At the final hours of the IFC conference in the Netherlands. Nearly 1,000 Fundraisers here including 27 from New Zealand and Australia. Lots of great learning, and a very worthwhile conference to invest in.
The closing plenary was delivered by Dan Pallotta - and evangelist on cost of fundraising and fair compensation for charity employees. Great stuff, really great structured arguments and well worth listening to.
For you Australians, you don't need to leave the country to see him. He is presenting at FIA in February 2012 at the Gold Coast. As well as lots of other learning opportunities - with lots of great local trainers and Tony Elischer, Kay Sprinkel-Grace and Adrian Sargeant - the conference looks fantastic. I reckon this is one Fundraisers should drag their CEOs and CFOs along.
http://www.fiaconference.org.au/index.php for the conference.
http://www.danpallotta.com/ for information on Dan.
Sean
Friday, October 21, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
A fundraiser, fundraising
Please will you help me raise money for Amnesty International - and enjoy a good yarn too?
I am running a storytelling masterclass at the International Fundraising Congress and thought I would get it off to a good start with a story which has nothing to do with fundraising!
For just $3.99 (GBP2.49) you can buy my 'e-book' Haruki The Knife Maker and all the proceeds that I receive will go to Amnesty International.
Telling a good story is essential for making fundraising work. It doesn't matter what tactics you use, what good data selections or targeting you do or what staff you employ, you have to tell a good story.
For years now, I have been writing and directing stories to raise money for fantastic charities. So I thought I would write a special story that is not in my normal forte. I have decided to dedicate this story to Amnesty International and all the staff and volunteers there as well as the people who have survived human rights abuses - or are surviving right now.
The story is just 4,500 words. It took my friend Tom Ahern about fifteen minutes to read in an airport lounge so it shouldn’t take you long. This is what he said.
Unforgettable tale, exquisitely illustrated
By
Thomas Ahern (Foster, RI USA)
This review is from: Haruki the Knife Maker (Kindle Edition)
I wasn't prepared for Haruki to take over my life ... but he did. Sean Triner is a soulful writer. His folkloristic tale is poetic, clear-eyed, and quick ... a brilliant evocation of how the simple, orderly world of a masterly village knifemaker is torn to pieces by modern economics ... and Haruki's heart-wrenching journey to recover his livelihood. The surprise ending ... well, I'll leave that for readers to savor. The matching illustrations are lovely and apt. And all proceeds go to Amnesty International, a cause Sean Triner has advanced for years. Read it. Share it. Gift it to your Kindle-loving friends.
Joan Clarke at the Bedford Foundation had a glimpse of the story on my iPhone. The illustrations got her interest at first but "I started reading the story and was gripped straight away, it was thought provoking and very poignant. Without noticing, I had ignored my red wine and the rest of the group. Fifteen minutes flew by and I had finished the story, disappointed it had ended. Thoroughly recommend it."
The official reviews have been great so far too. I do hope that you can spare the time to read it, and the $3.99 that it costs to buy. All the proceeds will be donated to Amnesty International.
The story is published as an ebook. If you have an iPad or iPhone, you can buy it easily through iBooks. It is also available on Amazon Kindle and various other ereaders. If you haven't an ereader, then you can buy it at Smashwords, or else donate at least $5 on my fundraising page and send me your email address and I will send you a copy.
Still not convinced? A load of reviews are below...
Thank you, and I hope that you enjoy it.
Airdre Grant, 5 stars.
"I found this to be a very elegantly written tale. It works as a fable for me as it tells an egaging story and also invites us to think about the relationship between violence and beauty, and the collision between old words and new, greed and sacrifice. I recommend it."
Review by: Sharon Dopson, 5 stars
"What a beautiful fable, a sad very realistic view of our greedy changing world. I will recommend to all my friends." Review by: Alexbecky: 4 stars "This modern fable is beautifully illustrated and is a fascinating read. It really makes you think about the beauty of simplicity, and what can happen when both greedy capitalism and monolithic communism combine to destroy an ancient way of life."
Review by: Christiana Stergiou, 5 stars
"This is a wonderful, meaningful and easy to read book. It's simple language conveys a deep story that is a fable for our times. It is beautifully illustrated, too. It's sad to think that there have been many Harukis whose simple and sustainable existence have been sacrificed for our modern, convenient and consumerist lifestyle. I would love a set of Haruki's knives!"
Monday, September 5, 2011
Tom Ahern at F and P Forum
Short lesson from from F and P Australasian fundraising forum...
Tom Ahern on newsletters. The purpose of the newsletter is kind of like the lessons from 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. Tell your donors how good they are.
For example, the Gillette children's charity, instead of saying how good your work is 'At Gillette, medical pioneers set the standards for spine care' tell the donor how good they are. 'Zawadi says "Thank you" you helped Tanzanian girl stand tall on her own two feet'.
This lesson should of course apply to all donor communications.
It is not about you, it is about the donor. Getting this right will increase your income, period.
Sean
Tom Ahern on newsletters. The purpose of the newsletter is kind of like the lessons from 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. Tell your donors how good they are.
For example, the Gillette children's charity, instead of saying how good your work is 'At Gillette, medical pioneers set the standards for spine care' tell the donor how good they are. 'Zawadi says "Thank you" you helped Tanzanian girl stand tall on her own two feet'.
This lesson should of course apply to all donor communications.
It is not about you, it is about the donor. Getting this right will increase your income, period.
Sean
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Better story telling
Many charities have proven that telling individual stories is more motivating for potential donors than throwing statistics and numbers at them.
Telling people that there are 10,000 people diagnosed with x disease per annum is not as effective as telling a story about one person with that disease, and what you can do to help.
Story telling hammers fact sharing when it comes to soliciting donations.
Assuming that you have already been convinced that this is the case, then the next stage is to write those stories in a really engaging way.
I often get involved in writing copy and a trick that I have found is that stories flow better, and are more engaging if they are personal, involving, directly thank the donor, and are witnessed.
By witnessed, I mean kind of like what preachers do. Don't just tell someone a story, make it personal. Since good direct mail letters should be written in first person singular, to a donor, the writer should be telling the story from their perspective,
In a story about someone with x disease, the writer should have met that person or their family. It is more compelling to say 'when I met Bill, I was shocked when he told me that...' 'it brought me close to tears...' than just saying something like 'let me tell you about Bill. He was diagnosed with ....'
Take a leaf from preachers - witness change.
Telling people that there are 10,000 people diagnosed with x disease per annum is not as effective as telling a story about one person with that disease, and what you can do to help.
Story telling hammers fact sharing when it comes to soliciting donations.
Assuming that you have already been convinced that this is the case, then the next stage is to write those stories in a really engaging way.
I often get involved in writing copy and a trick that I have found is that stories flow better, and are more engaging if they are personal, involving, directly thank the donor, and are witnessed.
By witnessed, I mean kind of like what preachers do. Don't just tell someone a story, make it personal. Since good direct mail letters should be written in first person singular, to a donor, the writer should be telling the story from their perspective,
In a story about someone with x disease, the writer should have met that person or their family. It is more compelling to say 'when I met Bill, I was shocked when he told me that...' 'it brought me close to tears...' than just saying something like 'let me tell you about Bill. He was diagnosed with ....'
Take a leaf from preachers - witness change.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Measuring the success of emails
The Australian tax year ends 30 June. Our system for making donations tax deductible requires people to make a tax claim including their donation. Anything they donate is tax deductible.
This has a large impact on giving patterns of large donations, but also gives charities a useful deadline, and excuse to create urgency. Such as John Jeffries has done in the email below.
I have received five of these types of emails in the past 48 hours, which is good stuff. Gets more every year; every charity should do something like this.
But what should a charity measure to assess the emails? The usual answer is to look at actual responses to the emails. This is useful, but doesn't tell the whole story, and could be looking at money that would have been donated anyway.
For charities with less than about 5,000 email addresses of donors, I am afraid they will never know for sure; they won't be able to get a statistically valid test answer. But, on balance - send the emails and trust that your donors are not that different from everyone elses.
For charities with more email addresses Without a properly structured test, the charity can never know for sure how much extra was raised. So test.
Assuming you are mailing everyone and using email to support the mailing, the best structure for the test is:
1) Complete your mailing targeting as usual.
2) Ignoring the presence or absence of email addresses, split each 'cell' or group of donors into two; control and email. Assuming that your mailing expects about 10% response rate in to (eg donors who have donated once, in last 12 months, $26-$50 could be a cell)
3) Email all the people in the email group that you can. It could be that only half of them have email addresses; that doesn't matter, still call them the email group.
4) Measure the total giving at the end of the appeal; control v email. See which one raised the most net income, and look at total response rates. Check they are statistically valid.
The alternative approach is to just select all those with email addresses, and email half of them - making sure the split is random and that each cell has about the same number of control and email subjects. Again, measure total giving at the end of the campaign - not just email donations.
If you email me your test results, confidentially, I will add my interpretation for you.
Good luck. If you are an Aussie charity and haven't sent a tax time email, you have about three hours to do it in...
Sean
Monday, June 27, 2011
How many times to mail?
Last week the UK Fundraising Group on LinkedIn began a thread about how often to mail people.
So how often should you mail?
At Pareto we look at data and try to work out what the optimum communications program should be to maximize lifetime value from donors. Donors are very expensive to get on board, and it is imperative that you look at your data to maximize return on that initial investment.
The most important factor for whether someone will give to you is whether they gave to you previously. Then, the most important variables are how recently and how many times. The more recent someone gave, the more likely they are to give again.So, mailing, emailing or phoning more often means that you are constantly communicating with donors more recently, and therefore more likely to get gifts from them.
Also, the biggest cause of attrition is not giving for a while (!). Fewer communications mean that the gap between giving is greater. If you don't communicate very often your attrition goes up, not down. Unless your communications are not very good.When it comes to asking donors for a monthly gift we also note that there is an optimum time. It does vary slightly, depending on cause, channel of solicitation etc but it is always going to be within a couple of months of a gift.
Four to six weeks is the right place to start. We are not alone with this approach, anyone else who measures life time value and optimum 'conversion' timings finds the same answer.
And this does not appear to vary between countries. We took that learning from data in the UK and applied it in Australia to find the same. Analyzing data across other countries gives us the same result.This approach is not aggressive, and is not subjective or an opinion. It is maths. Across any given data set, increasing communications tends to increase the lifetime value of that data set. Not just short term income, but overall giving.
Managed well it should also increase your number of bequestors.Jeff Brooks of the best fundraising blog, Future Fundraising Now advocates at least thirty asks per annum. That seems a lot, but he says that he has never seen increasing the number of asks decrease the total value given.The limit on the number of communications is likely to be forced on you for internal reasons - your capacity to produce multiple communications.
Also, increasing the number of asks is likely to increase total given, and increase retention but each time it also increases costs and reduces the amount given on that occasion. Consequently an initial increase in ROI as you go from say four to eight communications will reverse and you will probably begin to see a decline as you go from say eight to sixteen.
Even so, net income is the best measure - not ROI - from warm mailings to your own donors. It is better to raise $700k at a cost of $300k than $500k at a cost of $100k. More donors, more security, more room for error, more legacy potentials etc = more money in the end.
The most important factor for whether someone will give to you is whether they gave to you previously. Then, the most important variables are how recently and how many times. The more recent someone gave, the more likely they are to give again.So, mailing, emailing or phoning more often means that you are constantly communicating with donors more recently, and therefore more likely to get gifts from them.
Also, the biggest cause of attrition is not giving for a while (!). Fewer communications mean that the gap between giving is greater. If you don't communicate very often your attrition goes up, not down. Unless your communications are not very good.When it comes to asking donors for a monthly gift we also note that there is an optimum time. It does vary slightly, depending on cause, channel of solicitation etc but it is always going to be within a couple of months of a gift.
Four to six weeks is the right place to start. We are not alone with this approach, anyone else who measures life time value and optimum 'conversion' timings finds the same answer.
And this does not appear to vary between countries. We took that learning from data in the UK and applied it in Australia to find the same. Analyzing data across other countries gives us the same result.This approach is not aggressive, and is not subjective or an opinion. It is maths. Across any given data set, increasing communications tends to increase the lifetime value of that data set. Not just short term income, but overall giving.
Managed well it should also increase your number of bequestors.Jeff Brooks of the best fundraising blog, Future Fundraising Now advocates at least thirty asks per annum. That seems a lot, but he says that he has never seen increasing the number of asks decrease the total value given.The limit on the number of communications is likely to be forced on you for internal reasons - your capacity to produce multiple communications.
Also, increasing the number of asks is likely to increase total given, and increase retention but each time it also increases costs and reduces the amount given on that occasion. Consequently an initial increase in ROI as you go from say four to eight communications will reverse and you will probably begin to see a decline as you go from say eight to sixteen.
Even so, net income is the best measure - not ROI - from warm mailings to your own donors. It is better to raise $700k at a cost of $300k than $500k at a cost of $100k. More donors, more security, more room for error, more legacy potentials etc = more money in the end.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
WNYC Radiolab podcasts
I am currently in South Dakota, on the Great Plains of the USA where I spent the day with some lovely people from St Joseph's Indian School. We have been talking, unsurprisingly, about fundraising.
However, we did go off topic a little, when talking about cats and in particular, Toxoplasma. This parasite is amazing - it makes rats and mice not scared of cats - in fact, they think they like cats. Yummy says the cat! Will it make humans like cats?
Ten minutes of listening to this will really change how you think about cats.
By the way, all the WYNC Radiolab podcasts are brilliant. Public Broadcast Radio at its best.
Sean
However, we did go off topic a little, when talking about cats and in particular, Toxoplasma. This parasite is amazing - it makes rats and mice not scared of cats - in fact, they think they like cats. Yummy says the cat! Will it make humans like cats?
Ten minutes of listening to this will really change how you think about cats.
By the way, all the WYNC Radiolab podcasts are brilliant. Public Broadcast Radio at its best.
Sean
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