Give and Take

Clients and friends often ask if including a reply mechanism on their planned giving postcards is worth the added expense. It depends on the circumstances, but generally, I do not feel it’s worth it. As we all know, planned giving is a low-response business. So even with the most successful direct mail programs, we see very few reply cards actually filled out and returned. However, this does not mean your information is not getting read. It’s just that most people are not going to take the time to respond, on a whim, to questions about a subject that requires some in-depth thought and planning. Remember: You are not selling sweepstakes. You’re educating. You’re reminding. And you’re building relationships. Focus on Frequency What does this mean for you? You’ll have additional opportunities to reach your prospects. Marketing 101 says the more touches the better. So nix the expensive response card and …

Did you know that the average American in a major city is bombarded with over 3000 messages a day? Each day the Web grows by millions of pages. Wherever you travel, satellites are beaming endless messages a minute to every corner of the globe. We see rotating billboards on expressways, take calls from telemarketers, and get marketing materials in our mailboxes. A survey as long ago as 2009 revealed that a child is exposed to over 150,000 commercials by the time he or she is 18. I could go on. As a fundraiser, you are in the business of sales and marketing. You have an overwhelming amount of noise to cut through. If you want to be heard, you must differentiate. Your differentiating idea should be simple and visible and delivered over and over again in a variety of formats. Confusion Causes Procrastination Some time ago I went into a …

You can play it vanilla, or you can be heard. What will you choose? Edgy planned giving marketing gets results.

The classic cry of the binge marketer is “Oops… business is slow. I guess I’d better do some marketing and send out a mailing.” If you find yourself in the middle of a quiet spell, thinking that a few actions, a couple of phone calls and a mailing here and there will get things moving again, you need to rethink your strategy.

You’d never guess by looking at Thomas Chandler Cruikshank Bond, III, that he battled drug addiction for two decades, that he was jailed half a dozen times, or that he spent four years living in abandoned houses in East Baltimore. In fact, even if you had met him during most of those dark years, you never would have guessed what was really going on under his façade. He had a good job with an expense account, wore a suit and tie and drove a nice car. But, he says, “inside I was a wreck, miserable.” By 2002, Tom had been homeless or jailed for the past four years. He was injecting heroine and cocaine and had wasted away to 150 pounds. “I really thought I’d end up dying in the projects of Baltimore,” he says. Then, during yet another stint in jail, Tom heard (for the third time) about the …

  Don’t Keep Them Bottled Up! Some of you who never read Forbes Magazine might think it’s just a stuffy business periodical, but how stuffy can a magazine really be when it runs an article celebrating “investment-grade” Scotch whiskey, as Forbes recently did? Sounds whimsical, but it’s for real. And with dollar values per fifth reaching five and six figures, what nonprofit wouldn’t appreciate a gift of such a very special bottle of booze? When canny marketers seek to pull the cork on high-end snob appeal, the sky’s the limit – but not for me. My personal Scotch budget is $45 a bottle. But the players in this new savory game usually tack on a few more zeroes to so miniscule an amount. Padlock Your Wetbar How’s this for value-added? The $2,750 entry-level price you pay to purchase a bottle from the Annie Liebovitz Scotch Collection, for example (yes, it’s …

  With the presidential election behind us and the status quo retained, what does this mean for charitable giving as we approach year-end? Over the last three months, this was the number one question on people’s minds – “What happens if after the election, we have the same parties in control of the House, Senate and Presidency? After all, there were lots of tax reform proposals out there during the campaign and we are about to go over the ‘Fiscal Cliff.’” While we don’t have a crystal ball, we are certain about three things which should shape how you approach year-end 2012 and the start of 2013.

Are You Sure You’re Ready to Excel? If you continue to do things in the same manner you have always done them, your results are not going to change. Continuing to do things the same old way basically puts you on a treadmill where continuous, ineffective effort and lackluster results flow in a endless loop. It is time to re-examine your belief system. This article offers some ideas guaranteed to get you off that treadmill, to put money in your organization’s pocket, and help you become the consummate professional you want to be. As 2011 came to an end, you promised yourself that 2012 would be better. It would be a year of accomplishment; a year of achievement both for you and your organization. However, as you now review 2012 to date, are you finding your results mirror those of 2011? Let’s start with some brutal facts:

If you’re sitting on a bar stool in a big city hotel, stirring your Mojito, you might expect the person next to you to strike up a conversation. If the repartee is entertaining, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the person next to you extended an offer to move the party to a room upstairs.  At that point, you have a decision to make. If you are on that bar stool in the first place, this scenario is not unexpected or surprising. But what if it happens when you’re at work? A prospective donor for a major gift asked a fund raiser to visit him. He sent his limousine to pick her up and bring her to his penthouse. Dinner and champagne awaited. As the evening progressed, out came a pair of diamond earrings. The expected outcome was obvious. Here we pause to consider the options. Seemingly on the …

We were recently asked: Is there any “benchmark,” or industry standard regarding the mechanics of “handing off” a loyal direct mail donor to the Planned Giving Department? Without airing too much “dirty laundry,” our in-house Direct Marketing Department refuses to give the Planned Giving Department access to the donor database out of fear that planned giving marketing activities with loyal donors will depress annual giving income from those donors. So basically the Planned Giving Department is being denied access to the best prospects, because of fear that planned giving will undermine annual giving. How do other organizations handle this?