Educational Institution Turns Tax Compliant
Mailing Into Income Opportunity
Goal
Give previous year donors the opportunity to give again from a tax compliant mailing.
Target
Previous year donors.
Campaign Architecture
All non-profits are required to mail notifications to donors that show how much they donated during the previous tax year. This educational institution turned this routine mailing that is done every January into an opportunity to obtain more gifts.
In previous years, the mailings consisted of an 8.5x 3.5 slip of paper that was personalized with the amount of the recipient's previous year's donations and the school's Federal ID#. It was inserted into a #10 window envelope and mailed. This year we added an extra 8.5x3.5 panel that was perfed and could be torn off and returned in the enclosed Business Reply Envelope.
The school mailed a total of 700 pieces but included the BRE and extra panel in only 383 based on giving patterns.
Results
A total of 27 people sent in a gift which is a 7.0 percent response. Total money raised was $6,385. An average of $236 per donor. The additional cost for printing and inserting the BRE was $145 for an ROI of 44.0.
Conclusion
Many non-profits and educational institutions are fearful of asking their donors for too many gifts during the year. Baber Direct's fear is not asking too many times but asking in a way that indicates that you don't know your donors. For example, asking for a gift from a donor that made a donation 4 weeks ago implies that you don't really know them or appreciate the gift they just made. We tell all our non-profits and educational institutions who are about to do a fundraising mailing to delete donors who made a recent donation or write copy for that recipient that acknowledges the most recent gifts and makes a case for an additional gift.
This educational institution hand selected donors from their database and made an appeal that brought in $6,385 that it has never had before just because they asked. |
