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    • Answers to Questions About Think Tank Management
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    • Can Direct Mail be Used Effectively for State Think Tanks?
    • Don't Sell Direct Mail Short!
    • Cookies or Camp? Fundraising or Development?
    • The Top Ten Fundraising Books
    • Fundraising for the Free Society
    • Goals, Yardsticks, and Results: A Healthcare Grant Request Example
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Don't Sell Direct Mail Short!

Kevin Gentry, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation

I love direct mail!

Why?  Because it's the most cost-effective and efficient way to:  

1. Have large numbers of prospective donors self-identify as
   supporters of your cause.
2. Build and cultivate relationships with your supporters,
   in a systematic and strategic way.

Direct mail is not perfect.  But like Winston Churchill told us about democracy, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise...democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others."

Let me explain why, fundamentally, direct mail is so valuable to your organization, particularly over the long haul.  And let me give you a few tips on how state-based organizations can achieve success.

First, think about what direct mail is.  There's this huge marketplace of potential supporters.  You lay out your wares, marketing yourself appropriately.  And customers voluntarily opt in as supporters, if they believe they'll benefit from the transaction.  They have some expectation that you can achieve what they want.  You're a proxy to help achieve their philosophical or political goals.

But ordinarily, as market-oriented as we might be, we rarely approach fundraising in this manner.  Instead, we assemble a bunch of folks around a big table, and we brainstorm who "ought to give to us."  We come up with 50-100 "targets," and we then try to "hit them up."  Sounds like central planning, if you ask me.  Very limiting, too.  And "hitting donors up" doesn't exactly sound like voluntary exchange.

Yet with direct mail, in ways we could never predict from a big conference table, donors opt in as supporters for any multitude of good reasons.  And many of these donors are the millionaires next door, folks you would never expect could write you a $10,000 check.  But with direct mail, you're casting a wide net, and although perhaps only 1% are responding initially, you're still hauling in a lot of fish!
 
Once they're hauled in, of course, you completely control the communications to them.  In an orderly and logical manner, you can share with them news that keeps them focused on the problem at hand, that keeps them informed about what you're doing, that sells them on your effectiveness, and arguably most important - that encourages them that their investments in you are making a difference!

With direct mail, you can do that with 20 donors.  Or 200 donors.  Or 2,000 donors.  Or 20,000! 

And from this, you can target your very best prospects for cultivation - for personal visits, for special solicitations, for board membership, and even for planned gifts.

How do you go about this stuff in your state or locality?  You need two things to start:  a good letter and good lists.

Suck it up, you're going to have to accept some form of direct mail-style in your communication.  That doesn't necessarily mean hysterical language about the world coming to an end before midnight tonight.  But it does mean short words, short sentences, short paragraphs and a very conversational tone.

Then, the package has to be just right.  As personal as possible to the recipient.  First class, live stamps on a hand-addressed or lasered, closed-face envelope trumps bulk postage on window envelopes.   And the more personalization, the better.

On the lists, you should know this:  a bad letter to a good list will likely do much better than a good letter to a bad list.  So, avoid subscriber lists.  Avoid voter lists, or petition signers, or compiled lists of wealthy people.  Try to find active donor lists.  The best will be donor names from your state to national market-oriented organizations.  Others will be donors to a political candidate whose philosophy you share - most of which are available from public records at your state government.

This stuff is part science - and part art! 

The science is often counter-intuitive.  Long letters do better than short letters.  Repeating the selling message of the letter in a one-sentence postscript is very important.  You can ask your donors for funds multiple times during the year.  You can keep prospecting to the same lists, over and over, until the response declines sufficiently.

And the art becomes developing a gut instinct on what subject to mail when and why and to whom.   You also get to express yourself in your writing.  In fact, the more it sounds like you, and only you, the better.

Get going as soon as possible on this.  The end of the calendar year is a great time to start.

If you embark on a deliberate effort to build a direct mail fundraising base, and if you communicate to these new donors effectively and consistently over time, I guarantee in five years, you'll button-hole me at an SPN meeting and tell me it was the smartest investment your organization ever made!
 

Kevin Gentry is Vice President for Strategic Development at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.