The short answer is: When it absolutely has to be in-home by a specific date or date range. Or When you are adding hand-written, personalized notes and/or signatures to the letter. Otherwise, you should mail non-profit, standard class. Want to skip all the details? Click here to read the last section about the importance of handwritten notes. Let’s compare first class and non-profit standard classes of mail First Class “retail’ Mail with a 66 cent stamp (or Forever stamp) on the envelope. It can be submitted to the postal service by you or your mail house in no particular order. Fi ..read more

Fundraising & Typography: Design should make words more accessible and impactful, not harder to read. Don’t sacrifice your copywriter’s skill and effort to a misguided splash of color. I usually avoid comments about design, because I don’t pretend to be a designer—my focus is copywriting and data. But because of that, and especially because I’m interested in fundraising response results to direct mail, I have strong opinions on typography when it gets in the way of readability, comprehension and results. Let’s find out what matters. Five Maples’ Guidance for Fundraising Typography “Font s ..read more

Why have us analyze your annual fund results? Yes, your donor management software can export many reports for you, and you don’t need us to know what your overall results are and whether or not you made budget. But there are advantages of having Five Maples perform an annual fund analysis for you once each year*. We bring experience in analyzing performance you might not have internally or on your board. (Check out the bios of our President, Gary, and Vice President, Sarah). We are not just data nerds—although we are that!— we are business and development leaders who over our careers have ha ..read more

Results for direct mail fundraising should be analyzed either annually or every 6 months, with a focus on comparison to prior mailings, the prior year’s outcomes, and the budget. Top level mailing goals may include increasing the net amount raised, gaining new donors, improving response rates, the average gift and the number of gifts. Other goals might be important as well, depending on the program. Mailing analysis can highlight imbalances in the program, or address problems identified during the annual fund analysis. For example: Annual Fund Analysis shows that the program is losing donor ..read more

Knowing how to write a fundraising email is an essential skill for a nonprofit fundraising campaign. It’s key to keeping a donor’s attention. The more you remind the donor to give by reaching out, the greater the chance the donor will respond with a gift. Emails are inexpensive to send and far easier to write and design than direct mail appeals. But the response rate is much lower for emails that for direct mail. Digital agency M+R’s 2021 Benchmarking study reports that the industry average for the donation response rate of previous donors to fundraising emails is 0.29% with an average gift of ..read more

You write dozens of emails every day in your work as a fundraiser. But when it comes to email blasts you may be unsure of what to write and how often and when to send. We’re here to make it easy for you. We’ve included frequently asked questions surrounding broadcast, stewardship and solicitation emails, and the answers and professional insight you need to get started! How Often Should I Email? You should engage with your donors in some capacity once a month – at the very least! Preferably, you should engage with your donors once a week. E-blasts will take care of most of that for you! It’s an ..read more

Imagine this sad scenario—your donor checks the mail, takes one look at the envelope containing your fundraising letter, and tosses it into the recycling bin unopened. Ouch. You’ve worked hard at creating the perfect fundraising package. You’ve considered every element carefully, used donor segmentation to focus in on constituent groups, written the perfect copy, and designed the best reply card. The design of your outer envelope is an important aspect of your fundraising mailing. You can’t receive a donation from your potential donor if they don’t open your envelope. So how do you ensure that ..read more

Welcome back! Now that you know how to apply donor segmentation to your appeal letter so that it resonates with different constituencies, here’s how to address our suggested groups in your fundraising response card with easy segmentation. Donor Segmentation Based On Giving History 1. Current donors, SYBUNT, LYBUNT, and lapsed donors A variable affirmation sentence works much like the variable line in the letter based on donor type. You can ask one segment for a second gift, a LYBUNT for a renewed gift, and a prospect for a first-time gift. Include annual giving checkboxes. Any year ..read more

Knowing how to write a fundraising email is an essential skill for a nonprofit fundraising campaign. It’s key to keeping a donor’s attention. The more you remind the donor to give by reaching out, the greater the chance the donor will respond with a gift. Emails are inexpensive to send and far easier to write and design than direct mail appeals. But the response rate is much lower for emails that for direct mail. Digital agency M+R’s 2021 Benchmarking study reports that the industry average for the donation response rate of previous donors to fundraising emails is 0.29% with an average gift of ..read more

Welcome back! Now that you know how to apply donor segmentation to your appeal letter so that it resonates with different constituencies, here’s how to address our suggested groups in your fundraising response card with easy segmentation. Donor Segmentation Based On Giving History 1. Current donors, SYBUNT, LYBUNT, and lapsed donors A variable affirmation sentence works much like the variable line in the letter based on donor type. You can ask one segment for a second gift, a LYBUNT for a renewed gift, and a prospect for a first-time gift. Include annual giving checkboxes. Any year ..read more