Well if you haven’t already registered for the 2009 Washington Nonprofit Conference
(or at least reserved the dates) don’t you think it’s time you did?

Yeah, we know the holiday giving season is in full swing right now and you’re rushing to get out those last appeals in the mail so maybe the USPS can deliver them before the end of the year… But once it’s all out the door and hopefully delivered, if you haven’t registered, you may be missing out on:

• 28+ Nonprofit Marketing/Fundraising/Communications sessions
• 2 Fabulous Keynotes
• Killer Networking Reception at Madame Troussaud’s Wax Museum
• Professional Mentoring Room

So… SIGN UP NOW!!! Go to: www.nonprofitfederation.org and click on the banner box for the conference. Register, reserve your room, check out session descriptions, networking information and more. Do it now, before you forget and before the early bird expires J

Jill Murphy, Senior Manager, Member Services, Nonprofit Federation

Empathetic. Donor-centric. Sympathetic. Your marketing communications are "ticking" along as they should be. But, as we’re all painfully aware, the right-side of the brain just loves piping in to talk about numbers, figures, trends and goals.

Instead of telling that portion of the brain to buzz off (as I often do), use it to create the fourth and final piece of your online fundraising plan: The Numbers. Below, check out our tips for getting a jump on mapping what your numbers look like now and what you hope they look like later:

Budget Tips:

• Planning to raise money online? Of course you are! Why else would you be developing an online fundraising plan? Be sure to build into your budget what you plan to spend for donation processing. For instance, you can check out our own Custom Donate Now service–great value for a price that won’t eat up your budget.
• Fixing up your website? Be realistic about the features you need versus the features you want. Set up your budget ahead of time, and don’t be distracted by shiny objects: your website is a tool and a resource, not a fireworks show. Learn how to spend your website dollars wisely and read great tips from a real pro and Nonprofit 911 presenter.
• Thinking about advertising? If you’re considering developing banner ads or other paid online outreach, remember to keep in mind the various items you’re paying for: design, development and placement costs.
• Hiring extra help? You may be planning to use the talents of a copywriter for your website or consultant to help you out. Those folks often like to get paid–go figure. And in planning this line item, do some brainstorming about how you might cut costs: Maybe a graphic designer (could be a student) will donate time or a communications intern can develop testimonials for your website.

Tracking, Benchmarking, Reporting Tips:

• Custom DonateNow. Are you a CDN customer? If so, don’t forget to log into your account to check out your donor reports. You can even track your campaigns by evaluating the tracking codes for different DonateNow buttons on your site and in your emails.
• Email messaging. Determine an evaluation schedule for monitoring your e-communications. Will you track the number of donors (past and new) directly tied to your email communications? Monitor giving levels of donors receiving your emails versus those who are not.
• Website traffic. Sign up for Google Analytics to evaluate site traffic. Work language into your online fundraising plan about how you will determine which content is most appealing and how you will increase visibility of that content while simultaneously finding a way to tie in giving opportunities.
• Testing. Not happy with your fundraising results? Test out new ideas! Vary your email messaging and mix around your website a bit. Testing is a vital piece of the puzzle when working to improve your numbers!

Rebecca Ruby, Marketing Specialist, Network for Good & Editor of www.Fundraising123.org

Construction and maintenance of a database are essential elements, but, like almost anything, doing it wrong can have far-reaching consequences.

At the DM Days conference, Arthur Middleton Hughes, president and solutions architect of KnowledgeBase Marketing Inc., said that there are nine deadly mistakes made with databases that will ruin chances for success.

The nine mistakes are:

• Lack of a marketing strategy. A basic strategy rule is to put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
• Focus on price instead of service. Database marketing, not discounts, will build loyalty.
• Failure to use tests and controls. Database marketing is accountable and everything can be measured.
• Poor segment strategy. Think of status levels and marketing segments.
• Failure to link the database to the Web. Your site must have information available to customers/prospects when they use the Web.
• Building in-house. Marketing databases are unlike any other IT function.
• Treating all customers alike.  For example, loyal customers are more profitable then new or disloyal customers.
• Failure to develop a retention program. Every dollar spent on retention returns more than a dollar of acquisition.
• Lack of a forceful leader. Success requires directing the activities of many internal and external units. Database marketers must be leaders.

NonProfit Times Weekly, The Nonprofit Times

"Fifty million people changed their email address last year," says Eric Groves. "How many of those are on your email list right now?"

…Not happy with your answer to that one? Don’t worry: Groves says a little regular maintenance can keep your list hale and hearty. Here are some of his choices for list-cleaning best practices:

Analyze bounce backs. Investigate why messages bounce, and remove any addresses with a hard bounce from your list. Also identify and correct typos like .con instead of .com.

Manage unsubscribe requests. If your email marketing service doesn’t process unsubscribes automatically, make this a top priority.

Monitor your "reply to" inbox. Because spammers have been known to use unsubscribe functions to verify an address, some recipients prefer to make the request by email. Check your inbox for them.

Re-engage inactive subscribers. Design a campaign for those who haven’t opened your emails for the last six months. "If this doesn’t work," says Groves, "remove them. Clearly, they aren’t interested."

Form one good habit. Set time aside after each campaign—or once a month—for analyzing data and tossing out bad addresses.

Good list hygiene pays off. "Your sparkling clean email list may shrink a bit, but will outperform your big, old, messy list any day," Groves concludes.

MarketingProfs. Click to read the article.

Some highlights from this session:

Why do some organizations raise 2x the money with the same staffing?

• Prospect potential – what is out there?
• Strategy – how do we tap into it?
• Execution – can we execute the strategies?

Three business processes of Fundraising:

• Base Development (DM)  - Goals:
  • Broaden participation
  • Raise unrestricted revenue
  • Teach giving behavior
  • Develop organizational loyalty
• Major gift Development – Goal:
  • Maximize philanthropic behavior & loyalty
• Prospect

Business Understanding:

• Objective of program
• Evaluation & deployment: projections

Data Understanding:

• Acquire new donors
• Engage non donor constituents
• Renew previous years donors
• Upgrade donors
• Move donors into the major gift pipeline

Laura Cox, Sr. Account Executive, Direct Media, Inc.

Empathetic. Donor-centric. Sympathetic. Your marketing communications are “ticking” along as they should be. But, as we’re all painfully aware, the right-side of the  brain just loves piping in to talk about numbers, figures, trends and goals.

Instead of telling that portion of the brain to buzz off (as I often do), use it to create the fourth and final piece of your online fundraising plan: The Numbers. Below, check out our tips for getting a jump on mapping what your numbers look like now and what you hope they look like later:

Budget Tips:

• Planning to raise money online? Of course you are! Why else would you be developing an online fundraising plan? Be sure to build into your budget what you plan to spend for donation processing. For instance, you can check out our own Custom DonateNow service–great value for a price that won’t eat up your budget.
• Fixing up your website? Be realistic about the features you need versus the features you want. Set up your budget ahead of time, and don’t be distracted by shiny objects: your website is a tool and a resource, not a fireworks show. Learn how to spend your website dollars wisely and read great tips from a real pro and Nonprofit 911 presenter.
• Thinking about advertising? If you’re considering developing banner ads or other paid online outreach, remember to keep in mind the various items you’re paying for: design, development and placement costs.
• Hiring extra help? You may be planning to use the talents of a copywriter for your website or consultant to help you out. Those folks often like to get paid–go figure. And in planning this line item, do some brainstorming about how you might cut costs: Maybe a graphic designer (could be a student) will donate time or a communications intern can develop testimonials for your website.

Tracking, Benchmarking, Reporting Tips:

• Custom DonateNow. Are you a CDN customer? If so, don’t forget to log into your account to check out your donor reports. You can even track your campaigns by evaluating the tracking codes for different DonateNow buttons on your site and in your emails.  
• Email messaging. Determine an evaluation schedule for monitoring your e-communications. Will you track the number of donors (past and new) directly tied to your email communications? Monitor giving levels of donors receiving your emails versus those who are not.
• Website traffic. Sign up for Google Analytics to evaluate site traffic. Work language into your online fundraising plan about how you will determine which content is most appealing and how you will increase visibility of that content while simultaneously finding a way to tie in giving opportunities.
• Testing. Not happy with your fundraising results? Test out new ideas! Vary your email messaging and mix around your website a bit. Testing is a vital piece of the puzzle when working to improve your numbers! 

Rebecca Ruby, Marketing Specialist, Network for Good

Some highlights from this session:

Why do some organizations raise 2x the money with the same staffing?

• Prospect potential – what is out there?
• Strategy – how do we tap into it?
• Execution – can we execute the strategies?

Three business processes of Fundraising:

• Base Development (DM) - Goals:
• Broaden participation
• Raise unrestricted revenue
• Teach giving behavior
• Develop organizational loyalty
• Major gift Development – Goal:
• Maximize philanthropic behavior & loyalty
• Prospect

Business Understanding:

• Objective of program
• Evaluation & deployment: projections

Data Understanding:

• Acquire new donors
• Engage non donor constituents
• Renew previous years donors
• Upgrade donors
• Move donors into the major gift pipeline

Laura Cox, Sr. Account Executive, Direct Media, Inc.

Here are the hot points from this session, including a case study by American Heart Association.

What is modeling?

• Advanced statistical methods that analyze data which represent & predict future behavior

What can it do?

• Select donors on desired future outcome, not just prior reactions
• Help mail smarter & improve ROI
• Break down into populations & show which groups should be contacted more frequently

Co-op Database:

• Holistic view of philanthropy
• Each organizations history is used to influence the database
• Always make sure security & integrity are maintained

House file modeling:

• Combine co-op with organizations own RFM data
• Donors are scored & ranked from high to low
• Take information & mail to those who are higher – more likely to respond.
• Don’t mail as often to the lower deciles.
• Can identify donors who will upgrade significantly to larger gifts
• Look at age, length of residence, spending volume, # of adults in HH
• Then do thank you at point of acquisition via call or written letter

Mid Level Donor Cultivation Model:

• Group the more responsive donors & larger gift givers
• Treat that group differently to try & get a higher level gift

Sustainer Invitation Model:

• Identify those that are likely to become sustainers or pledge program donors

Acquisition Modeling:

• Zip level on upfront – applied pre merge/purge
• Household level model – applied post merge/purge

Warm Name Conversion Model:

• Gathered from walk, bike, gala or other special event
• People that are most likely to convert to ongoing DM Donors

Creating & Utilizing Profile Models – American Heart Association case study

The Dear Neighbor Program

• Volunteer based
• Mail letters to neighbors & collect donations

What is Profile Model?

• Analyzing a group that exhibits desired behavior & similarities
• Define objectives
• Define target group (i.e. $30+ volunteers)
• Analyze target group to create profile
• Average age, length of residence, income, interests, gender
• Apply model to desired universe & get tiered groups/buckets
• Validation
• Look at target group ($30+ volunteers) & see where they fall in bucket. They should fall in top tier.
• Application
• Let the model do the work

American Heart found that top tier prospects outperformed other prospects by 65%

Refresh models every 6 months – 1 year.

Laura Cox, Sr. Account Executive, Direct Media, Inc.

Close your eyes for a moment, and just imagine… Imagine being away from your desk, and in a special place… a place where you spend three days discovering new ways to solve your nonprofit’s economic pressures… new answers toward identifying strategic initiatives that will strengthen your organization… new solutions toward building a foundation for future growth.

But, it doesn’t stop there…

Imagine being in a place where everywhere you turn, you hear answers and solutions. Imagine being in a place where every place you go you hear speakers sharing insights… peers sharing their best ideas… experts inspiring you to think creatively and find solutions to your toughest fundraising problems.

Now imagine you are doing this in a four star hotel with a sandy beach in warm weather. Better yet you will pay a two star price for your room.

Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. Stop Imaginin… and Join Us in Doing… at the 2008 Nonprofit Leadership Summit! But don’t wait! Time is running out and attendance is limited and restricted to senior managers.

Join us June 3-5, 2008 at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach, FL. We have secured a limited number of rooms at a very low price that will fit you budget but you need to move quickly. To insure your attendance and convenience at this premier event get started now by visiting the conference WEB SITE and check out the ENTIRE PROGRAM. Then download the APPLICATION FOR REGISTRATION and you’ll be on your way to beating the economic blues…

Jill Murphy, Senior Manager, Member Services, Nonprofit Federation

The Nonprofit Federation launched its first ever comprehensive benchmarking survey, which will provide Nonprofit Federation members with data on how nonprofit organizations are performing relative to their counterparts through their use of various marketing channels.

"We developed this survey to help Nonprofit Federation members understand how their fundraising campaigns and marketing activities compare in terms of nonprofit sector norms," said Senny Boone, executive director of the Nonprofit Federation. "We encourage all nonprofits to participate in this first-of-its-kind Nonprofit Federation survey. We hope that it will not only fill a critical information gap, but will also become a valuable tool to help nonprofit organizations evaluate their current practices and identify areas of improvement as they seek to raise money and build awareness."

The survey, which contains 37 questions on a variety of topics — including renewals, acquisitions, online fundraising, and mobile marketing — is now open on the Nonprofit Federation’s website and will run through April 25, 2008.

Survey results will be first available at the 2008 Nonprofit Federation Leadership Summit, which will take place June 3-5 at the Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach, FL. For information on the Summit, please visit www.nonprofitfederation.org.

Jill Murphy, Senior Manager, Member Services, Nonprofit Federation