The Case for Customizing Fundraising Appeals
I make a lot of online donations just to see how that process works with alternatives to Bloomerang from the donor’s perspective.
(side note: if you have never given to your own org through your online donation page, stop reading this and go do it now)
As a result, I am on quite a few mailing and emailing lists for appeals. My donations are typically under $25 so I don’t get approached for Major Gifts from these places but I do get a lot of mail and email. So I get a chance to see a whole lot of different approaches, some of which I like, some of which I am ambivalent about and some of which I detest.
Just to get it out of the way, my least favorite is the pitch that involves some sort of deadline to hit some financial goal that they need my help with. What does that have to do with me, other than my wallet? I really hate those.
My favorites are personalized. Most online donation forms are pretty sparse when it comes to requiring information, and for good reason. Most donors don’t want to spend more than a couple of minutes filling out information and putting in their CCD info. But I’ve seen a few forms with a couple of unobtrusive questions (are you a cat person or a dog person? Do you like fruit or veggies more?) that take little time to answer - and those answers could easily be used to segment a more personalized appeal later.
Once or twice I stumbled upon an org that has multiple online donation forms set up all over their website, presumably with different tags for the transactions so they can track which page moved the donor to actually donate. Again, that can be used to make an intelligent appeal to the donor instead of a blanket, “money, please”.
Donor surveys can help with this too, of course. But maybe the best course of action is to pick up the phone and call people. Research is pretty clear that retaining first-time donors is not going well, but calling them to thank them greatly increases the odds of them coming back. So when you call your first-time donors, ask them what motivated them to donate. Ask why they are supporting you and so on, then take some of that data and customize an appeal that speaks to them as a donor.
Yes, it is more work than just sending an email or letter with a request for $500 so we can hit our goal for the Capital Campaign. But if you’re able to tie your donors to a specific need in that Campaign and communicate that their help is needed for this area that you both care deeply about, your success rate will go up.
Probably substantially.
