Fall Appeal Readiness Checklist

Marsh with cattails on border of Abington High School fields.

It is Week 35 and time to run down your checklist for the first appeal in your fall fundraising lineup. Use your One Hour this week to complete or delegate anything remaining to be done so that you will be on time with Appeal #1.

Readiness Checklist

Confirm dates: Your job is scheduled on the calendar, whether you’re having letters printed at a copy outlet or using a mail shop.

Copywriting: Your copy is complete and fact-checked for the letter and anything going with it: reply device, lift note, buckslip, envelope teaser copy, etc.

Technicalities: You’ve double-checked any names and titles appearing on the piece, such as a Board list, often printed in the left margin of a letter; and your required state registration message appears somewhere in the appeal kit.

Design: Your letter or whatever format you’re using is laid out, paper size and type is selected, colors chosen, font is final, your logo looks right, return address and teaser are in the right places on the OSE. If you’re creating the document to be printed, make sure there’s no page wrapping in case of address blocks with more than the usual three or four lines.

Approvals/CYA Insurance: The person signing the letter, the Powers That Be, and anyone else who needs to see the copy and design in advance have all seen it and approved. Get those OK’s in writing, and if they are verbal, send a recap email to commemorate, and stick a Read Receipt on there. I am all about making sure nothing comes back to bite you when it’s too late.

Data Source: Your data is ready to merge, you’ve double-checked how the salutation looks and made sure it agrees with the full name (in case of name changes or household additions/subtractions); if you’re including dynamic information for suggested gift amounts, you’ve given those a once-over so your renewal/increase game is TIGHT.

Postage: For paper mail, you have a plan for postage. I strongly encourage you to use live stamps to boost your open rate. I have one exception to the live stamp option, and that’s if you have one or more stakeholders willing to meter your mail at their place of business, covering the cost of mailing. Float that idea for people to consider – it may be easier than them giving cash, and it is worth the same as cash to you, so be gracious and say YES to anyone willing to mail your items. If you divide your mailing so that every postal sponsor is only processing 200-300 pieces, that divides the cost for your sponsors, as well as encouraging people to come together and make this happen for you. Have a great week, and I’ll see you on Labor Day for ideas about making the most of the time between your mailing going into production and the gifts starting to arrive.

​Ready to Ask? Be Ready to Thank Too

Welcome to Week 34! You’re on track to solicit your donors and prospects, but are you ready to thank them too? Put your process in place by the time your asking letters are in production so you’re ready to send acknowledgements promptly.

Begin by getting into the donor mindset. Say a friend’s child is starting school remotely and you want to make the prospect of studying from home a little brighter, so you send a gift card for some kind of treat. How do you feel when you get a personal thank-you within a couple of days? Like your gift was welcomed and appreciated, right? And you might do it again? Now think about how you feel when the note comes in three weeks …. or three months. It takes the same amount of time to generate that note whichever day you write it, so set yourself up to show your donors some love and get your charitable gift acknowledgements ready to go out the day after the gift arrives. Setting yourself up for success means assessing and updating two things:

• Your organization’s acknowledgement process
• Thank-you letter copy

Since timely thank-yous begin with timely gift processing, ensure that the person responsible for receiving, entering, and reporting on gifts has a clear understanding of those steps, and of your expectation of timely turnaround. If they (and maybe it’s you) have other responsibilities, allow the necessary time to get that gift data into your system ASAP.

If it is you, and there’s no question that you have your hands full, and yes, gift processing doesn’t require the sophisticated knowledge you possess, but! It is the critical first step in reinforcing your donors’ desired behavior, so move it up to the top of your priority list. If you’re putting it off because the process takes too long, or you don’t have admin support, reach out to me and let’s have a conversation about streamlining your process.

Once your process is clear, look at last year’s acknowledgement letter template(s) and prepare to cut judiciously, both copy and versions. Many’s the hour I’ve poured into crafting soaring, lyrical, custom-tailored thank-you copy, only to finally accept that this is a low ROI exercise because people just skim those letters. Timeliness means more than inspired copy. Use dynamic information everywhere you can in order to cut down on the number of templates you need.

Ensure that you have the technical information donors want for their records: amount of their gift, date you received it, and how it will be used.

If you’re raising unrestricted dollars, give one to three appealing examples of impact using language like “such as” or “including” so that you’re not declaring that the gift in the letter is earmarked for something in particular.

Two or three short paragraphs is plenty. Cut first, update and refresh what’s left, and focus on appreciating your donors, not educating them. They already think you’re doing a good job or they wouldn’t be giving!

Make sure that you have the correct tax disclaimer in the footer of your letter. This is especially important if you’re thanking donors for event tickets or sponsorships, where the total amount is *not* the deductible portion. Language may vary among states, so check with your state if you don’t have current wording. In Pennsylvania, your footer would include this statement, which also must appear on any solicitation too:

The official registration and financial information of (NAME OF CHARITY) may be obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of State by calling toll-free, within Pennsylvania, 800-732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement.

For unrestricted gifts, add this sentence:

No goods or services were received in return for this gift.

For event gifts where the ticket or sponsorship includes a fair market value of a meal, entertainment, and/or donor gift, use this version:

Your charitable deduction for federal income tax purposes is limited to the excess of the amount of money contributed over the value of the goods or services provided by the charity. $xxx is the charitable portion of this contribution.

Do hand-sign letters whenever possible. A short note warms up the experience considerable – a simple “Thanks for all you do!” or whatever you feel comfortable writing.

Using your time this week to organize your acknowledgement process and letter copy will set you up to give your donors a positive experience. If you have a great, streamlined process already, please consider sharing an outline of it in the comments to help people who are struggling to get on top of theirs!

Catch Up or Unplug

Welcome to Week 33 of Annual Giving in One Hour a Week. Since there are five Mondays in August, I encourage you to take this one, right in the middle, to step back and assess where you are as you progress toward an active fall fundraising campaign. Last week was a robust exercise, so if you need your time this week to catch up, take it. If you’re on track, I encourage you to take a break this week. Find someplace peaceful to settle yourself, and just breathe. Checking off tasks moves us forward with pressing matters, but to make room for big ideas, thinking about strategy and values, it’s important to get away from our work spaces, away from technology and the lure of completing quick-hit tasks.

It’s a challenge for me to unplug and settle, so walking is better meditation for me than sitting, but good for you if you can just relax! I selected this image of a hiking trail that looks inviting to me. Where do you do your best thinking? Have a rewarding week ahead and I’ll see you here next Monday.

​Creating A Dynamic Appeal List

Welcome to Week 32 of Annual Giving in One Hour a Week! If you’re like me and stuck living in the real world with somewhat imperfect data in your CRM or spreadsheets, then double-checking and workarounds are a part of life. Here are my low-tech, go-to techniques for creating a clean, effective data source to use for your fall campaign.

We want a spreadsheet with these separate fields:

• Unique Record ID (use this to tag and match dynamic printed items for assembly)
• Title, First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name, Suffix
• Salutation (what follows “Dear” at the start of a letter)
• Nickname (if you have it, use this as a double-check on Salutation)
• Organization (for people who receive their mail at their work address)
• Address Type (so you can tell if you’re looking at a home or work address)
• Address Line 1
• Address Line 2
• City, State, ZIP
• Email address
• Last gift amount and date
• Largest gift amount and date
• Assigned Solicitor (if there’s a person who is ideal to sign a solicitation, include that here — we’ll use it later in the fall)

If you have a database with suggested amounts to request, include those fields in your output. Most of us don’t, and for a list of a few hundred to a few thousand, I like to create those ask amounts organically at the start of a campaign, so when your list is pulled, add columns for:

• Ask Amount 1 (a modest increase, usually)
• Ask Amount 2 (a stretch amount, based on prior giving
• Appeal 1 (or whatever you’re calling your first ask effort that will go out next month)

Here are my favorite checks to ensure a clean list. As you correct errors in your spreadsheet, be sure to fix them in your main database. To make it easier to read columns against one another, you can hide other columns you aren’t checking at the time.

Sort by City and do two things:

• Read down the City column for misspellings (I’ve seen plenty of variations on “Philadelphia”). This method will group errors together.
• Read the ZIP column for incorrect codes, which could be typos or left over from an incomplete address update.

Sort by ZIP, then City, and look for fields that don’t match.

Sort by Last Name and do two things:

• Look for almost-duplicates with spelling errors that escaped your de-duping process.
• Read First Name and Last Name against Salutation and Nickname. Updating a surname doesn’t always make it to updating Salutation, so ensure that the names match. If most of your Salutations are informal and defaulted to First Name, check Nickname and use that to be as personal as you can.

Unhide everything and sort by Last Gift Amount. For people with no giving history, your Acquisition List, you’re going to enter the same Ask 1 and Ask 2 for everyone here. Change the amounts when you have more information.

What amounts should you request? It depends on your average first gift amount. If people become first-time donors by giving about $20, offer $15 and $25. Your objective is get people into the pool. You can approach them for increases down the road, but especially in 2020, you want to emphasize participation, not a high entry amount. Make it easy for people to say yes.

Move on to your past donors. Sort your list by Last Gift Date. For everyone whose last gift was 2016 or earlier, your objective is to get them back, so unless you have good information that you can be successful asking for more, use the same Ask1 and Ask2 as your Acquisition List. Override where you want.

Now the only people left with unassigned Ask Amounts are donors from the last three years. Look at the most recent donors – for those who have given in the last three to six months, you may want to strike them from solicitation, especially if they’ve made larger gifts that are likely their one annual gift. That’s your call. Place an x in the Appeal 1 column for anyone who has given too recently to be asked again. You’ll filter those out of the final data source.

Sort your document one more time by Ask1 (which is blank for all your recent donors, so they will be grouped together), then Last Gift Amount, Largest Gift Amount (often the same), and Last Name (to make it easier to find someone you’re thinking of while you’re in this process).

You’re going to enter your own Ask1 and Ask2 amounts here. Unless you are asking for odd amounts that are tied to a specific number like founding year or cost of services, suggest amounts ending in 0 or 5. You can ask for higher percentage increases on lower dollar gifts. My recommendation is not to reference the last gift amount, but suggest two numbers, one just a little higher and the other a stretch, plus an “Other” option on the reply device. Examples:

Last gift = $10, Ask1 = $15, Ask2 = $25

Last gift = $15, Ask1 = $20, Ask2 = $30

Last gift = $25, Ask1 = $30 Ask2 = $50

Last gift = $50, Ask1 = $60, Ask2 = $75

Make your own call when you see a Largest Gift that’s higher than the Last Gift – and check the date. If that big gift was more than three years ago, ignore it. If it arrived within the last couple of years, go with your gut and suggest gift amounts in between the Last and Largest. When you’re finished, filter your list so you see just the people who should receive your first appeal, sort in order by how you want your finished product (Last Name, then First Name is my go-to), and make a copy of your final list to use in production, whether that’s in-house or you’re sending it to your mail house.

The great thing about lists of a few hundred to a few thousand is that you can handle them personally. Dig into them and get to know your donors and prospects, both individually and as a group. The more you understand, the more effective you can make your appeals.

You’ve probably guessed that I love working with lists! I’d love to hear from you about any questions you have or data problems you’re trying to solve.

Sample Solicitation Plan​

Week 31 Appeal Plan Chart 08-03-2020 (PDF)

 Welcome to Week 31 of Annual Giving in One Hour a Week. Happy August! We have been steadily organizing our appeal plan to be prepared for successful solicitation in the fall. You have your calendar and themes in place, your vendors are on task, and you’ve set a weekly check-in using Zoom, telephone, Slack, email, or whatever channel works the best for your team.

This week, instead of an article, I am sharing a basic sample plan that captures all the decisions you’ve made about when to mail, what to say, who carries the message, and how each appeal will be physically created and mailed.

I imagined creating this for a women’s shelter, but the plan can be tweaked for other types of organizations. I am interested to learn what columns you would add to make this effective for you. If you are finding it a challenge to make this work for your organization, let’s have a conversation.

Have a great week, and I’ll see you next Monday for tips on managing your ask list/data source for solicitation.