Best Practices 120: Growing the Green –
Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Objectives ..................................................................................................................................................................2
Planning for the Fundraising Campaign ................................................................................................................3
Integrating Multi-Channel Communications ..........................................................................................................4
Resources ..............................................................................................................................................................5
Segmenting Campaign Audience ...........................................................................................................................6
Resources ..............................................................................................................................................................7
Utilizing Personalization ..........................................................................................................................................8
Resources ..............................................................................................................................................................9
Social Media ........................................................................................................................................................... 10
Resources ........................................................................................................................................................... 11
Measuring Campaign Effectiveness .................................................................................................................... 12
Resources ........................................................................................................................................................... 13
Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Objectives
Objectives
By the end of this class, you will be able to…
 Create a Plan for Fundraising Campaigns
 Integrate Multi-Channel Communication into Fundraising Campaigns
 Configure Segmentations for Fundraising Appeals
 Utilize Personalization and Conditionals to Communicate Directly to
Constituents
 Identify Ways to Market a Campaign Using Social Media
 Analyze Effectiveness of Campaign through Reports and Benchmarks
©2012 Convio, Inc. | Page 2
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Planning for the Fundraising Campaign
1) What is the Campaign Theme?
2) What are the integration opportunities?
3) How long will the Campaign run?
4) Who is the target audience?
5) What types of gifts will be solicited?
6) Will there be a public campaign goal?
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Integrating Multi-Channel Communications
What channels will you be using during your upcoming campaign? List your expected communications below to
get a better sense of the ways your organization is speaking to your constituents and channels you are not
utilizing. Remember that these channels should have a common thread that ties them together, either color
scheme or content.
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Direct Mail:
_________________________
___________________________
_________________________
___________________________
Email:
__________________________
___________________________
__________________________
___________________________
Social Media:
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
Mobile:
__________________________
___________________________
__________________________
___________________________
Survey/Forms:
__________________________
___________________________
__________________________
___________________________
Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
RESOURCES
Below are links to more resources on this topic:
http://www.google.com/nonprofits/ Google for Nonprofits Portal
http://www.google.com/calendar Google Calendar
http://www.dropbox.com Dropbox (File Synching Application)
http://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N30000003IBSnEAO Campaign Calendar
AppExchange App
http://open.convio.com/downloads/mobile-friendly-donation-form.html Mobile Donation Form Instructions
http://nonprofitorgs.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/five-reasons-why-your-nonprofits-needs-a-mobile-website/ Article
about Nonprofits and Mobile Web Site
http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/recoverygov-contracts-your-phone/ Example of Augmented Reality by Nonprofit
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Segmenting Campaign Audience
It’s always important to know exactly who you are talking to in your Fundraising conversations. Tracking the
segmentations will help prevent over-saturating your audience with communications in a time when people are
already overwhelmed with information. Below are some simple segments that can get you started and a space
where you can enter the number of constituents who meet that criteria in your data base. You can also expand on
some of them to get more detailed segments for specific appeal content.
Segment
Usable House file (Those with Email Status of Good)
Donors
Large Gift Donors
LYBUNT (Donated Last Year but Not This Year)
Event Attendee
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Number
Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
RESOURCES
Below are links to more resources on this topic:
http://www.convio.com/signup/next-generation/next-generation-resources.html Next Generation of Giving White
Paper by Convio
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Utilizing Personalization
Once we know who we are talking to, we need to make sure that the content is speaking directly toward them to
build a stronger relationship. Here is an email with several personalizations and conditionals that you can
reproduce using the S Tags and formulas on the next page.
Subject: A Donation Today Can Provide Children in [Raleigh]1 a New Tomorrow
Dear [Katie]2,
This month, thousands of children across the United States will be diagnosed with a severe medical condition.
They’ll bravely face some of the most frightening and lonely medical conditions known . . . unsure of what
tomorrow will hold, or where they might find help.
In this time of great need, many of these children, like Nickie Turner, turn to AHS's Specialty Healthcare - where
they find hope.
[Your previous donation to the Children’s HealthCare Campaign gave Nickie a new chance at life by giving them
the care that they needed when no one else could. ]3
You can bring hope and life-changing medical care to a child by making a year-end gift to AHS today.
We currently have raised [350,500]4 toward our goal of [400,000]5 to build a new HealthCare Center. Help us
reach our goal to give more children a new tomorrow and send the most generous gift you can today!
Sincerely,
Jane Smith
Executive Director
American Health Society
P. S. [Katie]2, now is your chance to change a Child’s life forever. Give today
Conditionals:
1 – City of Constituent
[[S1:city]]
2 – Constituent First Name
[[S1:first_name]]
3 – Group Conditional
[[?x[[S45:5646]]x::xTRUEx::
Your previous donation to the Children’s HealthCare Campaign gave Nickie a new chance at life by
giving her the care that she needed when no one else could.
:: ]]
4 – Amount left to raise Donation Campaign Goal
[[E130:[[S15:1234:goal_formatted]][[S15:1234:amountRaised_formatted]] - currency]]
5 – Donation Campaign Goal
[[S15:goal_formatted]]
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
RESOURCES
Below are links to more resources on this topic:
http://customer.convio.com/site/PageServer?pagename=sm_free Convio Kits Page – Personalization
http://customer.convio.com/site/PageServer?pagename=sm_links Convio Links Page
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Social Media
This new channel is evolving and expanding every day, and it is important to be aware of your goals and
organizational strategy before developing your voice online. Below are some questions that will help your
organization focus its efforts and avoid being overwhelmed by the choices.
1) What is your objective or what do you hope to accomplish through the Social Media Channel?
2) Does that objective line up with the overall goals of your organization?
3) Is your social media objective possible or realistic?
4) Is your social media objective measurable?
5) What would success look like to your organization in the first year of using social media?
6) Is there a specific segment of constituents you want to listen to?
a. Example – Women 18 – 35, residents of your city, event attendees
7) Have you reserved your organization name in the social media sites you are planning to use?
8) What keywords might your constituents use in their communications with your organization?
9) How should staff at your organization respond to social media content? Do you have a response plan in
place?
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
RESOURCES
Below are links to more resources on this topic:
http://customer.convio.com/ServiceModules/Social%20Media%20Facebook%20Kit%20v3.0.zip NEW Facebook
Timeline Kit
http://tweetreach.com/ Track how far your tweets go
http://twitaholic.com/ Top Twitter Users in Your Area
http://twuffer.com/ Schedule Tweets for Future release
http://www.traackr.com/ Find biggest Influencers
http://act.ly/ Twitter Petitions
http://klout.com/ Klout – Measure Social Interaction of Constituents and Org
http://www.visua.ly Tool to create custom infographics about Social Media interaction
http://nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com/ NTEN 2012 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report
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Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
Measuring Campaign Effectiveness
One of the most important parts of a campaign is measuring the effect of it on your constituents. It is good to
know your benchmarks so that over time you can compare responses rates and evolve your campaign strategy
based on testing. Below are some numbers it is good to be aware of, if you don’t know them, use Convio
reporting to find them and list them here.
Campaign Statistic
Amount of Money Raised
Number of Gifts
Average Gift Overall
Average Gift Online
Average Gift Offline
Average Gift from Audience/Group
Number of Gifts from Previous Donors
Number of First Time Donors (Existing)
Number of First Time Donors (New)
Average Online Appeal Open Rate
Average Online Appeal Action Rate
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Number
Best Practices 120: Growing the Green – Fundraising Strategies and Best Practices
RESOURCES
Below are links to more resources on this topic:
http://resources.convio.com/2012benchmark.html Convio 2012 Nonprofit Benchmark Report
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