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Don’t Just Sit There…. Follow Up!

Once your annual appeal is well on the way to your donor’s mailbox, don’t just sit around checking the mail and counting the money! Get moving on your follow-up action plan.

Although it can be tempting to get your appeal out the door, check that off your long to-do list and step back and wait for the money to flow in, it is important to ask your donors multiple-times. It’s easy for them to forget to take action, even when they’ve intended to respond — so remind them!

When?
When is the right timing for a second contact?

Typically, you can plan on 3-4 weeks after the first letter’s drop date.  Exceptions can certainly be found, however, particularly in an election year when you should hold off until mid-November when the election mailings are out of the way.  Even in a non-election year, whenever your first appeal was sent, it’s a good idea to follow up in mid-December, post Thanksgiving and pre-winter holiday craziness.


What?
What type of contact will you make?  Will you:

  • send a second letter via mail?

  • send an email?

  • make a phone call?

If your original appeal was a personalized snail-mail letter, sending a less-expensive, non-personalized postcard type mailing is one option where I’ve had frequent success.

Email follow up is my favorite way to follow up a primary appeal letter because  (1) it is faster and cheaper and (2) reaches out to your donor in a different way and thus may be an easier way for the donor to take action.  

If you haven’t picked up the phone recently, making a list of your key donors and leaving a voice mail to tell them how much you need their support can be a fast, simple way to reach out to your donors with a personal connection. Better yet, if you have a few outgoing, committed volunteers, you can reach more people.

Your budget, experience, time frame, and access to volunteers will help you determine which of these is best for your campaign.

Who? 
Which donors warrant the extra effort and expense of a follow-up?

This will vary widely by organization.  Until you’ve had multiple years to test and optimize this, you can start by contacting donors who:

  • have not given yet in the current year (no response to first appeal) AND

  • gave a gift in the year immediately prior AND

  • have given more than one gift to your organization ever.

These folks are typically the most likely to renew and are the ones you really want to pull out the stops to keep.  Pull these donors into a mailing list and tag them in your database so that you can track their responses.