ADMA Forum again

I have finished at this Forum now even though there is another half day, and I gotta say I am exhausted - not because of late nights or boredom, but because there was so much to take in.

Last time I went to ADMA Forum, I was not impressed and have not sent any Pareto people or been along since. This time they gave me a free ticket since I was presenting. The presentation went well (at least I enjoyed it, and got a few laughs - hope that the audience learned something too!) but within the presentation I asked who was from a charity.

About 600 people were attending the conference, and my presso was the only thing on so most were there - but only about a dozen hands went up. But I wasn't surprised because of the lack of enthusiasm the Australian fundraisers I know had for ADMA Forum.

It is a shame. Because there was tons to learn - more for charity direct marketeers than any other conference I have attended in Australia for years.

I was so impressed that I have asked if I can help ADMA to get more charities along to the next one. I am starting now - charity direct marketeers (including events & face to face fundraisers) - start thinking of a way to blag some money in your budget to get along next year.

Specific tips and learnings that I picked up from the Forum this time around to come.

Sean Triner

ADMA Forum

Unusually for me I am presenting to a non-charity Audience at the ADMA Forum in Sydney. ADMA is the Australian Direct Marketing Association, so the audience will be mostly for profit organisations. Hopefully I will pick up lots of tips from these experts to apply to the charity sector.

I told them about The Lost Dogs' Home and how they used a really pure, back to basics approach to direct marketing to connect with their key customers and increase their fundraising income by nearly ten times in five years.

Presentation below.

Who Let The Dogs Out Adma Presso V6st Upload

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Sean

Islam and fundraising from bequests (legacies)

At the IWRM conference in India recently, I pointed out that fundraisers who resist bequest marketing often use 'culture' as an excuse for not asking supporters to mention them in their wills.

The reason often given is something like 'Indians don't like talking about death...' This is easily countered by the fact that nor to Brits, Americans and Australians where bequest 'marketing' is more established.

But a fundraiser from Indonesia challenged me with a much more practical problem. She asked whether bequest marketing could actually work in Muslim countries since 'Muslims were required to give their money to their family.'

That would bring bequest marketing to a halt. So I went and found out what I could.

I checked with the President of Dee Why Mosque in Sydney. He told me that "Muslims must leave two-thirds of their estate to their family...the last third should go to good causes." On further pressing, he said that the good cause money would be better spent on "Human charities, good causes" and perfectly reasonably for a man in his position preferred Muslim causes.

I also checked with a lawyer, Haisam Farache, after his website, "Islamic Wills" was brought to my attention by bequest expert Christiana Stergiou.

Haisam confirmed that Muslims are indeed required to leave two-thirds to family and the other third can go to any good cause, human, Muslim or other.

Of course, this is looking at local law - it is possible that legal authorities in different countries may apply restrictions differently, but this would be a state/national legal issue and not a religious or cultural requirement.

If there are any other religions or cultures that make bequest fundraising impossible, please let me know!

Sean

Pareto Squared in Action I

Following on from my blog explaining Pareto Squared, here is another example of applying the principle.

An organisation has 20,000 donors. It has a limited budget, but a tough target. Provided it is not mailing it's donors too often (which many think would be over 30 times a year, so this is not likely) then it would make more money mailing the top 20% of donors (4,000) at least twice, and then just mailing as many of the next 16,000 that budget allows.

In other words:
Mail 20,000 donors at a cost of, say, $20,000. ($1 per pack)

Or Mail
Top 4,000 with a better pack costing $6,000 ($1.50 per pack)
Mail those 4,000 again with a reminder pack costing $6,000 again
Use remaining $8,000 to mail the 'best' of the remaining 16,000 donors with a cheaper - say just 8,000 at $1 per pack.

In the end, only 12,000 of the 20,000 donors are mailed BUT you will make more money.

Sean

Fantastic Donor Care

An interesting letter from AMEX combined with Ken Burnett commissioning me to debate the worthiness of charity newsletters, with newsletter master Tom Ahern prompted me to post this old donor care letter (or 'news' letter). Pareto worked with Lisa Cheng, the then fundraising boss at Children's Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA).

Everything red is personalised information, and there are several variables not used for this donor that could have thanked him for his pledged legacy, extra gifts, specific letters to CCIA and more.
I have also posted the Amex letter - quite cute; handwritten font envelope, stamped and 'from the desk of Pierre Beckert'. I have no idea who Pierre is, and nor does Google, but much more effective in making me feel special* than their regular glossy newsletter / magazine.

The Newsletter Is Dead Donor Care Letter Ccia Ca1470 Donor Care Letter As Received

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And here is the Amex one...

Amex

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By the way, I know AMEX Platinum is expensive, but with the free travel insurance and free return flight it works out good value... OK, OK, I'm a pretentious mug.

Sean

Philanthrocapitalism and revolution: a controversial start to international fundraising conference

The opening session at the IWRM Conference got us off to an interesting start.


The session was a discussion entitled 'Can Philanthrocapitalism Save the World?', with four people representing Philanthrocapitalism (new word for big capitalists giving money, eg Bill Gates).

Chaired by the CEO of Resource Alliance, Lyndall Stein the four each made a short speech, pretty much agreeing with each other that the answer was no, not alone. But all agreed 'Philanthrocapitalism' (PC) was good.

Rory Tolentino, previous chair of the Ayala Foundation in the Philippines, was the last speaker who kind of agreed with the others.

But after a discussion about PCs needing to work and help create societal change, rather than just throwing money at the problem Rory piped up again.

She starting by talking about 'the elephant in the room' and went on to say '...but when it comes to transforming society it requires steps uncomfortable to Philanthrocapitalists... for example, looking at the distribution of wealth...what we need is a revolution...without bloodshed but we do need revolution.'

I gotta say, I was bowled over. A call for revolution - a member of the board of the Resource Alliance pointing out that philanthropy was pretty much wallpapering over the cracks.

Personally, I will still continue to wallpaper but I did feel pretty challenged - it is hard to argue against her point!

As well as Rory, the panel consisted of:

• Rohini Nilekani, an Indian woman representing Infosys - which brands itself as an ethical capitalist company and had donated the venue.
• Elizabeth Edwards, from Australia and CEO of The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund.
• Pesh Framjee, head of the non profit unit at accountants Horwarth Clark Whitehill in the UK.

Sean

International Fund for Red Cross appeal

Gurpreet Kaur, the author of this letter, had never written a fundraising letter before. She works at International Federation for Red Cross and Red Cresecent Societies. Along with 13 other fundraisers from seven other charities she went on a crash course on how to write a direct mail letter in one day.

This is her first draft - and it is brilliant. It needs a bit of editing but is still pretty darn good. I think this could be the start of a new way of running fundraising conference workshops...

Ifrc In India Direct Mail Letter

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