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?

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 …

As fundraisers we have all been asked by friends and family which nonprofit is the most effective – whether it be in response to unbelievable crisis such as Katrina, Haiti, Japan, or in our own backyards helping those in need.  And as fundraisers we have all struggled with watchdog groups rating our organizations solely in terms of cost of fundraising.  But what if we could find out whether a nonprofit has made a difference from those who have benefitted directly from its services?

The nonprofit fundraising community turned out in force at last week’s DMA Nonprofit Federation Conference in Washington, D.C.—including Avalon. As with past conferences, the biggest challenge was taking advantage of all the great networking opportunities while attending as many sessions as possible. Somehow, we managed to do both!

Avalon is heading to the 2011 Washington Nonprofit Conference sponsored by the DMA Nonprofit Federation. We'll be there February 17 and 18 at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., and hope to see you there. See who from Avalon will be there...

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s January 9th piece “Charities Find Creative Ways to Recruit New Donors in Tough Times” offers this silver lining to the recessionary challenges that nonprofits have faced in recruiting and retaining new donors: New donors may be worth more over the long haul than supporters recruited in better times.  

That’s good news we’re all happy to hear! The article goes on to share Avalon’s analysis and quote Ann Herzog regarding this “better donor” hypothesis.

For years results have proven that donors with phone numbers yield stronger returns than those who do not. But could the same be said of donors with email addresses? Is our assumption correct? Does appending email addresses to our files boost results?

Avalon’s Production Committee has been hard at work sharing ideas, tips, and strategies so as to maximize cross client opportunities throughout the office!  This month, preparation for the required use of the Intelligent Mail Barcode (or “IMB”) has dominated discussions.  What is the IMB?  

Although I’m not (yet!) addicted to Facebook, I can’t stop thinking about social media this week.  Thanks to a daily post from The Agitator, I’m convinced that we need to ramp up our conversations on how nonprofits use social media.  We love to engage donors because it’s proven to increase donor value – and social media is an easy way to do that – but are we setting our sights high enough?  Is having someone “friend” us good enough? Or do we need to be pushing for more meaningful engagement with our donors?