The Bad News Bears
Recently we’ve been talking a lot about unsustainable trends, the decline of direct mail and the eventual shift in fundraising that needs to happen because of it. We didnt mean to start the year off by depressing everyone about the future, so, over the next five blog posts we are going to switch from being “The Bad News Bears” to your “Angels in the Outfield” in order to make you shine as a fundraiser.
Here is the first practical idea we suggest you consider to optimize the decline in your direct mail fundraising program:
- Start using BREs instead of CREs. Most of us simply don’t have stamps lying around like we use to. And you can bet your donors aren’t going to make a special trip to the Post Office so that they respond to your appeal. One suggestion: only use BREs on donors with SLGs (single largest gifts) of $25 or more. The math of using BREs to the lowest value donors rarely works out.
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.
Click here for Part 2 in the series.