Emergencies should not overwhelm

Emergencies Should Not Overwhelm

It always seems like there are more and more emergencies. This year fires, flood and earthquake have hammered Australia and New Zealand, as well as at least seven other countries. La Nina is not finished with us yet. The massive displacement of people in North Africa looks like it is just going to get worse, and the spectre of civil war raises its ugly head into the limelight again. None of this takes away the needs caused by crippling diseases like arthritis, killer diseases like liver cancer, runaway species extinction and rainforest destruction. But let’s face it – it is the emergencies that get the news. Colleagues and I have written about the perils of fundraisers holding off fundraising activities due to an emergency that doesn’t directly affect their charity. For example, a New Zealand cancer charity deciding to postpone its donor appeal due out the first week of March because of the earthquake. Few commentators disagree with our point that you should go ahead with your campaign. But what if your organisation is directly affected? For example, if there is an earthquake, and your charity is a development agency tasked with helping out. In this case, the emergency should affect your fundraising. If the event is gaining lots of media coverage, then it is likely that you are already affected by the phones ringing, and your website being overwhelmed. Read the full article here.

Fundraising is Beautiful... Beyond America too!

I am very keen on the Future Fundraising Now blog from Jeff Brooks in the USA and often recommend it, and I have also featured the regular podcast from Jeff known as 'Fundraising is Beautiful'.

The latest Podcast I am very keen on people listening to - especially my mum, since in it they actually interviewed me.

They were asking me about the differences between fundraising in the USA and everywhere else. A tall order, so I just stuck to the countries I know about. We talked about monthly giving, face to face mass donor acquisition and premiums.

You can listen to it here.

http://fundraisingisbeautiful.com/fundraisingisbeautiful/2011/03/fundraising-in-the-rest-of-the-world.html

Recent presentations available

If you attended FIA and came to the session on identifying major donors that Charlotte Grimshaw and I presented, you can find the presentations here.  The other, direct marketing data session, is also up there.

Sean

Lots of new cash donors... but where are my monthly prospects?

Over the past 18 months we have worked with nine charities on donor acquisition.  Across all the campaigns, all but one have hit gold. With ridiculously high response rates some packs and lists with decent rollout potential are achieving around 5% from cold mailings, and ROIs close to 1.0.

Everyone is happy.  But how to find the potential monthly donors in these shedloads of new donors?

We are testing thank you letters with monthly asks, thank you letters followed by monthly ask mailings, and following both by phone calls; in a few months we will know a lot more about the right approach.  But in the meantime, check out my debate with Lisa Sargent on the great SOFII website.

http://www.sofii.org/node/270

Floods and Fires

The floods across much of Eastern Australia are mostly over.  For now.  But cleaning up and rebuilding is not over, and many families are yet to get back into their homes.  Indeed, some have no home to return to.  And the outlook is not good, with very high chances of further catastrophic floods into the future.

At the same time, other countries have been hit hard. Brazil has lost at least 800 people, and many other countries are struggling to rebuild after, and prepare for more, flooding.

The response to the Australian floods by the Australian public has been overwhelming.  They have donated around $200m - $168m to the official appeal and several millions more direct to charities. Almost every retail business is running an appeal and thousands of volunteers are still helping to clear up.

Australia managed to go a long time without any really serious natural disasters - most photos that you see are in black and white, it is that long ago.  Until two years ago when the Victorian bushfires raged out of control, and this summer's floods.

The flood affected areas are larger in size and scope than the fires of two years ago, and in terms of worldwide natural disasters, the casualty numbers are in the same 'order' - 173 in the fires and 35-50 in the recent floods. There are still people listed as missing, hence the uncertainty.

The fires raised around $400m - the floods look like they will raise perhaps $250m.  Both substantial sums, but why the disparity?

I don't doubt that the number of deaths had some impact - but not all of it.

Both events were mass media events. Although retailers and other businesses have tried various ideas, it is the TV that drove most of the donations to both campaigns.

Victorian Bushfires, 2009

And herein lies the main reason the floods are unlikely to surpass the fires in donations. Fires are more exciting.  Floods, usually, seep up, slowly inundating homes and causing slow motion destruction.  Fires rage, they leap across roads, leave hardly anything behind and are primal - they are terrifying.  Floods, usually, are not.

In these floods, an extraordinary event occurred - what has been described as an 'inland tsunami' - which meant the floods moved up in the primal areas of peoples' minds to something dramatically terrifying.  The inland tsunami will have added a huge amount of income to the appeal; it was all we were talking about for a while.

Inland Tsunami, Queensland Floods 2010/2011

In both appeals, Australians have dug deep and been generous, but in the end, we can't beat emotional motivation in raising more money.  Despite the fact that these fundraising events were not run by fundraisers, the lesson for fundraisers is applicable for all money raising campaigns.

You need to understand your media (in this case TV) and use it to tap into emotion, clearly demonstrate the need and make sure it is dramatic, interesting and compelling.  Only then will you maximise people's abilities to make the change.

Sean

The Floods are terrible... but fundraising must go on

My thoughts go out to the people affected by the devastating floods that La Niña and other factors have wrought across the planet.  Here at home in Australia, the crisis is not over with more major flood events expected. The three most populous states have been hammered hard and we expect the death toll of 20 to increase.  The other side of the world has seen at least 400 Brazilians killed, 40 South Africans, Mozambique is being hit and Sri Lanka has had more devastation caused than the 2004 tsunami.

Death tolls don't really tell the whole story - a nation's ability to respond and rebuild and the infrastructure damage is huge.  I do hope that you can support the organisations responding to these events, but please don't let the plight of foreigners be pushed out of your mind as much as our media have pushed it off our TVs.  Please give to foreign aid organisations as well.

Also, since most readers of this blog are fundraisers, I urge you to please; don't let the floods damage your charity by cutting back on your fundraising.  It is true that in some areas your appeals may not do quite as well - but they will do better than if you don't do them.  Your hospital, school or medical charity still needs the money.

My experience is that events like this do damage fundraising for other causes - but much more of the cancellation of fundraising programs that the choice of donors.

Sean

I need a CEO

Happy new year!

I am back from a long trip to Canada, USA, a short stint at home and a proper holiday in the Solomon Islands. Now back into the swing of fundraising. And the first thing I need to do is recruit a CEO in Australia.

Please let any senior type people wohi could be interested in such a neat job know; or maybe you, dear reader? A great job, making the world a better place and working with a great team.

More details here...

http://paretofundraising.com/join-our-team/

Sean