Conveying urgency, mail quantity, etc.
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How should you convey urgency when funds are needed for a project immediately?
ANSWER
That depends on why the need is urgent. For instance, if you need to match the terms of a challenge grant, which includes a deadline, sing that fact to the heavens. If your situation is truly urgent, and even might be characterized as a legitimate emergency, it's best to communicate that, too. Just be careful NOT to characterize the end of your fiscal year as an emergency. That's not going to work.
If I have enough money to produce 50,000 direct mails per year to non-donating alumni am I better to send one piece to 50,000 people, 2 pieces to 25,000, 5 pieces to 10,000 etc?
ANSWER
Chris, this sounds like one of those horrible algebra questions I worked so hard to avoid in high school!
Today, we're all working with limited budgets and my advice is to concentrate on the best prospects. To acheive that, you need to profile your current alumni donors. What do they have in common? Take a look at their demographics (male, female, age, location, etc.) and find those common denominators. Then put together a prospect list based on those characteristics. You may find the list is quite a bit smaller, but this will enable you to mail them more frequently, or perhaps even implement a follow-up telephone campaign using students to make the calls (which can be very effective).
The plan for this year's annual appeal is to send it with the previous year's annual report, which will be recently completed at that time. Is it a good idea to send these together? Our thought is to cut down on mailing costs but to also have some documentation for our ask!
ANSWER
Nope. Don't do it. I won't say categorically that it won't work. But my experience tells me that it's better to send an annual report as a standalone communication with a cover letter that is effectively a thank-you to donors. A solicitation can follow after a week or 10 days with a reference to all the "good news" you just reported. Use that news as the basis for an ask that will demonstrate clearly to the donor how much impact her or his gift will have.
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