Talking to your ex (donor)

After reading Jeff Brooks comments on “last notice” fundraising control packs, I feel compelled to add my voice.

As a designer, cultivator, and purveyor of direct mail for years I would celebrate when I could work with my colleagues to design a pack that could generate a 3-4% response rate from lasped (or even long-lapsed!) donors. If you are in the business of direct mail, you doubtlessly are nodding your head in agreement.

If you are a person living in the real world, you’re probably perplexed.

Maybe even shocked.

The corollary to a “spectacular” 4% response in this very difficult segment, means that you’ve effectively “lost” the other 96% of past donors.

Jeff is absolutely correct…there is a tendency to beat these non-responders over the head with the same message over and over again every time you feel like throwing the lapsed segment in the house control pack (or as a segment of the next prospect mailing).

In effect, this postal abuse means you are gambling with the organization’s credibility.

As a fundraiser, I was relatively “lucky.” I worked for an agency that helped the most disadvantaged on earth—refugees—and the best way to renew lasped donors was through an emergency appeal that dovetailed with some complex humanitarian global tragedy reported in the news. However, once renewed, this segment would often revert to dormancy until the next visible emergency. We were ambulance chasing for a good cause, using the horror faced by others to compel the reluctant donor into action.

As hard as I tried (sic), I was never able to successfully build an annual campaign of appeals out of humanitarian catastrophes; although there were sadly legitimate examples of human tragedy every time we mailed (Afghanistan, DRC, Haiti, Uganda, Darfur, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Lebanon…) it was admittedly crass to continue to scream EMERGENCY on the front of every envelope. I know it was crass only because donors would tell me: in the unmistakable voice of no response. (and sometimes using our toll free number to make their opinion expressly clear to me!)

Fundraisers need to gracefully shepherd lapsed donors into the pasture once they have given what they wish to give. In my opinion, mailing them the same EMERGENCY or LAST CHANCE copy will do more damage than good. We all know that good opinions travel slowly, while anger, frustration, and annoyance spread in social circles like wildfire.

Everyone likes to complain; don’t give your ex-donors the ammunition to shoot your program in the back while you leave their home.

Of course, I don’t advocate simply walking away. The discipline of fundraising requires us to at least do our best to include donors in the annual program. All fundraisers will try to renew donors with a regular mailing schedule, using interesting and compelling and well tested copy. Seasoned pros will then try a personalized lapsed donor copy (or at least a tailored variable paragraph in your renewal appeal.) Some may even test this segment in the prospecting program, and determine response for both the prospecting control pack, or a new creative. Those with significant budgets may even try calling lasped donors to ask for their support, or to get a sense of why they have stopped responding.

Maybe your outgoing donors simply want something different from you. If you can give them online outreach, better program access, volunteer or staff visits, participation in the mission, invitations to special events, or some other form of engagement, then renewal may fall outside the realm of direct marketing. (and therein may lie the dormant major donor!)

If, however, your donors are ready to walk away, set them free. Keep their record as a memento of their generosity, and stop pestering them if they haven’t responded to your sincere multiple appeals.

Certainly don’t make them angry with belligerence or with volumes of the same package.

Leave the endless stream of “last chance” mailings to the credit card companies and the desperate, or those who have already lost their good name.