Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent advice for his friend, New York neighbor, and would-be presidential hopeful Donald Trump was resounding – drop the birther talk!  The Mayor urged Trump and the Republican Party to instead focus on the substantive issues that Americans care about, such as the economy, jobs, and immigration.  Mayor Bloomberg, an Independent and founding member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns – is certainly one to reach out to both sides of the aisle on common sense issues, such as stopping the flow of illegal guns into America’s cities.

Even Karl Rove refers to Trump as the “joke candidate” for his birther fixation.

Target Analytics’ donorCentrics™ Index of National Fundraising Performance for the 2010 Fourth Quarter was recently released and has created quite a stir!  Although the organizations in the study held revenue steady in 2010 “donor populations have been shrinking consistently for the past four years.”

Targeted marketing … modeling … predicted response ... techniques we all talk about that are frequently used to go beyond traditional segmentation strategies.  But what do they really mean?  How do they really work?  To follow is an article I wrote recently published in the April issue of AdVents – DMAW’s monthly member newsletter – that outlines how one Avalon client used predictive modeling to maximize their net returns.

If you have any questions, I’d love to share other successful predictive modeling case studies.

So you’re looking for a new and innovative campaign to acquire new donors and retain those already on your file.  It’s not year-end and you want to try something different despite your compelling case for support that has worked well.  This was our recent dilemma for Farm Sanctuary’s March email campaign.

It was great to see so many of our colleagues and friends at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference … and to take part in some incredible breakout sessions and trainings.  I’ve always known that when used effectively, technology is critical to tapping into donor bases – but I’m always amazed at how cutting edge our industry is.  I think we’re really at the forefront of some exciting advances in providing donors user-friendly choices in making giving not only rewarding but also easy.

Three “must-read” online benchmarking reports have been keeping me busy!  In addition to the recently released Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study, the Blackbaud 2010 Online Giving Report and the 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study from M+R and NTEN have also just come out.  So – what’s what?  What online metrics should you focus on?  How are you doing compared to your peers?  What expectations are realistic?

Two campaigns are worthy of Show & Tell bragging rights this month – one direct mail appeal and one online appeal …

The Galapagos Conservancy faced a quandary at year-end.  Due to expense budget restrictions, the Conservancy’s high-dollar ($1,000 +) Ambassador members were mailed a mass-produced version of the low-dollar effort. Accustomed to high-end, high-touch mailings with substantial requests for support, sending this high-dollar file a version of the low-dollar effort presented a risk in terms of package quality concerns and the ultimate need to meet revenue goals.  In order to boost response, additional personalization and first class postage were added.

What did we learn?

After spending three days at the NTEN Technology Conference, I came away with the undeniable sense that integrated, multi-channel fundraising is truly in focus for nonprofits and political campaigns.  Though still far from reaching its fullest potential, a slew of results were vibrantly discussed throughout the conference.   

In 2008, the Obama campaign used a team of six analysts to empirically test and fine tune every nuance of its fundraising and organizing program by pouring over results garnered from one billion email sends.  By contrast, not every result shared at the conference came certified with degrees of statistical significance or control group results, nonetheless, one thing was abundantly clear: an integrated, multi-channel approach works.

Some pretty cool happenings from the nonprofit world have landed in my inbox lately that are worth sharing.  Here’s what we’ve seen & heard lately …