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Jul 9, 2014

Why Direct Mail Acquisition is Still Viable

What?
I know, most of our blogs address the unsustainable trends in fundraising, particularly in the area of direct mail acquisition. However, recently I completed an analysis that was so surprising, that it might breathe some new life.

The graph below shows the percentage of active FY14 large gift donors for a national organization whose first gift was attributed to a direct mail acquisition kit.

 

About one-in-six of the Majors and more than one-in-four of the Mid/Major donors first gift was through traditional direct mail acquisition.

Think of it another way, take away direct mail acquisition and a significant chunk of your future large donors will also go away.

Obviously, this requires a different approach to cultivation. It’s imperative to identify these direct mail donors with potential and treat them differently. Fortunately, there are analytical tools that can help you do this. (Connect with us and we can tell you more about our mid and major donor modeling services).

So the next time you are getting pressure from your board to chop your direct mail acquisition budget, show them this graph, and ask them if they are willing to write a check for the difference.


Part VI: The Environmental Impact of AI

Up to this point in our AI blog series, I have been discussing (some might say ragging on) the practical implementational challenges of AI in the nonprofit sector. In today’s blog, I’m shifting the focus on a more global issue: Is using AI environmentally sustainable?...

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First-half of 2025 Trends in Fundraising

I have four graphs that summarize what we are seeing across the fundraising arena. These come from our newest analytical report, The Single Largest Gift - Cohort Analysis (SLG-CA). I know, its name is a mouthful, but its insights are plentiful. Basically, the SLG-CA...

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