Every day, the Y works to address the most pressing needs in the community by making sure that everyone – regardless of age, race, income or background – has the opportunity and resources to learn, grow and thrive. It doesn’t matter if the people in need are members or attend programs at a branch – the YMCA operates without walls for the betterment of everyone in the community.

Our work on the We Build People campaign begins in February, when we head out to the 10 branches in the Raleigh-Durham metro area to speak with staff members about the people they meet and stories they hear. Once we zero in on a few stories we’d like to learn more about, we meet with the families to learn more about their involvement with the Y.

Though the really fundraising doesn’t begin until August or September, the first piece of the campaign is the Y’s “Philanthropic Report to Donors and Friends,” an insert that runs in the Triangle Business Journal every May. In it, the Y recaps the previous year’s efforts, acknowledge donors for their support and introduce some of the faces and stories that will be a part of the new We Build People campaign.

Next, we develop the case statement for the campaign, which outlines the goals of We Build People and tells the story of the impact of the funds raised through the campaign on the lives of a few people. From there, we shoot the photography for the printed case statement and begin designing the piece which will ultimately serve as the foundation for the year’s campaign. At the same time, short films are created to tell the stories through viral videos that will be used on the campaign’s website, YMCATriangle.org.

The peer-to-peer volunteer campaigns kicks off at the end of the summer, with case statement packages going out to donors and prospects while signage and storyboards get posted in all the association’s branches, so that folks coming into the Y begin to see the people that serve as the face of this year’s campaign.

The last element is the direct mail effort, which reiterates the message communicated in the case statement, videos, signage and TBJ articles. This drops in September and goes to members and program participants within the YMCA of the Triangle. The direct mail is supplemented with email reminders, which drives recipients back to the campaign website to watch the short videos and read additional stories.

Sound exhausting? It is a lot of work, but it’s also really rewarding when everything comes together, and a story we first heard in a conference room of one of the branches in February comes to life in a video in September and compels people to give.

Here are just a few of the stories we featured as a part of this year’s campaign.

Lee King

Bob Grant

Le & Rodrigo Florez

Colleges, universities and high schools across the country welcome alumni back to campus every year to celebrate reunions of their graduating classes. These events provide ideal opportunities for institutions to educate their alumni on the vision for the school’s future and ask that they play a role in its growth by making a gift.

Today, we’re going to talk about another way of celebrating a donor milestone to assist with fundraising, but this particular use can be done on an annual basis rather than every five to ten years.

Anniversary letters are an effective tool to increase year-over-year donor retention and flatten out the seasonality of educational fundraising programs. These letters are typically sent a few weeks prior to the year anniversary of the donor’s last gift and remind the recipient of their past generosity, educate them on the impact that their last gift made on the institution and ask that they consider making another gift at this time.

In 2010, three Excalibur Advancement clients initiated anniversary letter programs in hopes of increasing their donor retention and decrease the number of fundraising appeals they sent out in the fall and spring.

From a process perspective, our clients provide us with a list of the anniversary letter recipients at the beginning of each month, along with their mailing addresses and amount of their last gift. On the 15th of the month, clients send an update as to any donors on the list that made gifts since the first of the month, at which time we remove them from the anniversary letter list.

By the 17th of each month, the letters – which are personalized to the recipient, include references to the amount of their last gift and details on how the funds were deployed and ask for a follow-up gift – are printed and mailed, typically in a closed-faced envelope with a stamp to give the mail piece the appearance of a valued communication. Some clients like to include a brochure to remind recipients how their funds are used or inform them about a new strategic initiative or fundraising focus.

According to our clients, the response rates on these anniversary letters best even the most effective standard fundraising appeals. Response rates range from 10-14%, but beyond these impressive results, clients report that donor retention has improved through the use of this tool and, most interestingly, that donors are more inclined to increase their level of support in responding to anniversary letters than on other appeals.

Here’s the blurb from the front page of Sunday’s Business section in the Winston-Salem Journal.

And here’s the brief in the Philanthropy Journal.

Very pleased to announce today the addition of Mary Craig Tennille as the new vice president of Excalibur Advancement Services!

For the past two years, Mary Craig has been director of major donors and professional giving at The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County where she was responsible for cultivating major gifts and overseeing annual workplace campaigns throughout the community. Additionally, she served as the liaison to The Renaissance Society, The Arts Council’s top donor membership group, and The Arts Council’s National Advisory Council.

Mary Craig played a key role in The Arts Council’s Comprehensive Campaign for the Arts, a three-year, $27.7 million capital campaign aimed at transforming Winston-Salem into a “City of Arts and Innovation” through facility upgrades and program endowment. She was an instrumental player in the comprehensive planning effort for the week-long celebration of the arts in September 2010, which culminated in the re-opening of the new arts center in downtown Winston-Salem. In that capacity, she oversaw a major donor reception, a grand opening gala featuring Tony Bennett and attended by more than 800 people, along with more than 100 arts experiences during Community Weekend. She was also instrumental in bringing Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, to Winston-Salem for several events, including the official ribbon cutting to open the arts center to the public.

Prior to joining The Arts Council, Mary Craig was development and information systems manager at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from March 2003 through June 2008. In her role there, she oversaw the organization’s 200,000-record database while playing a vital role in the $189 million capital campaign to reopen the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

Before moving to San Francisco in January 2003, Mary Craig was the public relations and marketing assistant at Reynolda House Museum of American Art. A Winston-Salem native, she is a graduate of Wake Forest University, Salem Academy and The Summit School. An active community volunteer, she is a board member of the Arts Based Elementary School, Arts for Life, a member of the 2011 class of Leadership Winston-Salem and a member of Reynolda House Museum of American Art’s National Advisory Council. Since 2009, she has been a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Tanglewood Cup Steeplechase Committee, and a founding member of the Advisory Council for BRAVO!, a young professionals group benefitting the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

In her new role, Mary Craig will manage Excalibur Advancement Services, serving as the primary client interface while collaborating with the rest of the EAS team to provide strategic fundraising counsel.

One particular article that caught my eye suggested that organizations looking to increase donor response rates consider using a live stamp on return envelopes rather than a Business Reply Envelope, which only requires postage to be paid for those donors who return a gift.

“How can putting live stamps on a return envelope ever pay for itself when over 90% of the donors won’t respond?,” the article reads. “But in head-to-head tests, the addition of a live stamp (or, better yet, multiple live stamps) increases response rate by as much as 100%. That’s more than enough to pay for the extra $0.44 per package on mailings to your existing donors.”

This tactic seems to go against everything you read in this age when non-profits are being asked to be better stewards of donor dollars in response to alleged incidents of funds misuse, such as the Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

While it wouldn’t make sense to commit full postage to a reply envelope sent to a never giver or prospect who’s more than likely to toss your unused $0.44 stamp in the trash, this approach may be worth testing to re-activate lapsed donors. Recipients who have a history of supporting your organization might be swayed to return to the fold if they see the financial commitment you’ve made in postage on their reply envelope. At the very least, it should get their attention, which is certainly the first step to any successful direct mail campaign.

So how should this approach be implemented? A close analysis of your donor database to identify targets whose giving histories make the test less risky would be a good first step. For example, if you identify 1,000 lapsed donors who previously supported your organization at the $100 giving level, you’ll need only to reactivate five donors to pay for the $440 in first-class postage that you affixed on the 1,000 reply envelopes sent out.

It’s a gamble, for sure, but developing your strategy based on your organization’s data – a hallmark of Excalibur Advancement Services’ approach to fundraising – alleviates a little bit of the risk and turns the decision to use full postage on a reply envelope from a dicey gambit to more of a measured, pay-it-forward investment to increasing response rate and reactivating donors.

Several of our clients – including Guilford College, Wake Forest University, Queens University and Lynchburg College – made presentations about their fundraising programs.

EAS President J.D. Wilson participated in a panel discussion titled “Bright Ideas from the Minds of Parents and Donors” moderated by Minta McNally, associate vice president and executive director of parents programs in the Office of University Advancement at Wake Forest University.

The team learned a lot about some interesting trends and best practices  in the industry as well as the challenges many educational institutions are facing in today’s challenging economy.

Read about Excalibur Advancement Services President J.D. Wilson’s role in Wake Forest University’s student-purchased art collection.

Article by Kerry M. King (’85)
Office of Communications and External Relations
Published December 7, 2009

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