Spring Fundraising Ideas (from Office Hours 4.28.09)

Rachael Ahrens

I hope you all have begun to brainstorm ideas for the upcoming Spring Fundraising Campaign. Asking for a donation at this time of year can be tricky, especially when it feels like you’ve already been asking your constituents to do a lot. There are lots of creative ways to inspire your supporters to give a gift beyond an updated donate button. We looked at some examples of good fundraising appeals I’ve collected over the last year or so. While they don’t all match the Go! templates we’ll be using, I think you’ll find that (content-wise) they are good examples of ways to utilize your organization’s unique resources and really make your spring fundraising campaign stand out in someone’s inbox. If any of you have examples you don’t mind sharing, please copy the whole group.

Some of my recent favs:



Topical Fundraising Messages

http://support.nature.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=35221.0&dlv_id=49363

http://getinvolved.conservation.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=10621.0&dlv_id=0

Thank You/Cultivation Message

http://support.nature.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=31901.0&dlv_id=46361

Great Use of Video in Fundraising

http://www2.aspca.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=52853.0&dlv_id=42941

Great Use of Unusual Holiday

http://www2.aspca.org/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=52341&em_id=59425.0

http://support.nature.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=25501.0&dlv_id=39981

Emergency Fundraising

http://www2.aspca.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=53184.0&dlv_id=43601

Also, we talked about some important things to consider when filling out the fundraising guide. Things that are easily over-looked are subject line, preview pane optimization, and words that will land you in spam folders.

Some resources you may find helpful:

Affects of Improvements of web writing (Jakob Nielson’s whole website is packed with good info on usability and web writing…a great all-around resource)

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html

The Basics of Email Marketing for Nonprofits (page 13)

http://customer.convio.com/site/DocServer/EmailGuideJune1_04.pdf?docID=201

Even “Click Below” can get you dumped in a spam folder. Here are some sites with lists of words to avoid:

http://spamassassin.apache.org/tests_3_1_x.html

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter_phrases.htm

As always, you can access the recording of our meeting at http://customer.convio.com/go_resources. If you have questions about anything happening in the very-busy month of May, please let me know.

All the best,

Rachael