There is a more subtle point here. Donor clubs are not recognition strategies; they are solicitation strategies, employed to encourage members to make larger and larger annual investments in the organization. In that context, donor club decisions and decisions about recognizing long-term donors should be...
The most important branding element for your donor club is the list itself. Like a social register, people like to find their own name and look for those of their friends. Make sure you spell everyone’s name correctly! ...
You can raise more money from your members just by systematically asking for more money. Donor clubs can help, and a significant side benefit is that the annual solicitations provide a useful way for board members to get more involved in fundraising....
Increased personalization makes good intuitive sense for marketing anyway – especially in today's world. ...
On the one hand, 15 percent is a terrific response and much better than the 1 percent response typical of direct mail recruitment. On the other hand, many of these same members might have responded earlier if they had been asked....
Several clients have asked me recently about establishing donor clubs based on cumulative giving. In general I recommend against it, unless the organization already has a well-established system for recognizing annual donors....
At the very moment in history when government leaders are turning to non-profit organizations to pick up the slack from defunded programs, foundation giving is declining, corporate support is flat, and ten percent of individual philanthropists say they will quit giving altogether until the economy...
A couple of things jump out of Read’s article for me. The question of how to recruit advocates instead of “merely donors” is interesting and speaks to the need for fundraising to be seen as relationship-building. ...
I just got back from Columbus, Ohio, the site of this year’s Land Trust Alliance’s Midwest Land Conservation Conference. Meeting and working with practitioners and Board members from the twelve states represented there inspired me to pick this blog up again. As a relative newcomer...