Post Your Campaign Concept Worksheets Here

Pamela Scott:

Please review my draft EOY concept narrative. Thank you. Pamela

Hi Pamela,

Great start here! One overarching thought that came to mind as I read your document was that I became curious for specifics. It sounds like the month of December has a particular influx of grant requests. This could use some explanation. Why December? My feeling is that many of your readers don't know this which is a great opportunity for education and fundraising.

In your explanation of the Impact of Gift, you indicate that TRF funds "cutting-edge transplant research that is critical to  provide transplant recipients suffering from complications hope for the future with an improved quality of life." Try to be more specific here if you can. Consider creating an email message that details one of the transplant research projects so your readers have a sample of the sort of research you help to fund. This also puts a more personal face to the lives the research ultimately impacts. Even better, use a personal story of someone who has benefited from a research project you helped to fund. Keep in mind that people give to people. To make the greatest impact, your task is to make research understandable and tangible to your constituents. Really push to come up with a way that can make research success (which can sometimes be a bit over-complex or vague to regular people) meaningful, real, and human so your donors see the value of their support.

One more thing is your overall campaign theme "Health and Hope." Hope, to me, represents things that you intend to work on or solve in the future. However, it sounds like you're trying to meet an immediate need for funds during the month of December. Be sure to draft your messages carefully to that you indicate that "Hope" is for the research findings (or something else you envision down the road). You may also consider changing your theme to something that incites a bit more urgency such as a sentence about how December is your busiest research month or something about the urgent need for research on post-transplant complications.

Matt Larson:

Any and all comments welcome...

Thanks!

Matt

Matt, Great campaign ideas! It isn't every day that an organization can "kick off a new century!" Very exciting! Looking ahead to the next 100 years while also highlighting the factors that made the first 100 years possible is a motivating and impressive theme.

For each of your emails, I think you're spot on. I especally like that you have been able to focus in on just two vital components of your success over the last 100 year: volunteer service and financial support. Weave this language into each of your messages. I think it is a great description that will resonate with your constituents because it is so concise and transparent. I also like the "pass it on" theme. Tapping in your organization's long history with the reminder that another 100 is possible with their help is perfect.

For message #2, you are actually creating 2 slightly different version: 1 for donors, 1 for non-donors. The layout and design is the same, but the copy you use will be customized to the audience. For the donor version, I'd omit an ask completely and make it all about thanking the donor and asking for help spreading the word. For the non-donor version, a soft ask is absolutely acceptable. For both versions, you may consider including an additional link to a volunteer information form. While I normally wouldn't encourage this as it detracts from the call to give, message #2 of this campaign is meant to be more cultivation and a softer ask. It might be nice to give your donors this option to contribute even if they can't give a monetary gift. I would not include other links in messages 1 and 3 because you want each link to point to your donation form in those messages.

Let's talk premiums... First, they are great and really do tend to improve your donor response rate. However, premiums during the holidays can pose some problems. To fulfill your premiums, especially if you offer 2 premium options, you will be running daily transaction reports. Depending on your staff resources, the additional task during an already busy time of year can be tricky. Also, you can expect some long hours in the mail room. Sometimes tying your premium to a specific giving level helps keep fulfillment under control. Have a look at your average gift amount. Create a giving level that is $25-$50 more than that amount and see if you can upgrade some of your donors using the premium.

Another, and perhaps the most common donor complaint, is that the donors expect their premium to arrive BEFORE the actual holiday. Shipping during December takes more time than usual, naturally, so be sure to have a strict, visible cut-off date for premiums to arrive before Dec 25. On the cut-off date, add a big, bold line stating that premiums will not be received in time so your donors know what to expect. You can sometimes avoid these problems by offering an electronic eCard notification on your donation form and state clearly that the membership packet or book can be expected after the new year. You would need to build the donation eCard but you could make a copy of the eCard message Convio will build for you to send as message #2. Just remove the unsubscribe and TAF links as they don't work in the donation eCards tool.

You can add custom fields or use the hon/mem notification fields to capture your gift membership recipient info. You will, however, need to manually create their record in C360 if eNewsletter membership is included in the gift membership benefits.One thing I will warn against is that while premiums can easily be integrated into your standard EOY donation form, gift memberships should probably have their own form and be offered as an additional giving option. The additional gift membership fields can clutter up your form and confuse/distract the donor if they don't want to give a gift membership. Consider creating a dedicated form if you decide to offer to gift memberships.

When brainstorming giving levels, GMC may need to think a bit broader. For instance, the cost of a shovel isn't interesting out of context. How is the shovel used? Who uses it and how many do you need?  I'm envisioning something like "$100 maintains 10 miles of trail for the year, including fencing and general maintenance" "$50 maintains one trail hut" "$250 protects the trail forest from fire for one month." To be honest, I'm not familiar with the Long Trail so these may not be appropriate but hopefully they'll help you brainstorm.

Good luck! You're off to a terrific start!

rachael