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Donor Communications

Unlock your impact: try a donor survey today!

Do you want to know what your donors think? Do you want them to know you care what they think? Would you like some interesting information about your donors – including testimonials and suggestions you might never get otherwise? Then you want to try a donor survey I first created a survey years ago. (You […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: donor retention, donor survey, mail appeal, Thanks 19 Comments

Why you need a great ask at year-end

We’re heading into the year-end flurry of fundraising. What’s your ask? Tis the season, and fundraisers everywhere are preparing. What’s your year-end ask? It’s also the season for multiple “giving days”… like GivingTuesday or December 31st. I hope you’re already polishing up the last details of your year-end campaign. But before you mail anything or […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: appeal writing, arts fundraising, donor communications Leave a Comment

Fundraising appeals: think before you write

So you’re ready to write a fundraising appeal. Now what? Before you even begin to write your appeal, there are some things you should think about. What’s the ONE thing you’ll ask a reader to do? Too often, we use a fundraising appeal as a catch-all for everything we want to tell people. This is […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: appeal writing, donor communications, fundraising appeal 1 Comment

Mind the gap

It can be the toughest part of your fundraising communications to grasp. Like a slippery fish, it keeps jumping from your grasp. I’m talking about your fundraising offer, of course. The gap that describes your need. The central part of fundraising that’s so easy to slide over, or step around. The guts of the whole […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: appeal writing, donor communications Leave a Comment

All about donor newsletters

Many years ago, I began reading about something new to me. Tom Ahern tipped me off to donor newsletters. Though I’d been in fundraising for nearly ten years by then – focused on individual donors and annual giving – I tended to think of newsletters as something very large organizations sent. (And those were often […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: donor newsletters Leave a Comment

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