Quadriga Art presents a look at the overall health of the non-profit industry. How do you stack-up against these numbers?
1. Less than 40% of donors will give more than one gift. Furthermore, the “Fundraising Effectiveness Project” indicates that cumulative bad-to-poor growth-in-giving fundraising performance in 2010 was 84%.
2. Recurring Gift Donors only accounted for 10% of all US Donors.
This comes from the donorCentrics “U.S. Recurring Giving Benchmarking Analysis” study. Organizations are missing out on stable, predictable, and highly profitable fundraising revenue. Remember – the biggest predictor of repeat giving is donation recency. Recurring donors are your most valuable.
3. Fundraising Email Response Rate is 0.13%
This comes from the eNonprofit “Benchmarks Study.” That means more than 99.5% of fundraising emails don't yield a donation.
4. Only 26% of Nonprofits Rated their Websites Very Effective
The State of the Nonprofit Industry Survey tells us that 74% of nonprofit websites aren't doing their job. And Facebook is even LESS effective.
Those numbers are unacceptable. And we do everything possible so that our clients don’t ever experience them. Fundraising best practices mandate the following:
Research, test, analyze. Touch, move, inspire. Thank, welcome, invite.
Too many non-profits communicate in a way that asks people to think.
But reason won’t move someone to join support your cause. Logic won’t convince someone to become an evangelist for your group. Analysis won’t sway someone to open his or her wallet and hand out money. However, emotion will … You’re not selling the importance of family – you’re selling a sense of belonging. You’re not selling the importance of reducing crime – you’re selling peace of mind. You’re not selling the importance of working to elect like-minded, like-valued candidates – you’re selling heroism.
Ask yourself this: Does your direct mail move people… make them feel something… compel them to give?
What does your heart tell you?
Next in the Quadriga Art Presents series: You’ve got (direct) mail.
