Expert Fundraiser is offering 10 telephone seminars during the last week of May, 2012.Each session is 90 minutes and includes time for questions. You canparticipate from anywhere in the world that has a phone.The presenter is Alan Sharpe, CFRE, direct mail fundraising consultant, author and coach. The cost of each tele-seminar is CDN$49. These tele-seminars will NOT be recorded. [Read more...]
When to Ignore Your Direct Mail Fundraising Test Results
August 26, 2011 By 1 Comment
By Alan Sharpe, CFREDirect mail fundraising is a soccer game where the opposing team keeps moving the goal posts.
A premium that worked last year doesn’t work today. A package design that worked at your last charity doesn’t work at your new one. A proven way to acquiring new donors gradually fails.
How can a tested, proven tactic stop working?
When you test one thing against another in the mail and Thing A outperforms Thing B, you know what works, right? The key to knowing what works in direct mail fundraising is testing, right?
Well, sort of.
There are at least three times when you should ignore your test results. [Read more...]
How to Discover How Many Donors You Need to Reach Your Annual Revenue Goal
August 19, 2011 By 2 Comments
By Alan Sharpe, CFREDoes your charity need to double or triple or quadruple its income over the next five or ten years? Are you trying to figure out how to do that? Follow these simple steps to discover how many donors you’ll likely need to reach your goal. [Read more...]
Five Indisputable Laws of Direct Mail Donor Acquisition
July 22, 2011 By 1 Comment
Invest in Donor Acquisition Yearly, or Die
July 8, 2011 By 2 Comments
By Alan Sharpe, CFRE
Read through the diaries of the pioneers who settled the Western parts of the United States and Canada and you’ll discover that the most desperate act of hunger was to eat your seed corn. Eating your seed corn sealed your death, even though it prolonged your life for a while.
Charities today are making the same deadly mistake.
Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Tests: Five Ways to Evaluate Your Results
June 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
By Alan Sharpe, CFRE
If you drop a donor acquisition package in the mail as a test and it generates a response rate of 17%, can you say your campaign was a success? No.
If your donor acquisition test mailing generates an average gift of $125, can you say without fear of contradiction that your test was a success? No.
So how do you know if your direct mail donor acquisition test mailing was a feat or a failure? Answer enough of these questions in the affirmative to satisfy your boss, board, or banker. [Read more...]
Does UNICEF’s Nickel Donor Acquisition Mailing Infuriate You?
August 28, 2009 By
UNICEF is mailing a donor acquisition package that is making plenty of recipients furious. I know why. The package is a #10 window envelope that features, peeking through the window, a shiny 5 cent piece. A piece of teaser copy on the envelope points to the coin and exclaims: “This nickel could save a child’s life!” [Read more...]
Lapsed Direct Mail Donors are Better than New Donors
June 13, 2008 By
By Alan Sharpe, CFRE
One of your best sources of direct mail donations is people who have stopped giving you direct mail donations. We call these people “lapsed donors” and “expired members,” two uncharitable ways of referring to friends who have not given a donation in 12 months or more. [Read more...]
Attract More Donors with Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Fundraising Letters by Avoiding these Mistakes
October 12, 2007 By
By Alan Sharpe, CFRE
Woody Allen once said that “80 percent of success is just showing up.”
He was wrong, of course. [Read more...]
