The Forgotten Foundations of Fundraising

Chapter 4Direct‐Mail Prospecting—or, Where the Donors Are

Eighty percent of nonprofit gifts come via the mailbox. And yes, we do mean mailbox, for online fundraising, though it should not be ignored, has yet to fulfill the grandiose dreams of its promoters.

How do you find and cultivate donors? Direct mail.

Yeah, we know it sounds cheesy, maybe even vaguely disreputable. Direct mail vendors probably rank somewhere between street‐corner Rolex salesmen and politicians in job prestige. Done poorly, direct mail can be offensive, absurd, embarrassing, ham‐fisted, and stupid. Done well, it is the motor of your operation.

When we launched American Philanthropic, we didn't want to do direct mail. We shared the common (and not wholly irrational) prejudice against it. At first we hired third‐party direct‐mail vendors. We were astounded by the cost: They charged us creative fees, per‐unit fees (they always want to mail more, more, more!), and markups on materials. Not only that, their work could be shabby and shady. So we decided to do it ourselves.

(A quick note on terms: You find new donors through acquisition or prospect mail, which we treat in this chapter; you keep and cultivate them via house‐file mail, which is sent to current donors and which we'll describe in the next chapter.)

Direct‐mail prospecting can be a hard sell to board members. They can be impatient. “Show us where this pays for itself in a year,” they demand. Well, it may not. Direct mail is a long‐term investment, ...