How to evaluate your charity's communications

Before designing the communications strategy for next year take some time to evaluate the marketing and fundraising communications your charity sent out this year. Here is a hands-on, simple evaluation framework that can reap great dividends.
 
Step One: Gather the various mailing packages, and other related online fundraising and marketing materials that your charity has prepared and sent to donors and contacts on the last 18 months. What you have in front of you and on your computer screen is likely to represent the sum total of intentional messages received by your charity's constituents.

 

Step Two: Take a highlighter and mark every purpose statement, expression of your charity's mission and fundraising asks you find embedded in your communications pieces.
 
What do you think? Can you see message consistency? Clearly stated fundraising asks?
 
Are you speechless? Stunned? Pleased? Alarmed?

 

Step Three: Ask yourself and - get your colleagues to ask themselves too - the following questions as you evaluate your charity's communications. Remember to be honest, otherwise there is no point in undertaking this exercise.
 
1. Does every communications' piece contain a clear statement of your charity's vision and mission? - Your goal should be to have bite-size version of our mission and vision in all communications so that donors are reminded of what you do and why their participation in your wok is important.

2. Do your printed and online materials communicate your charity’s brand? - Examine the language, style, design, use of images, headlines, colour schemes - do they adhere to your charity's style guide? Do they express your charity's unique personality and style? - Donors should be able to recongnise your materials and your messages in a crowded marketplace.  

If a donor visits your website, facebook page, or reads one of your promotional mailings, they should be able to easily identify elements (both copy and design) that set your charity apart from others involved in similar work.  

3. How are you telling your charity's stories? - People connect with a cause through compelling stories. How are you telling your stories in words and images? Are they inspiring? Memorable? Captured in headlines, copy as well as powerful authentic images?

4. How are you communicating the impact that the donors are making through their giving? - Today's donors want to know how the money they give is being spent. Openness and transparency helps to build donor trust in charities. So, have a look at your communications? How often do you let donors know how the money is being used? Do you report back on how much was raised through various appeals? Do you let them know what your administration costs are and how much money goes to the project in the field? Is there consistency in these messages or do they contradict each other?

5. How do you thank your donors? - Saying 'thank you' is a way of strengthening relationships with donors and assuring them that their gifts will be used as intended. It is also a way of securing future gifts. How do you say 'thank you'? Are there any thank you messages incorporated in your newsletters, emails, etc as well as personalised letters? Are the thank you messages dry and formal or warm and encouraging?

6. Do you encourage donors to engage with your charity? - How many of your charity's communications give donors opportunities to offer feedback, ask questions, share their views about your work, or even tell you why they support your charity? Do you give donor's a voice through your printed materials, your website or online forums? Do you act on their suggestions and offer them feedback? - In a connected world one way communications are becoming extinct and collaboration is the name of the game. 

These might seem like simple questions but you would be surprised as to how many time charities get them wrong .... so take your time with this exercise, evaluate the findings and improve the effectiveness of your communications in 2012.

 

How is the recession impacting Christian giving?

The majority of evangelical donors (93%) answered our question about the impact of the recession on their charitable giving. The good news for churches and charities is that more than half of those who responded (62%) said that the recession had not impacted their giving while 38% said that their giving had been impacted. (The survey was carried out in Autumn part of 2009)

Furthermore, when asked whether they were donating the same amounts as they did six months prior to the survey the vast majority of evangelical donors (80%) said ‘yes,’ 9% said they were donating less than they did six months ago and 11% of donors did not answer this question.

Unfortunately, the opposite is happening in that charities and churches are tightening their belts and shying away from investing in their fundraising or stewardship programmes. Christian charities keep cutting their marketing budgets, or making fundraising staff redundant and some have even stopped their new donor acquisition activities.

If this trend continues, bearing in mind that 53% of current donors are either not likely to respond to new giving opportunities or are undecided, then charities who will grow their income are ones who are investing wisely in new donor acquisition campaigns amidst the recession.

Here are some more research insights that you might find useful:

Empty nesters are more likely to keep giving in recession
Evangelical donors without dependents at home are more likely to continue giving in recession compared to donors with dependents at home. 24% of donors with dependents stopped giving compared to 15% of donors without dependents.

Wealthy donors will continue to give
As expected, recession is having a stronger impact on the giving of donors from low household incomes. One in four donors from households making less than £10,000 stated that their giving has been impacted by recession, this figure fell to 22% for donors with household incomes of £20,000 - £30,000 and to 13% for donors from households making £50,000 or more annually.
Regular giving is safe amidst financial turmoil
The presence of dependents at home is not likely to be a key factor in a donor’s decision to stop giving regularly to a charity. We noted that 5% of donors with dependents at home and 6% of donors without dependents at home had stopped giving regularly to one or more charities as a result of the recession.

This data does not contradict the point we made earlier but can be taken to indicate that the majority of donors with dependents at home whose giving has been impacted by recession have probably stopped making one-off gifts. In other words, once donors decide to give regularly to a charity they are likely to follow through with their commitment despite the recession.
Men are steady givers
Men are more likely to continue giving in recession compared to women. Nearly half of women donors (47%) stated that their giving had been impacted by recession compare to 33% of male donors.

Older donors are most likely to be affected by recession
The economic recession is having a stronger impact on the charitable giving of older donors. Half of evangelical donors in the 75+ age group and 41% of donors in the 65-74 age group stated that their giving impacted by the recession. This figure fell to 35% for donors in the 54-65 age group and 30% for donors in the 45-54% age group.

Donors in employment still likely to give
Evangelical donors who are still working are more likely to continue to support their favourite charities through recession compared to donors who are retired or not working. 69% of donors currently working stated that their giving has not been impacted by recession compared to 58% of donors who are not working.

So, how focused are you on recruiting new donors from the empty nesters group? Have you got any plans to grow your major donor giving? How will you target men in a focused way to keep them connected to your cause? What about payroll giving schemes to encourage those in employment to support your charity?

How to craft email headers that get your emails opened

Pokes and Tags and Tweets – do they annoy you or catch your attention?

It seems that if a statement or opening line has more than 140 characters then it is destined to go unread. In today’s world where people’s attention spans seem to be diminishing constantly what can you do to get your messages across to your charity’s supporters?

Since I am no expert in tweeting or tagging I shall stick to a subject I know one about – the email. Email headers to be more specific. Note here that by email header I mean the subject line and From name line.

Today, many charities use email to update their supporters about their work, to fundraise, to campaign and much more. And, while weekly or monthly emails are carefully crafted the email header is often a last minute job.

What is the first thing a recipient sees when an email drops into their inbox? – It is the subject line and the sender’s name. These two statements have to be motivating enough to make that person open the email rather than delete it.

Here are some things you might want to consider when crafting email headers for successful campaigns:

• Inform or engage? – Before writing an email header consider this question: what’s the main reason for sending this email? Do you simply want to share some success stories? Or, are you trying to get donations/ volunteers, etc?

• Be personal – Include the name of the recipient or the sender in the email header or some other kind of personalized message. A personalized header like: ‘Redina, here's a unique opportunity for you to help homeless Haitians directly’ is better than ‘Latest news from work in Haiti’.

Or, for example an email with a header like ‘Hello from Rob Parsons’ is more likely to be opened than an email whose header is: ‘Important news from Care for the Family.’

• Interest triggers. Since the words on the email subject line are the primary bait to hook the recipient into opening the email, you need to learn how to identify and write interest triggers.

Read through the content of the message, think about the purpose of the email and try to identify any interest triggers. Look at newspapers and magazines, what headlines and triggers pull your attention and how are they constructed.

You can try and use similar constructs of words for your charity’s headlines… Make sure you keep testing them though so that you can discover which ones might work best for you. Here are some examples of good triggers:

1. STOP THE TRAFFIC: Don’t be oblivious
2. Premier Christian Media: Is your freedom to vote a privilege?
3. Kyria.com: Leading your enemies


• Asking questions or making statements? - An engaging email campaign like a direct appeal or a meeting should be a two-way conversation, so you might want to consider starting with a question in your subject line.

You might want to use a question as a subject line for email fundraising campaigns or petitions.

• Going for long or short subject lines? – That depends on what you want to say but generally speaking a good length subject line should have about 35 characters. This doesn’t mean that you can’t experiment with longer subject lines – as always keep testing them to discover what works best with your constituency.

• Who is the email from? – You might have already set up your From name as the charity. If that is the case experiment with a different From name – that of leader in your charity or a well known field staff member. Do an A B test to see which From name performs best.

Also you might want to use different From names for your fundraising campaigns, e-updates or event invitations always using the name of a staff member who has the most relevant relationship with the recipients.

Like with anything else in fundraising and development the key is to test new approaches continuously. Use different email headers for different groups of the database and compare the opening rates, try to determine how the header or the From name is connecting with recipients. Knowing how to capture the attention of your email recipients will give your message a better chance of being read.