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Integrated campaigning: throw away the best practices

Show me a fundraiser who thinks they’ve solved integrated campaigning and I’ll show you someone who whistles past the graveyard.

What exactly constitutes an integrated campaign, anyway? Is it simply having a landing page that looks a lot like your direct mail piece? And why do it? From a fundraisers’ perch, the answer to both questions is…money. Integrated campaigns can raise the money you need to meet your revenue objectives. They do this by using complementary channels, which create multiple levels of exposure and engagement points influencing your donors to action. Donate Now is a good one; Unsubscribe, not so good. (more…)

Fondsenwerven, een vak of een hype?

Menigeen zal zich afvragen, fondsenwerven een hype? Dat kan toch helemaal niet? Nee natuurlijk niet. Maar toch gedragen veel fondsenwervers zich wel zo en niet alleen de juniors.
Fondsenwerving is een vak, laat ik daar geen misverstand over laten bestaan. Een vak waarbij je veel technieken moet kunnen toepassen. Zonder goede samenhang tussen die technieken en zonder aandacht voor de mens achter de donateur gaan we het echter niet redden.

Haaks hierop staat een fenomeen dat ik spreadsheet marketing zou willen noemen. Een spreadsheet met daarop alle kengetallen van de actie, als rechtsonder geen positief bedrag verschijnt dan werkt het dus niet. Dat past misschien wel bij marketing, maar daarmee doen we onze doelen en onszelf tekort.

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AFP Convention 2011: worth the visit?

NO

I could end there and thereby enter some list of shortest blogs ever. But since it’s my goal to inform you on the AFP, I’d better expand on that “No”.

For those of you who don’t know what the AFP is, here’s a short explanation. AFP stands for Association of Fundraising Professionals, which is a group of people active in fundraising mostly in Northern America. Each year there is a big AFP convention (like the IFC in The Netherlands), which normally is where you pick up all the new ideas.

Now let’s get back to my initial question; was it worth the visit?

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The next big thing in fundraising is closer than you think

A few weeks ago at the Institute of Fundraising Direct Marketing and Fundraising Conference, the question was asked of the panel: What do you think is the ‘next big thing’ in fundraising? Their answer wasn’t entirely surprising, but was particularly refreshing.

They unanimously said that it’s better to use traditional direct marketing but to hone the skills so you’re doing it as well as possible. Sticking to what you know, but doing it better than it’s been done before, is more important than some fad.

Personally, I agree, but it’s interesting that in spite of no fundraising panacea, as a sector we still talk about ‘the next big thing’. And we’re still worried about jumping on the bandwagon too late. Take door-to-door fundraising. It’s been hugely successful for years for a number of UK charities, mobilising a core base of Direct Debit donors. It generates largely Gift Aid-able, predictable, unrestricted income from a large base of donors that can tend to absorb the effects of a bad economy. There’s strength in numbers.

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