read the rest of the letter when they see that right off the bat.
Tim Barnes:So we're. We need to start by a thank you. What? Where do we go from there?
Nathan Ruby:All right. Another piece is just really critical for your direct mail pieces is tell a compelling story. Um, every successful appeal letter, you've got to include a compelling story that resonates with the reader. So when you're writing this letter, it's important to capture the emotions and experience of those who have directly benefited from your organization's work, sharing real life stories that demonstrate the impact of your programs and initiatives. Now, there may be some privacy concerns, depending on the type of organization you have, especially if you're working with kids in a social service setting, you know privacy and and, uh, especially if you're in a smaller town, uh, that that could be a real issue, and so, if that's the case, you could get around that pretty easily by one Uh, changing names. Uh, that's one way. Another thing you could do is you can I think it's called a straw man, tim Um, you could set up a story about people, about how you, how your organization, has impacted people, but it doesn't have to be the exact A situation to an exact person that that's named. So you could one of my I'm kind of talking in circles here, tim, but it you could set up a scenario this is a typical scenario of somebody that we serve and then Just go into that and you, and then so down at the bottom, you put in an asterisk and down at the bottom you can say something like you know the names of in order to maintain privacy, the names and story has been altered, or something like that. You can do that. Or you can write something like you know, when a typical family comes in to our organization, this is your, this is their situation, this is what their life has been, this is how our organization helps them and this is this is the outcome. This is what happens. I am. Your donors understand that. They know that you can't say you know Bob and Sarah Anderson of fourteen twenty five elm street and you came to our organization. They understand that you can't do that. I'm so. It's okay. It's okay to leave some ambiguity in there, but you still have to tell compelling stories. Giving is a emotional response to a need. It is you. In order to get donors to write a check, you have to make it emotional and if you don't hit that emotional trigger, they will not get your don't or they will give out at a lower level. And this is especially true the closer you get to a donors max gift. I'm that, you the if their max gift is a is a thousand dollars and you are asking for a nine hundred dollar check, then you really gotta have emotion in there. I know to your organization is really been doing a great job lately with with telling stories and and telling those stories and bringing it really down From an emotional state impact of how you're helping one family or one person and and you guys really been doing a good job with that lately.
Tim Barnes:Thanks. You know the issue, the whole issue of refugees, with the numbers are so huge, the need is so big and it's easy to be able to throw out. You know millions, you know well how do you wrap your hands around millions of people. But if you take it to the fact that these are people with names and here's their names, you know, or here's their situation, I mean some people get it as statistics, but by far the majority of people need, like you say, that emotional connection. I need, I need to realize we're talking about a real issue, a human issue or whatever. So we typically respond more to to the emotional side, as you say, then we do to a statistic. That's my, my experience anyway yeah for sure.
Nathan Ruby:And and that's also a valid point, tim, on the numbers, and no matter what your organization is, if you are serving on the block in your community or on you know, the the west side or the north side or the south side of your community or your state or United States or the whole world, doesn't make any difference. That this fact remains the same is donors. Don't think in multiples. So if you're serving, I'd say you serve 500 family units last year. Well, it is really difficult for a donor to get their arms around 500, because the ability to impact 500 is pretty difficult unless you have a really a really big checkbook. And so when you're telling these stories, you've got to bring it down to one. Tell a story about one family or one person or one example. Don't talk about the many. Your donor can get their arms around one and they can feel a connection with one. So don't talk about 10 or 20 or 500 or 1000, talk about one. And that's how you do it. So you know your stories are are so important. When I do my direct mail pieces typically about 70% of the letter or 70% of the article whatever I'm doing is the story that is the number one piece, that of writing when you're writing words. That is the number one. Important is the story. So about 70% of my letter will be the story.
Tim Barnes:Well, this is your off to a good start here, nathan. Some really practical things to remember when we're doing direct mail. We've got a, we've got an event coming up, and so let's take a break, nathan, and talk about that event, and we'll be back in just a minute.
Nathan Ruby:Fundraising could be difficult, but it doesn't have to be. Just like learning anything else. You have to learn the fundamentals before you master a new skill. That's why Tim and I are offering a new class called fundraising fundamentals. In this free class, you will learn fundamental such as why do people give, how do I encourage people to give to my organization, how do I fit fundraising into my already overwhelmed schedule, and a lot more. This class will be fun, interactive and give you a solid base by which you can begin to build your fundraising muscle. If fundraising success has remained elusive, if you know in your heart your organization should be raising more dollars, but you just can't figure out how this class is for you, click the link in the show notes and you'll be able to register. It's gonna be a good class. We hope to see you there.
Tim Barnes:Well, nathan, I hope our listeners take an opportunity to join us for that free class. I think it's gonna be a good experience and I know you got a lot of good things to share. So make sure you guys click on the link in the show notes and we'll look forward to seeing you on October 19th, and all the details will be sent out to you once you sign up. Well, hey, let's jump back into our direct mail focus. What's our next point?
Nathan Ruby:Okay. Next one is personalize your approach. Now I gotta tell you nobody gets excited. I don't get excited. I don't think anybody gets excited when you get a letter in the in the mailbox. You know the post person, your, your, your mail person has gone by. You get a second. You go outside, you open up the the mailbox and you know it's kind of excited to go to the mailbox to see what's in there. It's a little bit of mystery, a little bit of fun. And there's a letter that addressed and you look at it and it says dear resident. Really, wow, you spent a lot of time and effort to to pick me out. You really made me feel special by addressing my letter to dear resident. So you know the fundraising equivalent to that would be dear donor or dear supporter or something like that. And when you get a direct mail like that, or when your donors get a direct email that's addressed that way, it just I don't know it just sends a signal out that you oh gosh Tim, what was it? What was the brand? When you care to send the very best, was that homework? I think that was homework thing. Sounds like it. Yeah, would you care to send the very best? Well you're. You're not caring to send the very best when you address your appeal letter to dear donor. Now I understand, not everybody, not everybody has a database. Not everybody has staff that is well trained on how to do. You know pivot tables and mail merges and all that thing. I get it. I understand that. I've worked for those organizations like that. I've been in that situation. I was fundraising for an organization once. You didn't have a database. We had it on an Excel spreadsheet. So I get it. I understand it. If that's you, I would suggest a couple of things. One, sending, sending a letter if the very best you could do is dear donor and that's the best you could do. Sending that is better than sending nothing. So I will. I will say that it's sending that is better than maybe use dear friend instead of dear donor. That would probably be a suggestion. Send it if that's all you have, but then spend time and effort. And if you need to spend some money and invest in a database, invest in a volunteer or a part timer to help you work in that database. Once you get one, make sure the data is correct. And again this comes back to me, tim, we maybe should do an episode on this on on infrastructure, because so many nonprofits spends all their money on program, which is that's you know, that's where people are, that's your, your, your nonprofit doing this work and so investing in the work is what you're supposed to do. But you also have to make sure you have the right infrastructure to generate the revenue that you need, and this is a place where you could spend money on infrastructure. So, if you don't have a database, add that to your to-do list to go find one and one that fits for you, and then get your data in there, get it cleaned up, make sure that you have, you know, if you have Mr and Mrs, you know Nathan Ruby, or Nathan and Missy Ruby, or however you want to do it. Make sure it's consistent, make sure it gets in there and then start to use that and personalize those those addresses. It will make a difference. Your revenue will go up. I guarantee you. It'll go up if you send it out with the right name on it, as opposed to dear friend.
Tim Barnes:The bottom line is, nathan, we live in a time where this is not as hard as it used to be. There are some really fairly simple, affordable options that let you do this and, if you like I have no idea what I'm talking about Reach out to us and I'll let Nathan coach you in that. But seriously, there there are many, many affordable options that could be used even as a small Non-profit in the in the world that we're living today.
Nathan Ruby:Yeah, there's, there's a several day. I mean, there's a ton of fundraising databases out there and a lot of them not all of them, but a lot of them have a free option If and a lot of them are based on the size of your database. So, if you have, you know, some of I don't know exactly what the numbers are, but it might be up to 5000 are free, you don't have to pay anything. Well, if your mailing list is 250 people, well then you're under that limit, so you can actually use that database and not pay anything and it it's well worth the effort. Now you know you have to learn how to use it, or have somebody in your organization learn it, and that that takes some investment, time and energy and maybe some money. But again, well, well worth it. Well, number four All right. So the next one. When you're writing a peel letter again, whether it's a standalone letter or newsletter article or whatever you have to highlight urgency here in the US and a lot of countries around the world. It is part of culture, it is giving To those in need is part of it's wrapped into who we are, it's wrapped in culturally, it's wrapped into our DNA. So it's it's a very common function to help those in need. However, instigating that, or or or getting somebody to actually take out their checkbook, actually find a pen and actually sign it, put it in the envelope, put a stamp on it, put it in the mailbox and send it off, or, you know, click the what's the grid thing, tim, you take a picture of and it takes your right to it online Bar. You are code, thank you. You know, clicking on the QR code, whatever it is, you have to have a sense of urgency, and so, by urgency here, here's an example. It's a non fundraising example, but often my wife is really attuned to her surrounding. She's much better at that than I am. I am sometimes oblivious to my surrounding, but my wife is always attuned to it, and so she will make a comment like there, there's a sound in the car. The car is making a sound, and I will say, well, what sound is that? And then she will make some sound that I can't even. I don't even know how she makes the sound. But then I go and I get in the car and I drive it and I listen for that sound and I don't hear it, and there's like I don't hear anything, just keep driving it, we're good. And so one day she called on the way to, on the way to work, and she said the the car is making a sound. And I said, and I was busy, I had things going on, I was getting ready for a meeting. And I said how close are you to school? She's a teacher and she's pretty close. I said get to school, I'll worry about it later today. The phone rings again about 30. Now, about 60 seconds later, I look at the phone. It's my wife calling and I have to admit I was a little agitated, tim, because I just had we just talked and I, you know, I had given her what I wanted her to do. And so I answered the phone and she said I'm on the side of the road. Ultimately, what had happened was the tie rod end had broken on the car and that's what was making the sound that she couldn't. She couldn't describe the sound was, so the tire was like flopped over at about a 45 degree angle. So now, all of a sudden, I went to, very attuned to what was going on, and called my meeting off and went and did what I had to do. But all of a sudden I had a sense of urgency. When she said the tires flopped over on the side, that got my attention Before she wasn't getting my attention and so you've got to have an attention getter, you've got to have something that creates a sense of urgency and back in the day, a lot of year-end appeals worked really well. I mean, we all know about. If you've been in the non-profit business on the fundraising side at all, you know, everybody knows that October, november and especially November and December is like where most part of the revenue comes in at the end of the year. Well, the reason for that it was because of the tax year and it was very common for people to give in November and December because a lot of people itemized their taxes and and thus they could deduct the gift. Now, remember, tax incentives have always been well down on the list of reasons why people give. In fact, tax reasons are hardly ever in the top five as a motivator for making a gift. Usually it's seven, eight, nine, sometimes even ten or eleven. So it's not a primary motivator to make a gift, but it is well in the past anyway, it could be an instigator to give. So your donor's like oh, it's December 20th and I haven't. You know I haven't given to my favorite charity yet. I better get my checkbook out and write it because I'm running out of time. That was pretty common. Well, in 2020, 87 percent of Americans took the standard deduction. So if you take the standard deduction, you're not itemizing, so you're not going to get a chance to write off those charitable gifts. So in 2020, 87 percent of Americans took the standard deduction. In 2013, that was 68 percent of taxpayers took the standard deduction. So that's a 19 percent increase in the last seven years. So now taxes really aren't even an instigator for many of your donors. So we kind of have lost that time calendar timeline to get people encouraged to write the check. So you have to create a sense of urgency on your own and you could do that with simple statements like your gift today will mean so-and-so, etc. Etc. Or your gift today means that we could continue to serve our clients, just like Suzy or Sally or Joe whoever was in the story that remember the compelling story. Whoever was in your compelling story. If you don't convey a sense of urgency, your donor is going to think, yeah, I really need to write a check and I really need to do that. Oh, look, my grandchild's calling, or oh, my son is, you know, needs me on the phone. Or oh, I'm just about ready for that meeting I have to go to, and it gets lost in the shuffle and the gift never materializes.
Tim Barnes:It probably is good to mention that we do have listeners outside of the US, and so we've been fortunate in the US to be able to have the opportunity to deduct some of our giving to charitable causes. That's not true of all all countries around the world, but no matter where you are, urgency really is an important, important topic of how do we motivate people to actually take this step to give Nathan. I wanted to ask you real quick that can there be too much urgency like can we use? Can we use our urgency in a way that it's like every time I get something, you know the house is on fire. Well, that house must have burned down several times already because it's still it's still on fire. What's the best way to use that sense of urgency to where it doesn't become too over the top?
Nathan Ruby:Yeah, that's a that's a good question and and that is possible. I mean your donors. For them to give, they, they need to have a sense that we're, that their money is making a difference, that their money is. That's the reason for the compelling story, that that's how their money is going to be used. But if you get to the, to the point where you know the sky is falling or you know the platform is burning down and and we're in crisis again and again and again and again, well, pretty soon it's my money's not really doing anything here, I'm not accomplishing anything, and so I'm going to find an organization that that I think I can really help make a difference with. And so can you say you know, without your gift, we may have to close our doors. Yes, you could say that. You just can't say it very often, and when I when I mean very often, I mean once, every two, three, four years maybe. You certainly can't say it two times or three times a year, or you know, every third letter that goes out something like that. Because you'll just you'll lose your donors. Either they'll stop giving totally, or they will. They will diminish the, the, the level of giving that they have for you, give you a smaller amount and and support another organization that they feel is really moving forward and making a better impact. So, yes, definitely you have to be careful using the sky is falling or you know the house is burning down as a tool to get a sense of urgency.
Tim Barnes:Nathan. What a what a good start to the focus on direct direct mail, the idea of saying thank you and telling a compelling story, making sure we personalized the approach of our letter to people and also to give them a reason to give to, to create some urgency in our next episode. Continue the discussion. But why don't you put this all together for us today?
Nathan Ruby:So every executive director must have a well thought out fundraising plan that is implemented every year. Should direct mail be automatically included in every single plan? No, not every organization is designed to be successful with direct mail. However, and this is a big however, most organizations will benefit from a strong direct mail program. If you decide to include direct mail in your and annual fundraising plan, following the things we've talked about in this episode and in our next episode, we'll put you in a good position to see increased revenue.
Tim Barnes:Well, thank, you for listening today and if you're benefiting from what's being shared on this podcast, we would like to ask you to share a review on the platform. And don't forget, sign up for the fundraising fundamentals. You don't want to miss it. Just go to the show notes and click on the link. We'd like to get in touch with us. Our contact information is also in the show notes. That's all for today. Until next time.
