#GivingTuesday Is Almost Here ~ December 2nd

Two weeks from today – December 2, 2014 – #GivingTuesday will be back. This annual day helps to elevate the principal of philanthropy and charitable works to a prominent level.

The goal of this yearly event is to get folks thinking all the time about giving back to:

• their favorite charity
• their church
• their school
• perform volunteer service
• think beyond their own immediate needs and circles

Take some time during the next two weeks to visit the #GivingTuesday website to learn how you can help promote this important day.  Then get out and do some giving of your own!

BIG’s Blog: YouTube It (Re-posted with permission)

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Have you ever heard of the Geico camel?

Me neither … until I did hear of it.

And why had I not heard of it? Because most Americans my age (I’m a baby boomer) don’t watch that much live TV. In fact, other than sports or an occasional awards show, anything that I think might be worthwhile on TV, I will DVR.

So I am pretty immune to television commercials. If I am watching something I DVR’d from broadcast or cable, I am blasting through the ads. In fact, I probably watch more Netflix than anything on regular TV so I just don’t see that many commercials.

Think I’m unique? Don’t bet on it.

Have my media-watching habits changed in the last ten years? You betcha … and so have yours!

We all remember when there were only three broadcast-television networks. If you watched TV, you were watching one of those three networks. This meant that the cultural conversation was fairly homogenous.

Not anymore. In fact, we were never really homogenous . . . but with limited choices, it just seemed that way.  

Media has fragmented to appeal to the real heterogeneous audiences that … in reality … always existed. With few exceptions, there is no single cultural conversation, but rather many niche conversations.

Here is something I have learned if you occasionally have to face one of those “clueless cultural moments” … go to YouTube and type it in.

Anything about anything is on YouTube.

Oh, by the way, is your fundraising organization’s story (or stories)  on YouTube?

The Geico camel is: Click Here

Drip, Drip, Drip.

-Mike

Welcome to BIG’s Blog!  Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers…and email me a comment at:mike@big-db.com

BIG’s Blog: Integrated Marketing is a Lie – Re-posted with permission

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Direct mail as a marketing and distribution fundraising methodology is in terminal decline. Of course you can still mail to long-time supporters and generate a positive return, and if you really have scale (mailing several millions) it can still generate significant net revenue.

But if you think direct mail will carry you long into the future, then why is your donor base growing older? And if you don’t know your donor base isn’t growing older because you haven’t done an age overlay … you are lying to yourself or, worse, your organization.

If you’re a small-to-medium-sized Development organization watching your mail program shrink and you get an email from an association or trade group touting a seminar or webinar with the title Direct Mail Is Alive And Well, how does it make you feel?

Obviously the intent is to combat the reality of the perception that mail is in decline. And of course with some of the largest nonprofit fundraising organizations moving out of direct mail, there is probably panic in the ranks. I mean … Exactly HOW MANY BILLIONS DID THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE LOSE LAST YEAR?

But it gets worse and even more insidious. These mail veterans know that mail is in terminal decline, yet the latest ruse to get you to keep your mail program as the base of your fundraising is by adding the new sexy digital tools (email, Website, and social media). This combined effort, the so-called “integrated” or “multi-channel” marketing will somehow do better than just the mail program. This is the 1 + 1 = 3 promise.

And, of course, if it doesn’t work … it’s your fault. You just need to keep tweaking it until you see positive results.

Horse Hockey!

If you take direct mail out of your integrated mailing program, what are you left with? That’s right … digital online tools.

And how many of you are making pure online efforts generate enough revenue on-its-own to replace direct mail program revenue?

The problem with what you are trying to do online is a lack of  SCALE. We all understand that if you buy a million prospect names for a mailing and you get a 1% response, that is 10,000 new donors added to your file. So how do you do that online?

You don’t!

Quit trying to take the “direct mail marketing” methodology and apply it to the online world!

An email communication IS NOT the same thing as a direct mail piece of mail. Completely different dynamics. How many letters do you get in the mail daily? How many emails do you get daily? Do YOU treat mail the same as email? I rest my case.

And, actually, email is the closest cousin to analogue terrestrial mail, but they don’t work the same … period.

Do this: Forward this blog post to five of your Development friends from other organizations. Ask them to honestly tell you if they believe integrated or multi-channel marketing is growing their revenue beyond what mail could do just by itself.

Listen to what they have to say.

Look, I know who the best direct mail fundraisers are. Remember, I’ve been a professional direct mail marketer for over 35 years. The best are still eking out gains . . . but they are running multi-million mailing programs. BUT THESE PEOPLE ARE SCARED TO DEATH.

Why?

Because they are smart. They know how to maximize and optimize the profitability of their mail programs and they see their donor files aging just like yours … which tells them that the decline is coming.

Even as they continue to profit from mail today, they know their future is online and many of them are looking at online models that “scale.”

Want to know more about scaling online … email me.

Drip, Drip, Drip.

-Mike

Welcome to BIG’s Blog!  Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers…and email me a comment at:mike@big-db.com

BIG’s Blog: Distant Thunder Portends Rain (Wednesday, January 22, 2014) – Re-posted with permission

Throughout the 1990s while I ran a database marketing company, our sole customer base consisted of the retail branch networks of large retail banking organizations (Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo). Electronic banking had been on the scene for a decade, but in the late 1990s its adoption really began to accelerate. To help our bank clients we would always put out predictions of trends we were seeing across the whole of our network of common bank clients to help them get a sense of what was coming. We found this was valuable since a trend that caught on in Indiana and California might take off in other markets as well.

One of those trends that I personally took ownership of (and had major economic implications for our banking clients) was the coming decline in the growth of printed checks by the bank’s retail customers as electronic banking caught on and gained momentum.

There were two major check printing companies, Deluxe Check and Harland, who together easily controlled 80%+ of the retail check business with banks.  I had a small team that tracked the slowing growth of check volume by these two companies in hopes of allowing us to validate to our clients the decline in checks that was surely coming. By the mid 1990s, year-over-year growth in printed checks for these two companies had slowed to the low single digits. In 1995, the growth was under 2%. This gave me the confidence to predict in my January 1996 prediction that check volume would fall for the first time. I felt I was on fairly safe ground.

In 1996, however, printed check volume rose 4.3% over 1995. Huh?

Although I felt chastened, I could read the trend lines, and every subsequent year until I sold the company in 2000, I predicted that “this coming year” would see the expected drop-off in printed check volume. And every year up until 2000, check volume grew.

Though I sold my interest in the company and moved on to another industry, I kept my eye on check volume.

In 2001 the worm turned, and for the first time in over 100 years, check volume declined, down 6% in 2001 over 2000. Then came the waterfall. Check volume, which, for the past decade had been growing by low double digits – but still growing – suddenly went into freefall. Off by 14% in 2002, then another 17% in 2003, and then I quit tracking it because my long-predicted decline had arrived.

The banks were fine. By this time they had long-seen the trend to electronic banking and had been building out their electronic banking infrastructure and downsizing their check-processing capacities. They were ready for this major shift.

The check printing companies? Well, that is another story. They clearly saw the shift coming and they knew the end of their check-printing gravy train was coming to an end. They tried to diversify and to date have had some success. Are they still printing checks in 2014? Of course, but every year their volume drops. These check companies are still scrambling to find the new growth business that will be their future.

So why am I dredging up a story from my past?

Well, it’s because it really is an apt comparison to the fall-off of analog printing in general and direct mail (printed matter) in particular.

In fact, when I compare printed checks for banks being displaced by electronic banking, and printed direct mail appeal communications being displaced by online communications, I am struck by “the Internet” being the common thread. From the inception of the Internet in the 1990s, it has been disrupting industry after industry.

Recently The Agitator (another well-read blogger in the nonprofit fundraising space) played up the same post from AnalyticOnes I mentioned in Monday’s blog over three separate posts. That fact is quite remarkable for The Agitator. The post we were both focusing on is Unsustainable Trends (Part One and Two).

The implications contained in these two posts are not only the evidence of the coming fall-off in direct mail that so many have been predicting, but also show exactly why the fall-off is coming. Their conclusions are based on the data that AnalyticOnes has compiled in their work with nonprofit fundraisers . . . especially those with large direct mail programs.

Once you read these two posts and have digested the implications, you are left with two questions.

First, you now understand that it is about managing the decline of your direct mail program. Growth is coming to an end if it isn’t here already. How do you maximize and optimize your profitability as your program declines?

Second, what takes direct mail’s place?

My suggestion …

Call AnalyticOnes for the answer to the first question.

I think you know who to call for the second question.

Drip, Drip, Drip.

-Mike

BIG’s Blog: It Happened Again! – Re-posted with permission

Monday, January 13, 2014

John Henry, the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, recently purchased The Boston Globe . . . and this following the earlier news that The Washington Post was sold to Amazon.com CEO, Jeff Bezos. And a bit closer to home … for me … billionaire investor Warren Buffet purchased the Omaha World Herald.

Arguably, these guys are extremely smart and savvy investors (all billionaires after all). Presumably they don’t make investments to lose money. Warren Buffet is even on record as saying five years ago that he would not buy a newspaper at any price.

So what’s going on here?

What’s changed?

Here is my take from my own study and the consensus I have gleaned from other commentators. And MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU is that the implications of these billionaires’ decisions have a DIRECT LINK to your success in fundraising very soon.

Simply put … the worm has turned. Savvy investors have always known that newspapers have a strong brand and are trusted in their communities, but the delivery mechanism of newsprint and the business model of printed advertising aren’t viable anymore. People get their news online, and online services like craigslist have decimated “want ads” in the local paper. From the investor standpoint, as the presses shut down, costs drop dramatically, yet people still want news and information and they trust the brand of the newspaper to deliver their local news and information.
Savvy investors know that to make money you “buy low,” and the fire sale prices of these “news institutions” are low, low, low.

The old owners believed that a newspaper is newsprint and without the “dead tree” publication (as a good friend of mine calls it), it isn’t a newspaper. The old newspaper owners only know what they know about how to run a newspaper. Are these old owners stupid or just lazy? I say neither. The old owners just don’t want to step up and make the change; basically they are tired and looking for an exit ramp. They’ll let someone else figure it out.

How will newspapers generate revenue to pay their writers and editorial staff? These savvy investors believe that answer is already here and coming soon … and I believe them. They see that online communications technology is everywhere and that all forms of valuable content is being accessed … and paid for by customers. Honestly, tell me you don’t read the news on your phone, tablet or computer.

But who is going to pay these news organizations like The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, or the Omaha World Herald for their news?

See, that’s what separates some of you from the John Henrys, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffets of the world. You keep thinking like the OLD owners of these newspapers!

How much did you pay to rent movies at Blockbuster? How much do you pay a month to access movies on Netflix or a similar service? How much did your landline and long distance cost before the era of cell phones? And most people pay for their cars and their homes with “affordable” monthly payments.

Do you get it?

Hello! Monthly payments!

So how do the travails of the newspaper industry connect to nonprofit fundraising???

Your organization also has a tremendous brand name. You’ve been around awhile. You stand for something and your reputation has trust and respect and this goes double, triple, and quadruple for faith-based organizations!

The print-and-ink world of newspapers is going away even as online media opportunities are exploding … and THAT IS WHERE PEOPLE ARE … ONLINE!

I HAVE NOT READ A PRINTED PUBLICATION OR BOOK IN THREE YEARS AND I AM OVER 60!

You don’t need print to tell your story or reach people to have them connect with and support you. Quit thinking like OLD newspaper owners!

Your organization can be ITS OWN MEDIA COMPANY!

And, just like a fairly famous religious television network, people WILL send you monthly donations to underwrite your work!

Drip, Drip, Drip.
-Mike

Welcome to BIG’s Blog! Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers…and email me a comment at: mike@big-db.com

BIG’s Blog: Evolve or Die? – Re-posted with permission

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The “heart” of successful fundraising is still relationship.

When I talk to my 80-something mother about the “relationship” she has with the different organizations she supports, and I have essentially the same conversation about the “relationship” my 50-something wife has with the organizations she and I support, I quickly understand that each of their definitions of “relationship” is very different.

With my wife, relationship speaks to whom she knows, where they are working and what they are doing. Whereas with my mother, relationship speaks to the story or narrative she understands about the organization built up over decades.

My mother’s “know” is knowledge, the story, the narrative. No doubt the product of the mass communications paradigm we are quickly exiting.

My wife’s “know” is much more intimate and tied to the people and a particular mission and, yes, is driven by online communications.

We are quickly coming to a time when large monolithic nonprofit organizations like CARE, the Red Cross, and the American Cancer Society (and I chose these organizations because they are very large) are going to be under pressure to connect with new, younger generations of potential supporters in a much more intimate and personal way. And, to their credit, I am starting to see some signs of that move. For instance, following disasters, texting $10 has been very successful for the Red Cross, but the test will be how they follow up and develop these one-time donors into annual supporters … even without a disaster. That will take care and nurturing of the relationship.

It isn’t that my mother’s generation was easy and younger generations (beginning with the Baby Boomers) are hard. Rather, I think it’s more that younger generations are very different in what they look for and expect from the organizations they support today.

It isn’t harder vs. easier … they are just different.

Making a determination of “hard” versus “easy” is really more a reflection on what we know … our experience.

But this much is clear . . . going forward, relationship is going to be defined in a more intimate and personal way.

Drip, Drip, Drip.
-Mike

Welcome to BIG’s Blog! Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers…and email me a comment at: mike@big-db.com

BIG’s Blog: Drip, Drip, Drip into 2014! – Re-posted with Permission

Monday, December 30, 2013

What if they threw a party and no one came? Does it strike anyone else as odd that the Postal Regulatory Commission’s award on Christmas Eve of a 4.3% “exigency” increase to the Postal Service, now being decried as the end of direct mail, is really the most expected non-event in the history of the Postal Service as well as many circles (though not all) within the nonprofit fundraising community?

I mean, come on! Up to now everyone and their dog could have an opinion on the future of direct mail; or more particularly for fundraisers, the viability of direct mail as a long-term, cost-effective fundraising tactic. Now the “big boys” have stepped up to the microphone and have weighed in . . . and, by the way, they are the only voices that count.

Their verdict (it is now official) is that mail volume will continue to decline and to manage that decline without going deeper into the red, rates must rise, and quickly!  The definition of the peculiar word “exigent” is in line with Merriam Webster’s interpretation of “needing to be dealt with immediately.”

Make no mistake about what just happened; it is about managing the decline with as little red ink as possible. What part of “death spiral” don’t you understand?

Please see this as an extremely clear signal for what it is. I know some of you – up to now – still believe that direct mail is your present and your future (“we are up over last year. . .”) but please, please see this for what it is.

Drip, Drip, Drip.

And this is my final blog post mentioning anything related to postal rates, responses, costs, demise etc., etc. I personally am closing a chapter on direct mail. As many of you know, I have been a direct mail marketer for over 30 years! Actually, I closed my personal direct mail chapter five years ago, but up until now my “mentions” were to get you to the same point.

Now it’s over. The PRC’s ruling coming on the heels of the Canadian Postal Service announcement that it will stop home delivery and raise rates substantially ought to be all that you need to . . . as I said in a previous blog post . . . “change your mind.”

You don’t have to “read tea leaves”; this is in plain English. If you can’t see it now . . . there is nothing more I, or anyone else, can do for you.

So are you ready to move on and start building your plan to start growing your revenues significantly again in 2014?

Okay, so now we set about “getting serious” about VIABLE alternatives to direct mail.

But what do we really need to replace?

Direct mail is “relatively easy” to do, there was a time many years ago when it was new to us. Direct mail is also able to reach and build a “national constituency” from wherever your organization happens to be located.

Let’s start with those two criteria.

Relatively Easy: Have you ever learned something new? Skiing (snow or water)? Typing (now called keyboarding)? Driving a car? Would you say that you were an expert at the end of the first day? The second day? The first week? The first month? How about the first year? Even if it took you several years to become “expert” or “competent,” it didn’t mean you couldn’t . . . ski, type, or drive . . . when you started, you just became more competent over time.

National Constituency: Your message needs to cost-effectively reach thousands, even millions of people to find the individuals that share your passion for your ministry or mission. While the Postal Service provided a superb delivery mechanism, there was a cost to it. So you need a new mechanism through which you can share your message that is national (even international) in scope. Hmmmm, I wonder where we could find that?

So, where are we?

1. We need to “learn” a new way to communicate our message. It will help you that you understand direct mail. But, it will be new. But you CAN learn something new and though you won’t be an expert the first day, week, or month, you WILL have started the journey. Can you master something new? Yes!

2. We need a cost-effective mechanism that can allow us to share our message far and wide. And we don’t want to just depend on the written word. We want to share our message via the spoken word and even video. We think the Internet could be that mechanism. Are there limitations on media on the Internet? Not if they are digital. Can we learn and master the Internet? Yes?

Okay, we’ve started . . .

Have a wonderful New Year’s celebration . . . 2014 is the beginning of a “new” fundraising chapter for your organization.

Drip, Drip, Drip.

-Mike

http://bigthoughts4u.blogspot.com/2013/12/bigs-blog-drip-drip-drip-into-2014.html

Welcome to BIG’s Blog!  Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers…and email me a comment at: mike@big-db.com

 

BIG’s Blog: Why did this video go viral? – Re-Posted with Permission (Monday, December 16, 2013)

***TISSUE ALERT – Don’t make my mistake and read this at a public space like, oh a commuter rail station.  About 100 fellow commuters looked at me this morning as if I was in need of “confinement”.***

First of all, do you understand what the phrase “going viral” means when we use it in connection with a video? I’m sorry, I am certain most of my readers know this term, but some do not. And even those of you who understand the term as it applies to videos, still have yet to internalize the concept in what it could mean to your fundraising organization.

From About.com Web Trends: What Does “Viral” Really Mean? By definition, viral comes from the word “virus,” which is a medical term used to describe a small infectious agent that can infect all types of organisms. In terms of the Internet, a piece of content can spread just like a virus if people become “infected” when they see it. The infection usually comes from emotions that spur the viewer to share it, so they can relate with other people and discuss how they feel.

Watch this short video.

Have you watched it?

Now sit back and ask yourself, “What if instead of WestJet, our organization would have done that?”

Look, I get it that this is not typically or even remotely part of your mission or ministry, but think about it . . . it isn’t WestJet’s mission either.

The Net has the POWER to connect you . . . introduce your organization . . . to millions of people (19 million in WestJet’s case) who have NEVER heard of your organization. Honestly, have you ever heard of WestJet before?

Oh, and by the way, WestJet is a low-cost Canadian air carrier. Why do I bring up that Canadian fact? Well, big news out of the great white north this last week. Last week Canada’s Postal Service announced that they will cease home delivery over the next five years, and substantially increase postal rates. Why? Because just like the United States Postal Service, they are dying. Don’t miss that point.

How far behind is the USPS?

But what were we talking about before I digressed into Canada’s Postal Service? Oh yes, that potentially you could reach 19 million people if you create a video that goes viral.

At this juncture now that you are really thinking, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we have a few slots open for our online learning Course’s, “Acquiring the Next Generation of Supporters,” January term where you could learn how to do fundraising 100% online.

Join us.

-Mike

Welcome to BIG’s Blog!  Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers…and email me a comment at: mike@big-db.com

 

BIG’s Blog: We Need Heroes – Re-posted with Permission

Right now in the nonprofit fundraising world, more than anything else . . . we need heroes.

Historical heroes like George Washington in the United States or Nelson Mandela for South Africa are in the pantheon of heroes because they personally sacrificed so much so that we could be the beneficiaries.

When you compare the sacrifices of George Washington or Nelson Mandela to what is being asked of leaders today in nonprofit fundraising, it seems on the surface that there is no comparison. . . yet that is not true. There is courage and sacrifice inherent in stepping forward and finally saying, “we need to seek a new way, we need to leap.” That does take courage and, on any level, courage is courage.

As Seth Godin stated in one of his recent blogs . . .

“Rapid change exposes the work of outsiders, neophytes and most of all, those attracted by the chance to grow. Rapid change sweeps aside the status quo and those that defend it (the stuck former geniuses and the stuck bureaucrats). It replaces them with those willing to leap.”

Will you leap?

Will you be the hero we look back 20 years from now?

We need heroes more than ever today!

Join us.
-Mike

BIG’s Blog: A Changing World for Fundraising – Re-Posted with Permission

August 22, 2013

At last year’s National Catholic Development Conference, Susan Raymond, Ph.D., from Changing Our World, Inc., gave a fascinating and incredibly timely keynote address on the changing demographic makeup of the United States and its impact on fundraising in the years to come. It certainly was a wake-up call to many of those in attendance that I talked to.

Recently, The Chronicle of Philanthropy ran an article, Raising Money in a Changing World, highlighting many of the same themes in America’s demographic transition. In the article, they highlighted Emmett Carson, the president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, saying that nonprofits should already be laying the groundwork in learning about the wishes and hopes of new donors. “Charities that don’t recognize demographic trends are going to shrink and ultimately go out of business,” says Carson. “The populations in the past that have supported them so spectacularly will not have the base of support going forward. This is adapt, change or die.”

Pretty strong words, but Susan Raymond said exactly the same thing in detail a year ago.

Here are just a few of the highlights from The Chronicle of Philanthropy article.

White Americans will no longer be the majority. By 2045, people of color will outnumber whites in the U.S.

Women are gaining economic power. 40% of women with children under 18 are the prime breadwinners in their households. And of these, 37% are married and earn more than their husbands. Nearly half of students now enrolled in law and medical schools are women.

Today’s young adults will push philanthropy to change. Those born beginning in the early 1980s are more demanding, seeking concrete results from their gifts (investments). Charities that tap into their desire for hands-on engagement will win.

Baby Boomers are reaching their prime giving years. Boomers are moving into the age when people start getting organized about their philanthropy and Baby Boomers being 76 million strong will begin to impact philanthropy by the end of this decade.

Secularism is on the rise.  This is a tough one for faith-based organizations now that one in five Americans now claims no religious affiliation. Over the last few decades, religious giving has decreased as a share of all giving. And even donors who are driven by faith are showing more flexibility about where their money goes.

It is way more than just being online, but if you are not online…

Join us!

-Mike

http://bigthoughts4u.blogspot.com/2013/08/bigs-blog-changing-world-for-fundraising.html