Make a bigger ask and ask often.
We hear it all too frequently; “I don’t want to mail my prospects too often because
I may annoy them.” If you are that sensitive, perhaps you should not ask them for donations at all. Take St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital for example; do you think they worry about how often they mail? And, like other successful charities, they do mail often. Here is an amusing story:
I sometimes eat breakfast at a little, neighborhood mom-and-pop coffee shop near my home. There on the counter next to the cash register sit three different receptacles for charitable donations of coins æ one for Kiwanis, one for some organization for the blind, one for disabled veterans. One morning, as I dropped my change into one of the receptacles, it registered with me that I always plunked my change into the same one. Why? I stood there for a few minutes pondering my own behavior.
Then it hit me. The reason I always put my change into the disabled veterans jar was
- NOT because I had preference for that charity over the others
- NOT because of any reasoned decision to support it instead of the others
- NOT because of the graphic design or appearance of the containers
- NOT because of any sales copy on the containers
- NOT because of their arrangement on the counter
- NOT for any logical or admirable reason
The reason, and only reason, I put all my change into only one of these charity jars, each and every time, is because the hole in the top of my favored jar is bigger than the holes in the lids on the other two jars.”
Lesson learned? Make a bigger, and more obvious ask.
Category: Planned Giving Marketing on June 17th, 2007