Pinc Tips

Here are five easy design fixes for your e-newsletter or e-communications that make your newsletter easy and quick to read.

Use images sparingly. Many people have images blocked by default, which means that your images will show up as a big red X or a blank box. If you use a header image (which we do at PincGiving) keep it under 100 pixels high. If you have a square image at the top of your page - keep it on the right side of the page with your text wrapping around it so you have some text in the upper left where people’s eyes naturally go to start reading.

Use only one or two columns. If you use more than two columns, you are asking people’s eyes to jump around too much in a relatively small space as most people are viewing your newsletter within their email, not on a full screen. Keep it simple.

Use basic fonts. One or two fonts at maximum. There are certain fonts that are meant for screen reading - Verdana, Georgia, Arial, Trebuchet, Lucinda Sans Unicode, and Tahoma. Stick to these fonts to make your message easy on the eyes, and quick to read.

Use dark text on a light background. The majority of your text and the entire body should be dark text on a light background. Reverse text (light text on a dark background) is hard to read unless the letters are really big. It is appropriate for short headings, buttons and other places that you want to emphasize a small amount of text.

Use many headings and subheadings. A good number of people reading your communications are only skimming. Can your readers learn something by just reading the headings or subheadings? Are they interesting and informative on their own?

By following these five guidelines you will find your newsletters or e-communications are getting higher open rates or click through rates, and hopefully this will translate into more dollars for your charity, or supporters for your cause.

Contributing blog by http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/2009/10/13/e-newsletter-makeovers-5-easy-design-fixes/

A fundraising strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a goal. More specifically, it is an outline of your current financial and funding solution and will aid you to clarify the amount of money that is needed, who will raise it, how it will be raised, and when it is needed.

The benefit of having a fundraising strategy is that it allows you to plan your long term fundraising goals, and enables staff and stake-holders to engage with the fundraising process.

Steps To Creating a Fundraising Strategy:

1. Know what your goal is.

Determine your overall financial need to support your organization annually. Your strategy should include details on who your existing donors are, and some goals to accomplish to increase your annual fundraising support.

2. Know who your donors are:

- Number of Individual Donors you already have (major and small)
- Existing Foundations and Corporations that have supported you in the past.
- Any Government Grants you have received in the past.

Other Considerations

- How many new individual donors do you need to reach your goal?
- How many new Foundation or Corporate Grants do you need to reach your goal?

3. How are you going to reach your donors?

- Grant Applications
- Direct Mail
- Sponsorship
- Telephone
- Face to Face
- Media
- E-Communications
- Peer-To-Peer Fundraising
- Volunteer Opportunities
- Events
- Social Networking

4. Determine who is responsible for fundraising

- Fundraising / Development Department (if you are lucky)
- Trustees and Board Members
- Top Management
- Program Staff
- Consultants
- Volunteers
- Advocates
- Members

5. Determine your time-lines and deadlines

Each organization will have a different time-line and different deadlines. It is important to set out your annual schedule and try to complete everything during its given time-line. The majority of organizations tend to begin approaching Foundations and Corporations in the first quarter of the year - however be sure to check deadlines prior to submitting applications. Developing your individual donor list should be an ongoing process and should utilize a variety of both offline and online methods including direct mail, e-newsletters, blogs, and social networking.

Why do you need to have a fundraising strategy?

The fundraising strategy provides a long term plan which can be followed and measured. It helps you to define roles and responsibilities, and involves and engages stake-holders. Remember - this is a flexible plan and it can be revisited.

This is a common question asked by fundraising staff at charities and nonprofits around the world. You want to maximize the year end donations without pricing yourself out of the donor’s ballpark.

Here are a few things to think about prior to making your end of year “ask”.

How much was the donor’s last donation?
How many times a year do they donate?
What are some ways we can work with the donor to increase our bottom line?

Looking at the donor’s trends can be helpful. Lets say that last year you notice that a donor gave two donations throughout the year, and then made a larger donation during your year-end appeal. If the donor has made those couple of donations throughout this year already, it is fair to say that the donor will follow the same trend this coming year end. The amount for your ask should be slightly higher than the donation that was made at the end of last year. This can be done by asking for an additional percentage due to inflation, or you can simply offer them a set amount that is slightly higher than their last end of year donation.

Financial situations have changed for a number of individuals, however the causes that are important to them have not. If you have noticed a decrease in the totals you have received this year from a donor - it is important to offer them other ways to give in order to maintain your revenue stream.

One solution for a donor who gives a few times a year, or once during an annual appeal is to try to set them up to donate monthly. Lets say you receive one $250 gift at the end of the year, and a few sporadic $50 donations from email or direct mail campaigns. Lets say as total amount you receive $350 from one donor in a year. What if you suggested that they contribute $40 per month instead of what they currently are doing? This would increase the amount you received annually by 37%.

It is a lot easier to donate $40 per month when money is a bit tighter than it is to come up with $350 in one lump sum.

You will more than likely find that these same donors who have switched to a monthly giving program may also contribute via your email appeals as the mission and need is inspiring to them and they want to help. This will also increase your bottom line.

Donor cultivation is not the same for every every donor. You need to work with the donors that support you to make sure that their current plan is working for them.

1. Integrate peer-to-peer fundraising into your current fundraising strategies. Inventory your current communications tactics (email, physical mailers, website, etc.) and examine the messaging. Has it been watered down to reach many different audiences? Through peer-to-peer campaigns, you maintain the core messaging but enable your donors to personalize the message for their own networking and recruitment efforts.

Reference http://www.advsol.com

2. Introduce online events to the list of ways a donor can help. A-thon-based events can be launched and managed online far quicker, with less overhead cost, than multi-location physical events. Peer-to-peer Internet-based events eliminate the need to physically go to an event, allowing participation from across the globe, right from their computers.

3. Identify campaign ‘champions’ and give them the tools to rapidly expand the donor network. Take the time to find your top supporters, reach out to them first and show them how to use peer-to-peer tools. Once they understand how easy it is for them to create their own personalized campaign website, carrying their own messaging, they will be able to reach out to their networks far quicker, and with no added costs.

4. Understand, motivate and thank your donors. In peer-to-peer fundraising, you can easily focus on keeping your participants involved in the campaign by quickly sending them personalized automated emails that provide fundraising tips, solicitation reminders, encouragement and your gratitude. Traditional means of communicating with donors are costly, time intensive and slow.

5. Create friendly competition and build individual and team incentives into your campaigns. Create accurate, real-time responsive leader boards that allow campaign champions to see how their fundraising efforts stack up against fellow champions. Offer prizes to the top fundraisers and top teams. Encourage team captains to motivate their team members and offer them easy ways of communicating within their team.

6. Reduce unnecessary administrative efforts from each campaign. Peer-to-peer tools automate many administrative functions of fundraising programs. Donor communications becomes automated, personalized donor websites can be created by the donors themselves, tax records and receipts are automatically generated and distributed. By using online-based events, the costs and coordination associated with physical venues is eliminated.

7. Automate your donor acquisition strategy. Peer-to-peer tools that fully integrate with your donor management systems will allow you to capture new donor information and donation habits. By allowing your donors to create their own online networks, all donors that interact with those personalized websites can be captured, collecting money and expanding your database at the same time.

Many nonprofits are dabbling in social media, and that’s a good thing. It’s wise for nonprofits to engage with potential supporters and donors where they congregate online, rather than waiting for them to come to us. According to NTEN, Common Knowledge and ThePort Network, 74 percent of nonprofits have a Facebook presence and four-fifths of nonprofits are committing at least one-quarter of a full-time staff person to their social networking efforts. More than half of nonprofits intend to increase social networking project staffing over the next 12 months. All good news.

Now the bad news. We don’t always do it right. Here are the six most common – and egregious – errors we make:

1. We fear losing control. Don’t! We lost control of our message and our brand a long, long time ago. If you don’t believe me, search online for all the things people are saying about you. You can ignore those conversations (not recommended) or engage with them.

2. We think social networking is a way to get our message out. Nope. It’s not a message delivery vehicle. It’s a way to engage in authentic, sincere and open conversation with supporters.

3. We see dollar signs. While social networking can be a way to raise money, that should not be the reason for doing it. For example, Facebook is primarily tool for interacting and engaging with a community—not necessarily a fundraising silver bullet.

4. We fail to set small, achievable goals. If you’re going to start an initiative, make it a small one with clear goals so you know how to measure success.

5. We forget to set some ground rules. Don’t go Wild West! Set a social media policy for your organization, so it’s clear how to respond to what you’re hearing - and what types of initiatives have internal support. Better to have shared rules than to freak out when your colleague puts a snarky remark on someone’s blog.

6. We give up when we make mistakes. Don’t worry, that’s part of learning. Share and learn from your missteps. There is no shame in mistakes if they make you smarter.

Credit to Katya Andresen http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/6-most-miserable-mistakes-social-marketing