GiftWorks - Fundraising software that helps you accomplish your mission

Another Look at Monthly Donors!

In February 2013 we talked about building your group of monthly donors—a practice that is good for the donor and good for the organization! Easy, effortless for the donor; the possibility of larger, more consistent gifts for the organization. Let’s look at some ideas that may bring some new sparks to your monthly donor effort.

Taking a hard look at who’s most likely to join your monthly sustainer program, it’s not those who give large gifts, but those who give several gifts a year.

It stands to reason that a personalized letter addressing the donor by name and mentioning the donor’s last gift or giving interests will attract more monthly donors than a generic letter.

Direct mail experts report that including a premium (note cards, address labels, tote bag) tends to attract more monthly donors than a package without a premium.

To increase the size of your average monthly gift (especially for those who responded to the premium initially), offer a “better” premium for increasing the monthly giving level.

What if a monthly donor lapses? (Don’t lose these valuable players!)

The most effective way to prevent a monthly donor from lapsing is a phone call. The first time there’s a glitch with a monthly donor, make a call. The sooner you contact your donor after the checks stop coming, the more likely you are to renew them.
Most donors who are about to lapse will tell you why. If the reason was a lost job, or sudden change in income, go back in six months and invite them to rejoin. If the problem is changing credit card or banking information, you’ll want a speedy update! And the donor will be impressed with your efficiency! If the donor feels unappreciated, remedy that as soon as possible! (And look for other donors who may be having the same thoughts!) If the problem is shifting loyalties to another organization, this is your opportunity to renew or revise your pitch for special appeal to that donor.

Experience shows that donors who drop out of monthly giving programs can be renewed again at surprisingly high rates.

Don’t forget to offer the monthly option at every donor opportunity. Someone who didn’t like the offer last year may suddenly see the wisdom this year—and thank you for simplifying things!

Looking at Generations

Your thirteenth birthday isn’t the first day you think about becoming a teen! If your memory is even half way accurate, you’ll remember imagining being a teenager long before that. Apply this thinking to your target audiences and give some thought to broadening your appeals.

Recent research offered by marketing services firm Stelter Company reports attitudes toward estate giving, in terms of generation. (Not just the blue-haired ladies anymore—Are there still blue-haired ladies?) Use this data to tailor your planned giving strategies. Stelter reports:

You may not think that donors in their 30s are open to the idea of estate giving, but many are, and they haven’t been approached by nonprofits.

Donors in their 40s show the greatest receptivity to estate giving. With all the conversation about planning for retirement, people are making wills at a much younger age than previous generations — noteworthy because a will is the most common device for making a charitable donation at death.

Donors in their 50s, you may have noticed, were the hardest hit by the economy and are lukewarm on estate giving.

At the peak of their careers and earnings, donors in their 60s know a lot about planned giving, but aren’t especially interested at this point.

Once donors are in their seventies or older, they are less interested in estate giving, feeling now that their money should go to family and friends.

These findings may or may not be consistent with your own experience and thinking, but they’re worth considering. The economic downturn of 2008 has changed the picture of retirement and savings. Take a fresh look!

FREE Webinar – Serious SEO Strategies – What Nonprofits Need to Know – 6/20 at 1 pm ET

“If Google is always changing, how do you keep your SEO strategy relevant?” In the span of one hour, this question will become obsolete as Evan Bailyn, best-selling author of Outsmarting Google, takes you through his signature SEO strategy: The Nuclear Football. This strategy has helped him build and sell five businesses, including one of the largest children’s websites in the world. The key to this method is creating fascinating content and sharing it authentically. Using this simple strategy, non-profit professionals will come away with a blueprint that will help their organizations attract donors, sponsors, and volunteers to their websites.

Join Evan Bailyn and GiftWorks for a free webinar -
“Serious SEO Strategies – What Nonprofits Need to Know”
Thursday, June 20th, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
Register for this webinar

Webinar may surpass an hour depending on the Q&A session immediately following the presentation.

Try GiftWorks free for a 30-day trial!

What do fundraisers do in the summer?

We’d like to say we all go to the beach or the mountains, think deep thoughts, and dream up marvelous projects for the fall and winter ahead. More likely, though, you’ve just run the numbers on your results for the first six months of 2013 and now’s the time to ratchet up your efforts to assure that results in the next six months are just as good or even better.

Try some of these ideas to jump-start your second half:

Clean your data and scour your list to make sure no one has fallen through the cracks!

Focus on engaging a younger audience (or other undeveloped sector). Develop three new approaches and get them on the schedule.

Take a fresh look at story-gathering. Try new venues to collect stories; ask different people to help you find stories; research what’s working for other nonprofits.

Buckle down and tackle one of the foundations or corporations you’ve been researching. Make an appointment and get some activity going in this regard.

Ask the right people. Spend time with current monthly donors and learn what motivates them to give and to give monthly. Use their responses to create a mailing dedicated to growing your monthly giving program.

Take time now to give some advance thought to your next Annual Report or key Board meeting. You know you won’t have quiet time to think when the deadline arrives.

If there’s something on your to-do list that you really believe should happen, then make it happen this summer. Otherwise, it may be another 10 months before you get another chance!

GiftWorks Book of the Month – June

Looking for a new book to dive into? Join Sheela Nimishakavi for her monthly book review which may be of interest to your nonprofit organization.

“The Nimble Nonprofit” A Great Overview for Nonprofit Leaders

The Nimble Nonprofit, written by Trey Beck and Jacob Smith, is an excellent summary of necessary information for current and aspiring nonprofit leaders. The authors discuss a wide range of relevant topics from creating a strategic plan to deciding which capital investments are required for a nonprofit to thrive. Moreover, they provide a good review of priorities and opportunity costs associated with actions.

For instance, in their discussion of managing board relations Beck and Smith say, “good enough is really OK.” From their research, the authors found that nonprofit leaders spend the bulk of their time trying to determine how to motivate their board, create the best board dynamics and how to convince them to become donors. In spite of this effort, most nonprofit leaders and board members would still say that board performance is “mediocre at best.” The authors argue that time spent on trying to create the perfect board is time and energy not spent on anything else. If, at the end of the day, board performance will still be mediocre, the nonprofit leader is better off spending time and energy on actions that will make a difference to the organization.

The most valuable piece of advice offered by the authors is that a nonprofit is a business. Beck and Smith assert, “Many nonprofits labor under the illusion that they aren’t really a business. Even worse, many nonprofits use the idea that they are
fundamentally different as an excuse to do a sloppy, undisciplined, ineffective job of running their nonprofit.” Some nonprofits are reluctant to establish sensible business policies because they believe it makes them “too corporate.” The authors argue that running a great nonprofit does not mean simply imitating the private sector, but rather taking the best practices from all sectors. In this way, the organization will thrive, ensure organization sustainability, and better advance the nonprofit’s mission.

Overall, The Nimble Nonprofit provides a brief yet comprehensive overview of topics relevantfor nonprofits leaders. For aspiring nonprofit leaders, this book provides a good starting point; however, more detailed information on some of the subjects covered will be necessary to understand the full scope of the topic.

Sheela Nimishakavi, MA, MPH is the Founder and Principal of Sector 3 Associates, LLC, a firm that offers low-cost consulting services for nonprofit organizations and President of Women Innovating the Third Sector, a professional network for women involved in the nonprofit sector. To connect with her, please email nimishakavi.sheela@gmail.com.

FREE Webinar – A Time to Plant: Preparing for Capital Campaigns Pt. 2 of 2

The need in our communities can be overwhelming. To meet the need, your nonprofit may be considering big projects like building remodels, equipment upgrades, new services and facilities, and endowments. The best time to plan for these expansion projects is before you need them. Learn how to position your organization for big success in your next capital campaign. By the end of this two-part webinar, participants will be able to:

- Understand the benefits of a capital campaign,
- Describe the major phases of a campaign and why they are important,
- Develop next steps for positioning their nonprofit for a capital campaign.

Join Brent Hafele and GiftWorks for a free webinar -
“A Time to Plan: Preparing for Capital Campaigns Pt. 2”
Thursday, June 6th, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.
Register for this webinar

Try GiftWorks free for a 30-day trial!

Let’s Chat! Twitter Chat!

On Thursday, June 13th, we’ll be hosting our next Twitter Chat! GiftWorks Customer Care Lead, Sheldon will answer all your GiftWorks questions! Just stop by at 3 pm ET and tweet your question with the hashtag – #GiftWorksChat and we will get to as many of them as we can! The best question asked will receive a $25 GiftWorks credit toward your account / or purchase of GiftWorks! IMPORTANT: Make sure to follow us @GiftWorks.

Make sure your Twitter account and tweets are not protected. (This keeps your tweets private, and not known to the public, meaning we won’t see it or be notified of its existence).

Use the #GiftWorksChat

We’ll chat with you then!

GiftWorks

Who should be on your Development Committee?

In an ideal world, you could build your Development Committee with exactly the people and the skills you like to work with. In real life, that isn’t always the way committee assignments happen.

Building a list or a grid indicating what you are looking for may help you search for or lobby for committee volunteers who will really be an asset to your efforts.

On your grid, across the top, list the various constituencies that should be represented:

Consumers, family members of consumers, representative from among your employees, professionals in a field related to your mission, perhaps an attorney, a finance person, someone with development experience, and of course those who represent and have connections to your major donors.

Down the vertical of the grid, list the skills needed for valuable work on the committee:

Development skills and/or experience

Marketing skills and/or experience

Organizational skills

Managerial judgment

Resourcefulness

Persistence

Ability to make an ask

Ability to think outside the box

(This is my list; yours may differ.)

Then, indicate on the grid where the current members fit. It may not be realistic to expect to fill all the spots you’ve identified, but looking at the grid will indicate what’s already covered and what areas are lacking. Then you can look for the people you need and advise your leadership of the work you’ve done. They’ll be much more likely to listen to, and help you meet your well-thought-out goals.

photo credit: thetaxhaven via photopin cc

GiftWorks 2014 is just around the corner!

For the past 9 years, we have had the privilege of equipping nonprofits everywhere with tools and solutions that have helped build relationships, collect and track contributions, communicate with ease, analyze, and report. Our constant desire has been to empower, support, and encourage nonprofits everywhere so that their mission can be accomplished. In that spirit, we have some great news…

We are excited to announce that GiftWorks 2014 will be released on Tuesday, August 20th. GiftWorks 2014 includes new and improved features. Many of these features came from suggestions that you submitted to us, our LinkedIn user group, and feedback we received through our GiftWorks Customer Care team. In addition, we also keep an eye on trends in the nonprofit community and try to ensure that you’re equipped with all you need to do good…better.

Here is a brief overview of what we’ve included in GiftWorks 2014 (there’s even more than what we’re listing below…but here are some features that you can expect):

Grant Management
For nonprofits that apply for and receive funding from grants, tracking those grants in GiftWorks is coming! GiftWorks 2014 will include the ability to:

Define all the grant details – grant type, status, due dates, amounts, grant manager, grant writer, and more
Track tasks related to the grant – get reminders for important work related to the grant
Track notes and other files related to the grant
Track donations related to the grant and other grant funding information
Use grant reports to analyze your grant history over time, produce grant summaries, and list grant notes, tasks or donations and pledges
Pledges are used to track the schedule of payments for a grant

Membership Management
For nonprofits that manage memberships – GiftWorks 2014 will make it a whole lot easier:

Define membership programs, levels, benefits, and more.
Track memberships dues
Upgrade/downgrade memberships
Process membership renewals

Integration with MailChimp
For nonprofits that use MailChimp as their email marketing service, GiftWorks 2014 will seamlessly integrate with MailChimp to eliminate double entry.

Add donors to MailChimp mailing lists from within GiftWorks
View campaign results and manage bounces
View an donor’s email activity – opens, forwards, clicks, etc.

Synchronize tasks with popular calendar tools
GiftWorks 2014 includes the ability to synchronize tasks with external calendars. Never be late for another task!

Synchronize tasks with a Microsoft Outlook calendar (installed on the desktop)
Synchronize tasks with Google calendar (Gmail)
Synchronize tasks with Hotmail calendar (Windows Live)

Improved Letter Library
The letter library in GiftWorks just got a whole lot easier to manage. We’ve included the ability to create your own letter categories to bring more organization to all your communication.

Social Media Writer
If you are using Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, you can now post a message to all those social networks at once using our new social media tool!

Improved GiftWorks Events integration with GiftWorks
Managing event payments is more flexible – entering reservation payments as donations and associating other donations and pledges with events.

SmartList improvements
Some users think that SmartLists are one of the most powerful features in GiftWorks, and now they’re even more powerful. Need to compare one number or currency amount with another? No problem. Want to create a SmartList from a template that you’ve pre-designed? No problem with GiftWorks 2014.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be talking more about these new features – and a whole lot more. Stay tuned.

We can’t wait for you to begin to use all these new features in GiftWorks 2014!

Steve Fafel, CEO
GiftWorks

Readability—It’s Not Optional!

When placing copy on a print piece or web page, try to resist the urge to use unusual color combinations. Just look at magazine advertisements (women’s mags and catalogs are the worst offenders!) or billboards. How often is the type unreadable because the contrast between the background and the copy is not great enough. Sexy color combinations may be tempting, but the first test of any copy is Can you read it!

One time-honored test is so simple, you’ll be amazed you didn’t think of it. Here it is: Photocopy the color page in black and white. The copy will pop, or it won’t—it blurs into the background color. Now there’s no argument about what needs to change.