Learn more about analytics and research best practices, as well as real world examples and solutions for nonprofits.

Optimizing the Demise (Part 3)

In our continuing series on how to Optimize the Demise, here is an idea to encourage online giving:

Mail inexpensive postcards to donors (particularly ones who have a history of giving online or by bank check) with a simple message: Thanks for your past gifts to us online. Just a reminder that together we can still help people in need. So go online and make your gift today.

This idea won’t change the course of the direct mail trend. But it will buy you some time while we are all figuring out the next big thing.

And if you missed, the first two blog posts in this series, click here to read Part 1 and Part 2.

The Privatization of the United State Postal Service

by Bill Jacobs | Mar 26, 2025

The current administration has advocated for the privatization of the USPS. This initiative creates a lot of questions and sends a shiver down the spines of development directors for nonprofits that rely on mail appeals to raise a significant portion of their budgets....

The Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN) State of the Sector Survey

by Bill Jacobs | Oct 10, 2024

Our neighbors to the north, ONN, released the results of its 2024 State of the Sector Survey today. Over 1,000 nonprofit organizations in Ontario participated in the study. The ONN results sounded familiarly discouraging: Four-in-10 nonprofit organizations responding...

Give your donors a rest from fundraising? It’s going to cost you!

by Bill Jacobs | Jul 9, 2024

This post co-authored by me and long-time friend and former colleague, Jeff Brooks, the most vigilant blogger in fundraising I know. One of most counterintuitive truths about fundraising is this: The more recently a donor gave, the more likely they are to give now....