As a municipal Museum relatively new to fundraising, we held our first direct mail appeal late last Fall--dropped the week before Thanksgiving--and we were pleased with the results. We are doing our first membership campaign this spring so probably will not do another donation appeal until Fall, but I have worked at other organizations that had very successful appeals twice a year--one in late Spring (May letter with June follow-up prior to end of fiscal year) and one at the end of the calendar year. Although there is certainly more opportunity for your mailing to get lost in the holiday shuffle, I think yearend giving will always have a strong response. That said, certainly experiment with different times of year and even frequency of mailing. And if you have a high-profile event earlier in the year, even an anniversary, there's a great opportunity to talk about support then! I definitely worry about donor fatigue with multiple mailings, but I think the only way to know for sure is to test it with your constituents. And of course make sure they hear from you at times when you're not asking for money!
Good luck, and I look forward to seeing what others are doing!
Cari M. Karns
Development Coordinator
Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum
215 South Tejon Street
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
719-385-5633
On exhibit now - So Far from Home: The American POW Experience in WWII
Museum open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm
-----Original Message-----
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:06:31 -0400
From: Amanda Wesselmann <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Annual Fund timing?
When do you send letters for your annual fund drive? We have typically sent ours at the end of the year, and now have a board member asking what other museums do. Is the trend shifting away from end-of-the-year annual fund letters?
Thanks,
Amanda Wesselmann
Associate Director
General Lew Wallace Study and Museum
P.O. Box 662
200 Wallace Ave.
Crawfordsville, IN 47933
765/362-5769
www.ben-hur.com
The General Lew Wallace Study & Museum is the recipient of a 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, awarded by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Service! Please visit our website for photos and details (www.ben-hur.com/nationalmedal<http://www.ben-hur.com/nationalmedal>).
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:10:29 -0700
From: lucysperlin <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Annual Fund timing?
I think this is a great topic for discussion and will be looking for other
opinions.
In our community there is an all-community (county) fund drive organized by
a local Community Foundation in which non-profits sign up, and are listed on
their website, and the Foundation does a lot of advertising and making the
drive high-profile. The NFP then mails an appeal to their constituents to
give to it. All donations received in a two month period, Aug 1 to Sept
30 (we're a Univ. community in which school starts in early August) get a
small piece of matching funds that the Foundation has raised itself (usually
about 10% of the donations that come in for each organization) and that is a
great incentive to get people to give at that time. We thought that this
would replace our late-year Annual Appeal. And, in fact, it did quite well
-probably better than our previous fall annual fund drives.
However, two organizations I belong to have experimented in the last two
years with an additional appeal at the end of the year. And I do mean the
end of the year. Reluctant to have our mailing get lost in Christmas ads,
mail, and rush, instead of mailing in Nov. as many do, we mailed a day or
two before Christmas, trying to have it arrive on Dec. 26 or 27, when folks
start looking at their mail again and act promptly if they are thinking
about a tax deduction. This has worked very well. (We try to focus on a
specific need for this drive.) Some people get money in right away and
others mail in over the next several weeks. We surmise that some people
forget to give to the community appeal use the second chance to give. Some
give to both, and I'm guessing that for the Aug-Sept drive they are
spreading available dollars between several organizations so feel they can
give more just to us later.
All that said, I've seen some organizations do the annual fund drive in
about April. I'd be interested to know how successful that is because I
think we are hitting people too heavily in the fall, since our membership
renewal is also in the fall, and I'd like to move some of our asking to
another season.
Lucy Sperlin
Butte County Historical Society
Oroville, CA
_____
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Amanda Wesselmann
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 1:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Annual Fund timing?
When do you send letters for your annual fund drive? We have typically sent
ours at the end of the year, and now have a board member asking what other
museums do. Is the trend shifting away from end-of-the-year annual fund
letters?
Thanks,
Amanda Wesselmann
Associate Director
General Lew Wallace Study and Museum
P.O. Box 662
200 Wallace Ave.
Crawfordsville, IN 47933
765/362-5769
www.ben-hur.com
The General Lew Wallace Study & Museum is the recipient of a 2008 National
Medal for Museum and Library Service, awarded by the federal Institute of
Museum and Library Service! Please visit our website for photos and details
(www.ben-hur.com/nationalmedal).
=========================================================
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