Fundraising for Social Change, 8th Edition

chapter THIRTEENWhat Successful Mass Appeals Have in Common

Although many people find it anxiety‐provoking to ask someone for money in person for reasons we discussed earlier, there is one important way in which asking one person for money is much easier than any other strategy: all you have to do is ascertain whether that one person is interested in your cause, and find out (usually by your knowledge of that person or by asking questions) what that person would need to know in order to consider making a gift. This approach is far different from trying to ascertain whether hundreds or even thousands of people are interested in your cause and then what a decent percentage of them might respond to. But because it is unwieldy and unrealistic to build an organization one donor conversation at a time, sending the same appeal to hundreds or thousands of people at once is something we need to do to augment more personal solicitation. Fortunately, there is a science to mass appeals and there are a variety of ways to appeal to many people at once.

First, keep in mind that the response rate from direct mail, email, social media, texting, and even phoning is very low. The response to direct mail and email appeals hovers around .05–1% when appealing to new donors, and between 5–15% when appealing to donors who have given before. Using these two strategies together, however, can boost response to a much more respectable 2–5% for new donors and 10–25% for people who have given before. Because ...