Despite missing Giving Tuesday, the holiday season remains a time that I set aside time to organize all of our donations for the year. Typically, I tackle this the week between Christmas and New Years. We always look back to the organizations we have donated in the past, reflect on what happened this year and discuss if there are additional organizations that we would like to donate. Through the last few months of the year, I set aside the charity mailers that we receive, as a reminder of those we have donated in the past. Although we only donate to a handful of charities, the volume of mailers received really stacks up.
A couple weeks ago I was speaking to our physician, who mentioned that he annually supports The City Mission. Although we do not donate monetarily, I am familiar with the organization because we support their fundraising events that occur throughout the year. Since we were on the topic of charitable giving, I mentioned my frustration that the charities we support send us A LOT of mailers, which is a complete waste of monetary resources. I was pleasantly surprised that he indicated the same frustration. The money spent sending mailers to me (and to our physician) is wasted.
Tri-C Foundation ScholarshipsSupporting our local community college, as an example. At a recent event, they were quick to request my work address. Within days I received a donation mailer, which I had already received at home, because I have been a donor for a few years.
**Putting on my B2B marketing hat, a few things came to mind**
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We have already converted from a prospect to a contributor. We are no longer a prospect. Do not throw us back into the middle of the marketing funnel!
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Your contact database now has two records for the same person. Guess what? One record is a prospect and the other is a donor.
I was disappointed by this incident because it felt like there was no consideration of incremental cost. If they have a thousand duplicated contacts, which is likely a very low estimate, that is an additional scholarship that could be handed out each semester!
For someone that always donates online, like me, there is probably a reasonable volume of postal mailers that can be sent to donors. In my experience as a donor with a few, diverse charitable organizations, I feel like there is a one size fits all approach to donation prospect marketing. At some of these smaller organizations, like the local animal shelter, they may not have a dedicated marketing person, and so the work of keeping a clean, de-duplicated contact list is not a task that someone undertakes. I get that. But I have the same experience occurs with much larger organizations, where there likely is a person dedicated to donor marketing. What gives, no pun intended. Sending out 999 postcards instead of one-thousand does not seem significant, but it is likely the difference of seven hundred postal mailers versus one-thousand, four times a year. That really starts to add up!
This post is not meant to criticize the charities or to be extremely parsimonious. Additionally, I am not writing this from a position of authority, quite the opposite, I am inquiring after observation, discussion and wanting to understand. From the common feeling with our physician, we are just two guys of different generations and backgrounds that live in the same community. I was encouraged to write this knowing that I am not alone in this feeling. Charities, and the individuals working for them, whether paid or volunteer, please treat the marketing money like it is your own, and make the most of it.
One suggestion did come to mind. Reviewing LinkedIn’s new career advice feature, made me think that charities should not be shy about reaching out to marketing professionals on the social network, as there are some who would volunteer their time to help charities and non-profit organizations tighten up their marketing practices. A quick search of my linkedin network returned a handful of individual who could be contacted to assist.
feature image courtesy Kiplinger