Appeal and Package Tree - How many is too many?

Tom Klimchak

Hi... Our institution has always struggled with creating an appeal tree that makes sense, and we've tended to lean towards "more" as being "better."  We now have over 60 appeals in a single year, but some of those appeals have three or four packages, so our last appeal list had 133 unique Appeals with Package IDs.


I think we're probably going way too crazy with these things for the following reasons:


1) I have to code them all and then apply appeal codes and/or actions (and I'm sick of it)

2) We almost never run meaningful reports on the results or learn any lessons from all our record keeping.

3) The few times we do learn something its quickly forgotten because we tend to completely change around our appeals and methods every year or so (can't compare apples to apples).


Or, maybe, I'm just grumpy... 


So my question is :  How many appeals and packages is your institution using?    


Thanks!

John Heizer

Tom Klimchak:

Hi... Our institution has always struggled with creating an appeal tree that makes sense, and we've tended to lean towards "more" as being "better."  We now have over 60 appeals in a single year, but some of those appeals have three or four packages, so our last appeal list had 133 unique Appeals with Package IDs.


I think we're probably going way too crazy with these things for the following reasons:


1) I have to code them all and then apply appeal codes and/or actions (and I'm sick of it)

2) We almost never run meaningful reports on the results or learn any lessons from all our record keeping.

3) The few times we do learn something its quickly forgotten because we tend to completely change around our appeals and methods every year or so (can't compare apples to apples).


Or, maybe, I'm just grumpy... 


So my question is :  How many appeals and packages is your institution using?    


Thanks!

I think you've already answered your "real" question, because "how many" other orgs are using is really irrelevant to how many you need to use.  You don't need a number, you need reasons.  If you can't indentify how any Appeal or Package needs to be reported on separate from others then it probably isn't needed.

Joshua Bekerman bCLO bCRE

Ditto what John said.  My last org would have between 500 and 4,500 packages per appeal (mailings).  A lot of segments/packages would have single-digit constituent counts (sometimes just one).  If you have 60 mailings a year then 60 appeals are appropriate.  Just be sure to decide wisely if something should be an appeal or just a package within an appeal.

shani traum

Tom Klimchak:

Hi... Our institution has always struggled with creating an appeal tree that makes sense, and we've tended to lean towards "more" as being "better."  We now have over 60 appeals in a single year, but some of those appeals have three or four packages, so our last appeal list had 133 unique Appeals with Package IDs.


I think we're probably going way too crazy with these things for the following reasons:


1) I have to code them all and then apply appeal codes and/or actions (and I'm sick of it)

2) We almost never run meaningful reports on the results or learn any lessons from all our record keeping.

3) The few times we do learn something its quickly forgotten because we tend to completely change around our appeals and methods every year or so (can't compare apples to apples).


Or, maybe, I'm just grumpy... 


So my question is :  How many appeals and packages is your institution using?    


Thanks!

Hey Tom,


We use an appeal for each mailing we send out.  The naming convention being Year, Month, purpose.  So: 18JanAFDM (2018 January Annual Fund Direct Mail).  Within each of those we have many 4 or so packages (Sybunts, Lybunts, Long Lapsed, Non Donor being the most common).  We also code all appeals with an Appeal Type ... Annual Fund, Newsletter, Solicitation (letter, but not for Annual Fund) so we can see how a particular type avenue performs (either vs others, or just as a way to segment those appeals out fromt he rest).


 

Debra Holcomb

Hi Tom,

 
I was curious after you asked your question so I looked it up.  Last year we had 142 appeals specific to the calendar year and we also have many ‘evergreen’ appeals for those that remain the same year-over-year (like birthday cards).  Some appeals had no packages, some just two, and several other 40-60 packages.  Every mass mail, email, or telemarketing outreach receives a unique appeal.  It's helpful to have this history and I’m glad my predecessors tracked every detail.  And I hope the history I record today will be useful to others in the future.  However, I am at a very different type of organization (arts & culture) than yours. 

 
I agree with all that’s been said before me on this string.  It really only matters what you need the information for and every organization is different.  Our appeal codes match our solicitation strategy and tie back to our budget.  So, if we are asked “how much did we spend on acquisition and what did we raise?” I can look up that information and compare year-over-year.  

 
Since I generally know the outreach schedule for the year and we have naming conventions in place, I create a .csv file and import all of the appeals at the beginning of the year.  When the appeal is actually sent, I import package details and tweak any dates/details that might have changed. I then can import the appeal and package into the constituent record. At the end of the year, I do some clean-up to globally mark appeals inactive and review them overall.

 
Debra
Yosemite Conservancy

Faith Murray

We use an appeal to cover an entire themed, multi-channel communication effort. So one appeal includes the email blasts, direct mail piece, direct mail followup, etc. Packages underneath the appeals are different for each appeal dependent on what metric we are measuring and how our communications are tailored for each demographic. For example, in one mailing, we may tailor our letter differently for Alumni, so they would be their own segment. In another mailing, we may segment based on giving level, so "major donors" would be its own segment. 


Then, 60 days after an appeal drop, we analyze the results from the appeal summary and present at our monthly staff meeting, at the same time we're discussing our next appeal strategy. So even though our appeal setup is different form one year to the next, the results are at least being put to use for continual improvement.


We generally only use appeals for "asks" - we haven't typically recorded newsletters or other informationals in the appeal tab, although it would probably be wise to begin doing so. A fundraising whitepaper from Tom Ahern recommends no more than 21 solicitations a year, and between our appeal mailings, newsletter "soft asks", event mailings, and alumni mailings, we're beginning to need better tracking of how our segments overlap so that we don't exceed that number.

Andrew Ludwell

I agree with John. You need to know why you're doing something rather than just doing it because reason (where reason is currently a null set).


We use Campaigns for our budget reporting lines, appeals for activities (appeal mailing, newsletter mailing, eDM specific activity, etc.), and packages for segmentation (gift recency, size of previous gifts, etc.).

This leads us to having 4-6 Campaigns per year, 6-10 Appeals and hundreds of packages.

We have a repeating system with minor tweaks for the Packages, so I also use Import to put the 50 or so per Appeal into RE