In this comprehensive overview of annual giving programs, you’ll gain an introduction to the basic terminology and concepts of annual giving as well as the various solicitation channels and donor types. Learn how to write a direct mail appeal, craft an impactful email appeal, and develop a script for phone solicitation. You’ll learn how to build a leadership annual giving portfolio and maximize the impact of memberships and events in annual campaigns. You’ll complete the course with the knowledge and skills to build and implement a multi-channel solicitation strategy that achieves the goals of an annual campaign.
Approaches and Trends in Multi-channel Fundraising
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From the course by University of California, Davis
Annual Campaigns: Building a Case for Support
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University of California, Davis
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Course 2 of 4 in the Specialization Fundraising and Development
From the lesson
Bringing it All Together - The Multi-Channel Approach
In this module, you will be able to examine the fundamentals of a multi-channel approach to fundraising. You will be able to develop a multi-channel strategy and you will be able to consider the feedback you have received throughout the course and put together a final portfolio piece.
Meet the Instructors
Michelle PoesySenior Director
Annual and Special Gifts
So, let's start today with a review of the solicitation channels we've
covered over the last weeks: direct mail, email,
and online giving, telemarketing,
face-to-face visits, events, and social media are the main points we've covered.
The workhorse of annual giving is still direct mail.
It produces more donors and dollars than any other annual giving channel.
Even in this highly digital age,
it's still very effective and can deliver a high return on investment.
The keys are to have
an impactful direct mail package that includes an interesting outer envelope,
your solicitation message, a pledge card,
and a return envelope.
You need to be consistent with your timing and your messaging,
and always use a tracking mechanism so you can track
the success or failure of your direct mail piece.
Use that information to better your results next time.
Email solicitations are the least expensive channel for both renewal and acquisition.
They are typically inexpensive to produce and can be sent to
100 people or 50,000 people for little or no extra cost.
For email, remember to use short,
concise messages and graphic design.
Always use the subject line and header line to your advantage.
Try to personalize the subject line and the body of the message if you can.
Your email solicitations, website,
and giving site all need to be mobile-friendly.
At least half of your audience will be viewing your message from a mobile device,
so this is imperative to your success.
And remember to include give buttons to make it easy for your donors to give.
The telephone, while it has changed dramatically in the last 20 years,
is still a viable solicitation channel for many.
It remains a great tool for acquisition because if you can get someone to pick up,
it's much harder to say no to a living talking person than
it is to delete an e-mail or throw away a direct mail piece.
This is especially true in higher ed when a student is calling an alum.
In many cases, the one call a year from your alma mater
is the only contact they have, and it's valued.
One of the best things about the phone is that
it's more agile than direct mail and email.
Scripts can be changed on the fly to discuss a new initiative or handle a crisis.
For telemarketing to work well,
you need current and accurate data and a system in place to keep it that way.
Whether you use paid callers or volunteers,
you need to give them the tools they need to be successful.
And don't forget to incorporate a pledge fulfillment system.
Our hope is to capture a credit card for every pledge,
but more than half your pledges will need follow up for fulfillment.
So, always send a pledge confirmation and then follow up with your 30,
60, and 90-day reminders.
Give people options for mailing in a gift or paying online for the best results.
Gary Fischer talked with you about frontline fundraising, the face-to-face visits.
The words of wisdom he left you with were
more visits and more asks were directly correlated with more gifts.
To be successful, you need to be an active listener,
authentic, respectful, and gracious.
You also need to be thankful and you need to be yourself.
Development officers are flexible and ready for
the unexpected because every situation is different.
They also take rejection well.
Lastly, he mentioned that mistakes are a part of learning.
Every frontline fundraiser will make a mistake with the donor from time to time.
You'll say the wrong thing or not follow up like you should.
It will happen. So, learn from those mistakes and move past them.
Events can be a channel for fundraising as well.
If you plan to utilize them,
do an inventory of your current events and activities
and make some decisions on what stays and what goes.
You need to have a defined purpose followed by a defined audience.
This will drive your event.
Have a goal for your events.
As I shared in the last session,
events for the sake of events are fruitless endeavors that waste time and money.
Try to find a sponsor or sponsors for your fundraising events.
If the event is a fundraiser for your organization,
a sponsor will allow for all proceeds from your event to go to your cause.
This is your best case scenario.
Use every opportunity to engage donors on your social media.
Include links to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram,
whatever social media your organization is actively
using on everything you send out: email,
direct mail, signature lines in your email, whatever.
Donors are more likely to give to your organization if they also follow you on
social media because of an increased sense of belonging and community.
So, take advantage of every opportunity to get
those social media sites out there to your audience.
Now that we reviewed the various solicitation channels,
let's talk about why you need
a multi-channel strategy for a successful annual giving program.
The days of the one and done solicitation are over.
Many organizations fall victim to this.
Don't let yours be one of them.
A multi-channel approach gives you much broader reach
and allows you to reinforce your message across mediums.
When I say reinforce,
I don't mean duplicate.
You don't want to send the exact same message through every channel every time.
As an example, let's say your message is student scholarship support.
Tell different stories of student scholarship support in in direct mail, email,
on your website, in a banner ad,
or through a series of social media posts.
Donors want options on how and when they engage and support you.
A multi-channel strategy gives your donors those options to give,
how, and they choose,
and in turn, you'll reap better results.
The first thing you need to do and implementing
a multi-channel approach is to take an inventory of what you have available to you.
Can you do mail, email, and phone? How's your website?
Do you have development officer, staff,
or volunteers that can visit donors?
What's your social media presence like?
Do you have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube?
If you're part of a larger organization,
like a university, what channels do you
have available to you that aren't under your purview?
For instance, can you partner with the communications team or the alumni association?
Take an inventory of what you have in place,
what might be available to you,
and what you think you can accomplish with your staff and your financial resources.
Some of the components of a multi-channel program
will vary depending on your organization,
the size of your organization,
the budget, and your scope of work.
The inventory you take will help you ascertain what vehicles will be best for you.
Some of the components of a multi-channel approach will remain
the same regardless of what channels and vehicles you implement.
Namely, timing your messages to maximize your return on
investment and creating a synergy with your messaging across all channels.
When I'm setting the schedule for my campaigns,
I look at cost and the greatest ROI first.
So basically, what are the least expensive channels that provide the highest ROI?
For my organizations, that's been email and direct mail.
So, I start campaigns with those vehicles first.
As an example, at UC Davis,
we send direct mail first,
follow up with an email a week or two later,
and then put donors on the phones 4-6 weeks later if they haven't given yet.
The messages between channels are cohesive.
So, we continue to reinforce that message with every touch.
The direct mail may pique the donor's interests and
the email reminds them to give, and it's convenient.
Or they saw your email and when the caller reached them,
they are willing to take the call and hear more about what you're doing.
This is the heart of a multi-channel approach.
Distributing the organization's important message in
multiple formats across a period of time to maximize
the touches we have with our audience in hopes they
engage in the way that is most comfortable and convenient for them.
I'd like to talk briefly about current trends in annual giving.
You've all heard the buzz words and if you work in annual giving,
these will be topics of conversation at the very least.
Crowdfunding, giving days, text giving,
these are all current trends sweeping the industry right now.
All of these can be useful tools for
donor acquisition and increasing participation rates.
They can also range from pretty simple to implement to
very complicated in both time and resource-heavy.
Crowdfunding can be a great tool.
Successful crowdfunding is project-based,
and the fundraising goals aren't large,
typically under $10,000 a project.
It's also very social.
The key to success is having large networks of people to share the projects with: family,
friends, peers, colleagues, classmates.
It is called crowdfunding for a reason.
You need a large crowd.
You also need a good platform for presenting your projects and accepting gifts.
Just like all other forms of annual giving,
it needs to be easy to give.
You can use a vendor to provide the service or develop something in-house.
But whatever you do,
make sure it works, and it's easy to use.
Giving days are all the rage right now.
All of my colleagues around the country are either
implementing their first or second giving day,
or in the discussion phase of starting one within the next year.
Giving Tuesday, The Big Day of Giving,
Big Give are large scale examples.
I've researched giving days across the country,
and we could teach a whole class just on this topic,
but I'll be brief today.
Giving days can be a real boost to your participation rates and a great engagement tool.
The upside is they can raise a lot of money
or get a lot of donors in your door in a short period of time.
It requires a great deal of planning,
outreach to all of your partners,
both internal and external,
extensive day of logistics, and follow up.
The downsides are, they take a lot of time and resources to pull off,
and donor retention is more challenging.
Text to give has been around for some time.
It's been a valuable fundraising tool for humanitarian efforts,
natural disasters, and such.
For higher ed, it's been a bit of a challenge, though.
Raising funds is a goal for annual giving, of course.
But building a donor base is imperative to a successful annual giving program.
With many text to give programs,
you don't get the valuable data you need to be able to steward and cultivate your donors.
There are some really interesting new options coming on the market everyday, though.
I've been researching some options that allow a donor to text a message to a number,
and then they receive an auto response from you.
Maybe it's a link to give online or a message from you.
Once the donor sends that text,
you can capture their cell phone number.
They can give through the link that's auto sent and that link is
actually to your online giving site and not an outside vendor.
I love this idea for student philanthropy in particular,
because you can capture that cell phone number,
the student will potentially have for a lifetime.
Keep an eye on this channel because as new technologies develop,
they will be great opportunities for fundraising.
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