We are pleased to announce that SankyNet’s year-end appeal for Covenant House was honored as the runner-up in this extremely competitive category!  The highly effective email postcard was sent after a month of heavy solicitation, yet still raised over $150,000 in just 3 days.

Timing is always a key factor when developing a strategy for e-solicitation.  During the winter holiday season, SankyNet sent Covenant House donors three compelling appeals capitalizing on an exciting matching gift opportunity.

The award-winning year-end postcard followed this robust campaign.  Sent during the last moments of 2009, the postcard encouraged donors to take advantage of their last chance to receive a 2009 tax-deduction as well as have their gift matched 2-to-1.

Because of its impeccable timing, this attractive and relevant postcard proved to be most successful solicitation SankyNet produced for Covenant House that year – and the results more than doubled what was raised during the 2008 Year-End campaign.

We are truly grateful to work with dynamic organizations such as Covenant House, and proud to help them achieve such growth in their fundraising programs even during these difficult times. This honor is truly a reflection of Covenant House’s commitment to excellence as they work to rescue homeless kids from life on the streets.

View all the DMFA awards from Package of the Year.

By now it’s obvious that the tragic earthquake in Haiti on January 12 (and the aftershocks that followed) was a catalyst for the explosive growth of mobile giving. And considering that there’s a cap of $5 or $10 per donation cap, getting to $50 million via mobile in a few weeks meant over 6 million people donated – impressive numbers for any campaign, but even more so for a giving channel that was as small but nascent as mobile giving was before the earthquake.

We’ve seen over the years breakout successes that have really driven a giving medium forward. September 11^th, 2001 certainly stands out for online giving, but Hurricane Katrina in 2005 might be a better example. Over the course of just a few days, tens of millions of dollars came into charities online from around the country.

The Haitian earthquake has had the same impact for mobile giving. And recent data is showing – as many expected – that mobile donors are skewing younger than online donors, just as online donors are compared to direct mail donors. To this, a recent report called Early Signals on Mobile Philanthropy (full report here) had a few key findings:

• 17% of Gen Y respondents and 14% of Gen X said they made a donation to Haiti relief efforts via text message, and 3% of both Boomer and Mature respondents reported making a donation to Haiti relief efforts via text message.
• Generally speaking, 36% of all respondents were willing to donate via text message after an emergency occurs and 31% were willing to donate via text message if a friend is raising money.

Beyond the breakout success of this relatively new giving channel for charities, it’s apparent that mobile giving is also a huge opportunity for engaging a younger constituency. Contributing to this, the younger audience is an easier group to engage when there are donation caps of $5 and $10 – an amount that is within reach of many. The reality is that 1 in 6 of Gen Y and Gen X donated to earthquake relief, many of whom likely donated to a nonprofit for the first time.

There’s no question that the tragic earthquake destroyed the lives of many. But as with anything, there are new opportunities; the Haitian relief effort has shown the potential of leveraging a new medium to engage younger constituencies. Only time will tell whether or not the long-term direct marketing tactic of ongoing cultivation will mean that the 6+ million who donated in January can be renewed offline, online, or via mobile channels in the future.

Together, SankyNet and SankyDirect will integrate online, email, direct mail, and social networking components to fully engage KaBOOM!’s donors and supporters.

SankyNet will start this process by developing an inaugural online fundraising and communications program for KaBOOM!. This program includes both a monthly e-newsletter and a series of fundraising email appeals. To make sure these online tools are used most effectively, SankyNet will use a twofold strategy. We will both append email addresses from the KaBOOM! offline database, and also acquire additional email addresses through various marketing and social networking campaigns.

SankyNet wants for KaBOOM! to make the greatest possible impact on potential donors, so we will also revise both the homepage and donation pages of their website. Through reorganizing, redesigning, and expanding these elements, SankyNet will use its online expertise to fully optimize the KaBOOM! website into a powerful fundraising tool.

SankyDirect also has exciting plans to enhance KaBOOM!’s messaging. In the coming year, SankyDirect will design a new direct mail renewal program to help KaBOOM! improve their communication with current and past donors.

While developing these exciting new programs, SankyDirect will work with SankyNet to perform extensive message testing on all online and offline communications. Through testing what message yields the best response, our goal is to help KaBOOM! find the optimum voice to communicate with their donors volunteers, and sponsors.

SankyNet and SankyDirect are proud to embark on this joint venture with KaBOOM!. KaBOOM! works across the country with the mission of providing a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. We are excited to help KaBOOM! make America a safer place to play!

Learn more about KaBOOM! at www.kaboom.org.

At the Center for Nonprofit Success’ New York Fundraising Summit earlier this month, I discussed the topic of online fundraising, and how to harness technology to build and maintain productive donor relationships.

An online fundraising program consists of much more than a “Donate Now” button on your Web site. An organization needs to be proactive in communications with donors and potential donors both online and offline. The most successful nonprofits maintain an integrated approach for fundraising. But with so many channels, trying to find the right balance is difficult.

Before an organization jumps on any new media bandwagon, it needs to focus first on some tried-and-true fundamentals — making sure it has a solid Web site and compelling e-mail program, and cultivating a strategy for acquiring new donors. After all those ducks are in a row, then it can begin to think about integrating with social media.

Here are key components to an effective integrated online fundraising strategy:

1. Online fundraising fundamentals

With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, and other channels emerging all the time, integration can be a daunting task for many nonprofit organizations that are already understaffed.

Yet nonprofit organizations need to stop, take a breath and look at the fundamentals. Before you start moving donors between channels, you need to test your Web site for usability. It is so important to have intuitive Web site navigation architecture. People online have very little patience and will quickly click the “back” button if they can’t find what they want. You have seconds to engage visitors before you lose them.

Make sure your donation forms are always one click away, and always reassure donors about the security of the form. Donors are getting savvier about security settings on donation pages. They look for security certificates (e.g., VeriSign), https vs. http and the lock icon. Some of those offline donors are still not comfortable donating online, so providing the option of a printable giving form alleviates those concerns. And don’t forget to include a source code on the form for your data entry team.

A key difference between online and offline channels is the approach to fundraising vs. cultivation. Many organizations send out eight to 12 offline donor appeals a year. Online, you need to make sure you balance your e-mail communications with donors. Everything does not and should not have an ask. Online communication allows organizations to create stewardship pieces, updating donors on how their gifts are making a difference. Don’t forget that in e-mail fundraising, “opt-outs” are forever!

2. Renewing your donors

It is important to remember there are key differences between donors who give through different channels. Online fundraising cannot live in a box by itself; organizations need to synchronize media, coordinate consistent messaging and tailor content to each appropriate medium. Recent studies show that if you have an e-mail address on file for a donor, it makes a positive difference in his or her giving.

Online giving is certainly tilted toward year-end giving with two-thirds of income raised in the final months and days of the year. The ability to create a sense of urgency lends itself to the immediacy of the online environment. Many organizations have found great success with online “matching gift” campaigns, which allow an organization to create an artificial deadline. The best results come when you synchronize your campaign with offline fundraising efforts (e.g., direct mail, telemarketing).

The ability to be nimble is a key component of an effective integrated strategy. Timing is everything when it comes to integrated fundraising. You can start a campaign on your Web site, send an e-mail about an urgent news item (e.g., natural disaster, food shortage) and follow up the campaign with a direct-mail piece. You can test messaging online with immediate results, and then roll out the winning results through other channels. Don’t forget about your homepage when you launch a new campaign. Many studies show offline donors check out your Web site before making a gift.

3. E-mail acquisition: Science and art

Now that we all know having an e-mail address for a donor makes a positive impact on his or her giving, how do we acquire more e-mail addresses? Every organization needs to start with its Web site. Make sure you have a prominent, eye-catching “callout” on every page. If you have the ability to segment based on interest or frequency, this will increase your conversion rate. Make sure you keep and send what you promised at the collection point.

A quick way to jump-start an e-mail program is doing an e-mail append. An append uses a third-party commercial vendor to find an e-mail address from a donor’s “land” address. Be aware that these donors aren’t as responsive as other online donors, but the cost is minimal — fast-tracking your integration goals.

There still is the slow and steady way of collecting e-mail addresses using offline methods (e.g., direct mail, telemarketing). The good news here is when a donor gives you his or her e-mail address, it’s usually for the primary account.

Finally, think about using search engine marketing to invite people to join your e-mail program or become donors. These are the pay-per-click text ads running on Google and Yahoo. Many organizations have found that these ads perform similarly to a direct-mail acquisition. There is an up-front investment, but the long-term value of the donor is looking very optimistic.

4. What about social networks and microblogging?

After you put together a cohesive integrated strategy and master fundraising schedule — and if you still have time and resources left over — find ways to push your message and brand out to these channels. Coordinate your campaigns and find appropriate times to engage these new and old constituents. If you haven’t already, create a Facebook page, and maybe have a volunteer help manage it. See if you can find a program staff person to post on Twitter (tweet) from the front lines. But at the end of the day, don’t forget who’s writing the checks and donating online. Social media is just the icing on the cake.

Paul Habig is Executive Vice President of SankyNet, an integrated fundraising and communications firm.

This article was originally published in FundRaising Success Magazine.

We are pleased to announce that SankyNet’s appeal for PetSmart Charities® won first place! The winning campaign helped raise money for a massive rescue of pets displaced by the historic 2007 Midwest flooding.

A key factor in the success of this campaign was the timeliness of the distribution. SankyNet’s team was able to write copy, design and code a custom HTML template, and distribute the email within 24 hours of the story breaking in the news. Even as emergency relief was still arriving in the affected areas, supporters were responding to the call for help.

In addition to winning first place, SankyNet’s campaign for Covenant House’s Bed and Blanket Matching Gift campaign took the “runner-up” position. This campaign also used careful timing and highly compelling creative to increase response rates.

The campaign usually “drops” in early November and reminds donors of how dangerous winter can be for homeless children. This year, however, much of the country experienced unusually warm temperatures in late fall. SankyNet recommended postponing the distribution until the temperatures dropped. Then on the day most of the East Coast and Midwest woke up to its first frost, Covenant House donors found an urgent appeal about the dangers of freezing children in their inbox.

We are truly grateful to work with dedicated organizations such as PetSmart Charities® and Covenant House, and to help them achieve their online fundraising goals. These awards and honors are a testament to their inspirational and life-saving missions.

View all the DMFA awards from Package of the Year.

We are proud to be lending our many years of online fundraising expertise to one of the country’s leading public research universities whose mission is the creation, dissemination, preservation, and application of knowledge for the betterment of our global society. And through our partnership, we hope to help UCLA create a legacy for generations to come.

In recent years, SankyNet has helped many clients realize the potential of using the Internet to educate donors on the benefits of planned giving. And now more than ever, with increasing market volatility, it is important to let donors know that investing in the future of a non-profit organization is indeed a wise investment.

Please contact us for more information on how we can help you develop an online planned giving cultivation campaign for your organization.

So what do you do? You mail them special packages: personalized “invitation” appeals; “proposal” mailings; handwritten notes or cards; you try to establish an email relationship or move them online, preferably to a designated area just for them.

Of course you won’t forget to thank them lavishly and send stewardship pieces to keep them informed about what their gifts are accomplishing.

SCI has found that such direct mail fundraising techniques can upgrade the giving of these donors without challenging their anonymity.

“Charity email newsletters are a waste of time”

This quote spread like wildfire on philanthropy-oriented online publications (AFP eWire, Third Sector Online) and led to perhaps unprecedented buzz among online communications specialists. So what are the facts? Is all of the research and data showing that email newsletters are successful cultivation vehicles for prospective and existing donors alike wrong? Are they indeed a “waste of time”?

Or was Gensemer overstepping his bounds with this blanket statement about the usefulness of email newsletters? After all, he’s the mastermind who led Obama’s online effort that raised more than $500 million online, breaking all previous online fundraising records from a political campaign. How can he be wrong about the intelligent use of email?

There are many takeaways from the Obama campaign, and there are many experts who have expanded on the lessons we can learn from their success. Donor and advocate engagement, how/why/when to use social media appropriately, effectively utilizing email marketing, and mobile marketing’s potential are just a few.

It’s clear, however, that the strategic team behind the Obama campaign didn’t invent anything new that led to their success; they simply used existing tools in new and novel ways to leverage each medium beyond what any organization has done in the past.

As marketers and fundraisers, there’s a lot to learn about the success that can come from having every marketing medium working together toward a common cause. But there are fundamental differences in donor and organization type that make direct comparisons between what worked for the Obama political campaign and what will work for most nonprofit organizations difficult. Gensemer may be right about the usefulness of email newsletters for political campaigns, but he may be a bit out of touch with the needs of most nonprofit organizations.

The differences boil down to demographics, cultivation, and sustainability.

Traditional nonprofit donors tend to skew older, even online, and are less likely to use new media in the same way, or to the extent that an Obama supporter would. The campaign’s success at energizing a younger demographic than most political campaigns and nonprofits is a clear differentiating factor.

A series of short, frequent emails might be very effective at converting donors in a political campaign, but constituents for most nonprofit organizations need to be reminded on a regular basis what donor support goes to fund before making a gift.

Abundant data supports the idea that email newsletters act as great cultivation tools to convert new and existing constituents into supporters. Email newsletters provide the perfect vehicle for accomplishing this: regular, targeted communications with compelling content and a soft donation ask. Prospects are cultivated to make a first-time gift and existing donors are reminded of what their past support has gone on to fund. For some clients, we’ve seen up to 20% of direct response email income originate from email newsletters.

We embrace some key facets of Gensemer’s argument: short e-mails are effective, short emails take much less time to produce than full-length newsletters, and constituent segmentation and engagement tools are critical to success. But while these guidelines can be used to great effect in overall email marketing, they don’t replace the need for an email newsletter in most cases.

The major issue that Gensemer’s declaration does not address is the question of sustainability. What can the typical organization expect to sustain based on their resources and available content? The Obama campaign didn’t send out any traditional email newsletters – they didn’t have to. With the 4-7 emails per week sent to constituents throughout the campaign, newsletters were simply not necessary and would have been redundant. But the volume of content generated by a political campaign cannot compare with what most nonprofits have at their disposal.

When you’re talking about the resources and content necessary to send 4-7 short emails a week, compared to what is needed to send a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly newsletter, what is sustainable becomes crystal clear.

Most organizations — even large ones that have a variety of initiatives going on throughout the year — cannot sustain the type of frequency and relevant content that made the comprehensive email communication strategy for the Obama campaign work so effectively.

If every organization had unlimited resources, staff time, technology and the inherent public interest and momentum of an historic presidential campaign, then yes, email newsletters would indeed be a “waste of time.” But until then, its benefits as a cultivation tool for most nonprofit organizations are clear and should not be abandoned.

By: David Hughes, Account Director at SankyNet

Many nonprofits are focusing – more than ever – on leveraging value from their current constituents. Savvy fundraisers know that re-tooling their monthly giving programs is one way to keep costs low while achieving exponential upgrades.

While monthly sustainer programs have long been a part of our “fundraising toolkit” the expense of monthly reminder mailings, and the costly follow-up process required for success, has limited the value of monthly programs for many nonprofits – at least until recently. But the advent of automatic online transaction tools has dramatically changed the landscape.

These days, getting started is the easy part – deceptively so in fact. Most online donation processors now offer the capacity for recurring gifts. If you don’t already have the capability, it’s likely that you can easily add that component to your current online donation processing module. But having the basic functionality is a very different thing than building a program and promoting it – effectively – in multiple mediums.

The first step is to create a special “landing page” that explains, in simple language, how the program works and what the advantages are. Be sure to make it very clear how one can opt out at any time. (Very few of your donors will!) Then develop prominent – and enticing – links and pathways throughout your website to the monthly giving signup page. Frequently mention monthly-giving opportunities in your email appeals and e-newsletters. At least once a year, consider a special targeted email campaign that specifically promotes the program and invites your donors and prospects to join.

Everywhere and anywhere, point out the advantages of giving this way – how small gifts quickly add up …the ease and security of donating this way …and of course the benefits the regular income stream provide to your organization and its critical programs.

Monthly giving programs also are a vivid example of potential synchronicity between your online and offline marketing efforts. You can bolster your success online by promoting the program in your printed newsletters, developing inserts for your direct mail packages, and even testing targeted direct mail that sends offline donors online to sign up to be monthly sustainers. Last but not least, your acknowledgements and welcome packages – offline as well as online – will most likely prove to be a wonderful point of opportunity for promotion.

A handful of very large charities have proven that TV campaigns and large scale telemarketing efforts are highly effective ways to build monthly sustainer programs. But if you don’t have those resources, don’t worry. Even with a tight budget, you can find many other creative ways to promote your own sustainer program – from handing out flyers at your events … to having staff or volunteers call or email monthly donors and prospects when they are about to lapse.

The biggest mistake you can make? To get discouraged in the early months of promoting the program, as the results first arrive in a slow trickle. So many charities do, and give up much too quickly. But so many others have stuck with it and seen the magic in the math … when two become four … eight morphs into sixteen … then dozens transform into hundreds. For these organizations, persistence pays off with significant upgrades and high value donors, who renew at rates of 90+% for virtually no cost.

What more can we ask for in times like these?

By Harry Lynch, CEO of Sanky Communications

The Covenant House “Do 1 Thing” Campaign utilized some of the most modern online fundraising techniques and the results prove that there can be victories even in these troubling times.

Before creative for the campaign began, SankyNet took into account the fact that even loyal donors may not be able to donate during a recession. With this in mind, SankyNet’s creative team worked with Covenant House to develop ways for people to show their support beside a monetary gift. These opportunities were designed to help keep existing donors engaged while at the same time cultivating potential new supporters.

The “Do 1 Thing” campaign included a call to action using social networking, an invitation to visit a Covenant House location and a request for items on a “wish list” such as blankets and food. Donors were also given the chance to quadruple their generosity with a 3-to-1 match — this opportunity to help touch the lives of four times more homeless kids made a very compelling case for giving. And despite the tough economy, people overwhelmingly chose donating over the other three points of engagement.

As for design, SankyNet went with the adage that “less is more — and used a modern technique that is proving very effective in online fundraising. We designed the “Do 1 Thing” e-appeal to look more like a postcard than a traditional appeal letter. More importantly, we paid special attention to make sure that the entire message — including all calls to action — fit “above the fold” on most browsers.

Another component that played a key role in the success of the campaign was timing. SankyNet “dropped” the e-appeal on February 12th giving donors just two days to get involved with the “Do1Thing” activities planned for Valentine’s Day. The timing of the appeal created a sense of urgency and that in turn triggered an immediate response both in donations and activism.

While these are indeed challenging times for fundraisers, the Covenant House “Do 1 Thing” Campaign proves that using a combination of imaginative techniques can have a tremendous payoff. So remember, matching gifts work. Well timed, shorter messages work. And asking your donors to support your cause in non-monetary ways — even in a fundraising appeal — works!