Nearly two and a half years into the pandemic, Dominique Calixte is tired of hearing the word “pivot.” But as inflation and Covid cases stay stubbornly high and the economic outlook sours, Calixte, associate director of annual giving and special events at YW Boston, says pivoting is exactly what she and other fundraisers need to do.
“I feel like every day there’s something in the news that I’m like, ‘Well that might affect my fundraising campaign,’” she says.
Snares in the supply chain are complicating fundraisers’ year-end plans. Direct-mail campaigns have become harder to schedule over the last year, as paper, envelopes, and labels have all been in short supply.
“We are running about six months ahead now just to make sure that we can grab the product that’s on the floor at our mail house,” says Sue Swan, national chief development officer at American Lung Association.
By early July, Swan had already reviewed the charity’s mailing of Christmas Seals, the 115-year-old campaign that sends supporters festive, branded stickers and a donation appeal during the holidays. Almost 22 percent of the charity’s direct-mail revenue comes from that campaign alone.
While fundraisers grapple with these challenges, many of their organizations are seeing a greater need for their services. “Nonprofits aren’t just feeling a pinch; they’re feeling a punch,” says Melissa Stevens, executive director at the Milken Institute for Strategic Philanthropy, a think tank.
Given these headwinds, the Chronicle talked with fundraisers and industry experts about how to plan for the most important fundraising push of the year during a volatile time.
It’s Critical to Start Early
One significant planning change is the longer lead times needed to prepare mailed appeals, says Polly Papsadore, director of marketing and business development at PMG, a firm that produces direct-mail campaigns for nonprofits.
In one timeline Papsadore drew up for a potential client, a charity with a mailing scheduled for November 16 had to submit orders for paper and labels by August 3. If the client wanted artwork on the envelope, it had to be submitted by August 10. The extra time builds in wiggle room for paper mills to work through other unmet orders and accommodate delays transporting the paper to the factory where the letters are produced. Like so many other businesses, Papsadore says many factories don’t have the staff to run their floors at full capacity — either because their employees are sick with Covid or because they can’t hire the qualified staff they need. Meeting earlier approval deadlines enables a smaller crew to produce a higher volume of mail on time.
The basis of a direct-mail campaign is paper, and fundraisers shouldn’t assume that there will be enough of it to put out a mailing. Rather, they should place their orders early so their supplier reserves a portion of the paper they mill for the campaign.
“That’s part of the new normal,” Papsadore says. “You can’t just say, ‘Oh, we want to do this mailing.’ You have to sign a purchase order.”
Securing paper is one thing, but budgeting for it is another. Without a dependable supply, the price of paper is liable to fluctuate. Papsadore warns that the end price may differ from the quoted price on the purchase order.
All the additional roadblocks to a successful direct-mail campaign are turning some fundraisers off the medium altogether — at least for now.
YW Boston paused its mailings at the outbreak of the pandemic. It hoped to alleviate pressure on letter carriers on the front lines and also recognized that many people felt uneasy about touching their mail at a time when little was known about Covid-19 transmission.
“I don’t feel a rush to go back to direct mail — and this is coming from someone who loves direct mail,” Calixte says. This year, her team is focusing on email outreach and putting mailed letters on ice. They’ll consider returning to the medium next year if supplies stabilize and make direct mail less of “a headache,” Calixte says.
Nonprofits Need to Be Flexible
The mixed-up supply chain is forcing nonprofits to make changes to their direct-mail programs without testing them first. When a shortage of labels meant the American Lung Association couldn’t include its usual return-address stickers in its June mailing to supporters, Swan, the chief fundraiser, had to make a nerve-racking decision. Supporters were used to receiving premiums from the charity so she didn’t want to skip the gift entirely. She decided instead on enclosing a sheet of paper printed with a book mark, a small calendar, and a list of holiday dates.
“Normally in situations like that, we would test the heck out of it before we would go full-blown into a change,” Swan says. “This is requiring us to be more flexible without testing, and that is an uncomfortable place for anyone who has any experience with direct response to be.”
Still, the change didn’t seem to turn off donors. While the full revenue totals aren’t in yet, Swan says her group “held our own,” on the revised campaign.
Papsadore, the direct-mail marketer, encourages fundraisers to be open to changing longstanding mail habits — even when it’s scary. This might mean choosing lower-quality paper or even deciding against sustainably produced or recycled papers. This has been a particularly gut-wrenching decision for some fundraisers at environmental nonprofits, Papsadore says.
“This is a good time for folks to remember not to overthink direct mail,” Papsadore says. “There’s something temporary about direct mail, and the whole point is to get your message in front of your donor often. It’s not like you’re printing a high-quality coffee-table book.”
With social media, email, and other digital tools, fundraisers can send donors real-time messages rooted in the context of the present moment. That’s always hard to do with direct mail, but the lengthened lead times have made it even harder.
Swan worries that the messages in letters approved now could seem “tone deaf” by the time supporters open them this winter. “That part is a real challenge because we, of course, want the content of our solicitations to be relevant,” she says. “Yet especially with direct mail, we are between this rock and a hard place that we have to plan so far in advance in order to claim the product available.”
Swan says she expects year-end email messages will have more specific references to the challenges of the day than a letter approved in July ever could. But donors won’t mind if a letter doesn’t address current events head-on, according to Papsadore. Even if a letter references an event that’s no longer happening — such as eye-popping gas prices — Papsadore says it could remind donors of the challenges faced this year.
Keep Donors Close — Even if They Can’t Give
Despite all the barriers to giving this season — from tighter budgets to logistical issues — experts say fundraisers should keep asking their supporters for donations at the end of the year.
“Donor engagement is the key,” says Rick Happy, chairman at CCS, a fundraising consulting firm. “In a time like this when you may be experiencing some hesitation: communicate — overcommunicate, don’t undercommunicate.”
Happy says donors reported feeling positive about his clients that kept in close contact during the first six months of the pandemic, and he points to findings that some charities that kept their development programs strong during the financial crisis came out of it with more revenue.
But he also notes the reality that some donors are moving to the sidelines because of economic constraints. “The longer-term trend is there are fewer donors over all in the philanthropic pool.”
Fundraisers should make sure their organization stays top of mind with their existing supporters by communicating with them frequently and asking them to donate or participate in your mission in other ways, Happy says.
He recommends that fundraisers acknowledge the challenges faced by both donors and their organization. Fundraisers have never been able to prevent external events from affecting how and why people give.
“But we can control how we make our case, how we ask, who we ask, how much we ask for, how well and how enthusiastically we ask,” Happy says. “Anybody who pauses, delays, slows down is making a grave mistake.”
At YW Boston, Calixte is searching for ways to keep all of her supporters close — including those who can’t give this year. Like many fundraisers, she worries that donors who contribute modest amounts may balk at giving because of inflation.
“Our smaller-dollar donors are the folks that are super engaged with our organization. They’re the folks that are probably alums of our programs or they go to every event,” Calixte says. Her team is paying special attention to their supporters who consistently show up at events and read their email newsletters and brainstorming ways to acknowledge that engagement as they would a gift.
“We’re having conversations and really trying to step up how we’re looking at our constituents’ engagement overall as opposed to just looking at, ‘Hey, they’ve given so they should give again,’” Calixte says.
Implicit in those discussions is the reality that if donors hold back, overall fundraising revenue could go down this year. That’s a specter that haunts nonprofits across the board. At the American Lung Association, Swan says, “we are kind of putting our seatbelts on and expecting that we might see a dip in individual giving.”
With so many world events out of their control, Calixte counsels, “give your fundraisers grace.”
