If you want your nonprofit to be a healthy, thriving organization, sometimes you have to do things you might not personally like. That’s not my opinion — it’s reality.
Last week I spent an entire day with executive directors and development officers from nearly two dozen organizations. We were talking about developing and executing effective annual giving programs.
At one point in our conversation I reminded the group that one of the most effective ways to increase retention and income in an annual giving program is to make sure you’re including response envelopes in your thank you receipt mailings.
Over the next 30 minutes I discovered that not a single one of the organizations represented in our workshop had ever even considered including a reply envelope in their thank you mail. The entire room of nonprofit leaders was surprised and dismayed by my recommendation.
Here’s the nonprofit health tip I shared with them, and which you should know. In the industry we’ve proven time and again that including a reply envelope in your thank you receipt mailings will do three things for you:
- Add as much as 10% additional annual revenue
- Improve donor retention
- Increase the number of gifts per donor per year
As a bonus, if you send a paper thank you letter with a reply envelope to donors who give online, you’re much more likely to convert those donors from online-only giving to multi-channel giving. And we know that when a donor crosses channels they become significantly more valuable to you. In fact, some organizations see that their multi-channel donors are as much as 140% more valuable than single channel donors.
I know. You don’t like this idea. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Just like broccoli does for the poor kid (my awesome 7 year old daughter, by the way) in the picture above. But just because she doesn’t like broccoli doesn’t mean it isn’t good for her. And that’s why we make her eat it.
Same goes for your organization. The idea of adding a reply envelope in your thank you mail might make you feel sick. But it’s proven to improve fundraising outcomes for nonprofits — so you should do it even if you don’t enjoy it. It’s good for you.