1. Select a different signatory. If your CEO or President usually signs the letters, consider having a donor, volunteer, board member, student, scholarship recipient, grateful patient, recent graduate or faculty member sign the letter this year. Write from their perspective.
2. Do an “Ugly Betty”. So named because it isn’t pretty. This kind of mailing looks like those magazine subscription renewal letters you get. Almost no copy but just a perfunctory reminder to renew giving. People do them all the time because they work.
3. Write a copy-heavy letter. Most of the direct mail pieces I’m seeing in higher education are graphics heavy and, in my opinion, over-produced. Take inspiration from small nonprofits and write a long form letter, going into greater detail about your mission and impact. Don’t be afraid of 3 or 4 or more pages of copy.
4. Break up your copy with bold font, underlines, small paragraphs and block quotes.
5. Don’t forget the PS. Everybody reads the PS. Reiterate your call-to-action here. Don’t be afraid to add a PPS.
6. Go super-short. If you normally write a longer letter, try an abbreviated copy that will force you to squeeze the mission and call-to-action in as quickly as possible. The front of one letter sized page with letterhead would be my recommendation. I've gone as short as the space between the bottom of the letterhead and the top of the bottom third (which was a tear off reply card) with success!
7. Put your “updates” on the back. All that great stuff that faculty and/or program staff want you to communicate doesn’t belong front and center in a fundraising letter. A solicitation isn’t their annual newsletter. Put pictures and “talking points” on the back of the letter.
8. Consider doing a planned giving focused letter. Select a targeted group and write with the goal of generating leads for your planned giving staff rather than dollars-in-the-door right now.
9. Test including matching gift brochures in your mailing. Include a blurb about matching gifts in the PS. (You can get brochures here.) 
10. Get inspired by looking at samples on SOFII, the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration.
11. Find and tell the most compelling story you can. Pull some heartstrings. Be emotional.
12. On the other hand, you might need to go to the data. Put in some graphs that show how the cost of an education has changed. Or how much state support has decreased. This might be old news for you but revelatory for your prospects.
13. Write about student debt loads at your institution by checking out your statistics at The Project on Student Debt. Here's my post about how to use student debt data. 
14. Change your focus. If you normally solicit for the college level, consider a general fund letter or a departmental letter.
15. Work with major gift officers to secure a matching donation. Write a challenge letter and have the donor sign it.
16. Research “envelope tricks” and try something new on the outside of your letter.
17. Make sure your institution is doing all that they can with data research to have correct addresses. Here’s a quick introduction to basic research. 
18. Ask your mail vendor to send you a stack of samples. Even if you don’t use a mail processing vendor now, you can inquire with one and they will send you samples.
19. Ban the phrase “make a difference”. Get a large white board and write as many phrases as you can in answer to the question, “What do I mean when I say the donor’s gift will make a difference?” Characterize the difference. What does it look like, feel like, or do in the world?
20. Construct a peer-solicitation strategy. Recruit representatives to sign the letters from each class year and segment accordingly.
21. Put your name on the mailing list of 10 different nonprofits you admire. Within a month, you’ll have a stack of samples. Read them and see which ones move you and why.
22. Write your direct mail FAR in advance. Start writing your fall mailings now. The longer lead time you give yourself, the freer you’ll be to be creative and try new things.
23. Find a story highlighted in another department and expand upon it. A story of a scholarship recipient shared on social media. The story of a bequest that was in the planned giving newsletter. The student highlighted in the admissions mailing because they won the Rhodes Scholarship. It’s okay to re-use, especially if they have different audiences.
24. Try a survey mailing. Ask your constituents about how they feel about the institution, how they like to give, and why they give. Include an ask too, of course.
25. If this is appropriate to your mission, include a petition for a lobbying issue. Ask them to give to the same issue.
26. Stay away from premiums! Giveaways should be used for stewardship not acquisition. If they send you $10 because you gave them a luggage tag or address labels, why would they give next year? You’ll be putting yourself on a hamster wheel.
27. Do a big quality check on your organization’s addressee and salutation fields. If these are wrong or wonky, it can make your organization look very silly and prevent prospects from EVER opening your letters.
28. This one is hard. Consider whether you really need a refresh. Are your donors bored? Or are YOU bored? If the results bear out that your current strategy is working, don’t mess with success. Instead, ask your supervisor whether you can expand your work into another area in order to keep yourself growing and challenged.
29. Find inspiration from the for-profit world of direct marketing. Follow Direct Marketing News on Facebook. Here’s some of their resources. 
30. Research donor-centric copy. This post was pivotal when I was teaching myself to write copy for direct mail: Future Fundraising Now, Some Donor Centered Copy Examples
31. ​Write your donor using engaging narration. You’ve probably heard it before but take your draft and write it again using the word “you” more often. Make it about how the donor is changing something for the better because they gave (or will be giving).

Did you get at least 2 good ideas to pursue from this list?

Which one was most helpful? Do you have any tips for my readers struggling to make their direct mail copy fresh?

Comments and questions are, as always, welcomed and encouraged!

Best of luck in your copywriting! Cheers,
 
Jessica Cloud
 
PS – I TOLD YOU EVERYONE READS THE PS! If you liked this post, you might also like these:

• Spoilt for Choice: Why Giving Donors Direction Works
• Is Direct Mail Really Dead?
• Five Steps to Break Through Your Direct  Mail Writer's Block
• VIDEO Tutorial: How to Set Up Formulas in Excel for Direct Mail Statistics
• An introduction to Evidence Based Fundraising

PPS - If you found this article helpful, please comment and let me know. Also subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising so you don't miss a post! You'll get my guide to Call Center Games for Free!​​

​I’ve talked about finding the stories of impact and sharing them with your donors. The importance of letting donors see how their gifts have transformed lives cannot be overstated.

Upon reflection, I realized that I have overlooked throughout my entire career, one very important story: my own. I have searched for the stories of scholarship recipients at every institution I’ve worked for and totally forgot to be recognize the impact donors have had on my own journey.

I was lucky enough to have been awarded a 4-year leadership scholarship which covered my room and board at my alma mater, The University of Southern Mississippi, but I was also the recipient of a generous scholarship so that I could go to London one summer for study abroad. The Dean of the Honors College also sent me on two trips (one to Princeton and one to Washington, D.C.) using funds that I now know must have been generated from Annual Fund gifts. I also know that charitable donations helped to support the fantastic Honors Forum series that brought the most incredible scholars and public intellectuals to Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Here are some experiences that I have been able to have because I received scholarship support:

• I graduated my undergraduate with a paltry amount of student loan debt, especially considering that my experiences included a month abroad, a month long internship in Washington, DC, a two-week conference trip to DC and a week at Princeton for a conference.
• I've seen Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and a number of his other paintings in Paris, London, New York and Washington, D.C, sparking a lifelong interest in art history even though I never studied it formally.
• I've attended a Presidential inauguration and laid eyes on the lap-desk which Thomas Jefferson probably wrote The Declaration of Independence upon.
• I got to fly internationally before 9/11.
• I’ve visited Stonehenge, many castles, and a number of other sites in Britain.
• I’ve been to a conference at Princeton University and took my first day trip to New York City.
• I’ve stood in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and stared at an Egyptian hawk statue for well over 15 minutes.
• I got to visit Hampton Court Palace and stand in the same place that Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn probably walked. (In the photo above, I’m standing in the famous gardens in 2001.) The ceiling of The Chapel Royal is one of the most aesthetically arresting things I’ve ever seen. So beautiful.
• I got my first professional job in fundraising through a job bank that I signed up for during one of the first trips I took to Washington, DC. At that job, I met my husband.
• I'm pretty sure that I'm the only member of my family to of been out of the country who wasn't in the military.
• I’m pretty sure I'm the first member of my family to pursue any level of graduate education
• I've heard Dr. Brian Greene (the string theorist), Jared Diamond, Bob Woodward, Thomas Hoving, Ralph Nader, and David Brooks and many other world renowned speakers talk about their areas of expertise. Several of these intellectuals, I still read every new book they publish.

As you can see, I have so much to be grateful for. I will let my career in philanthropy be my personal thank-you to all of the hundreds (if not thousands) of donors who made my education and my life today possible.

With sincere thanks,

​Jessica Cloud

​This is the final installment of my series on improving phonathon contact rates.
 
With average student loan debt loads reaching astronomical levels, many institutions have questioned whether they should give their new graduates a break and exclude them from traditional solicitation methods like mail and phone. (Click here, if you’re interested in learning more about student loan issues.)
 
This is a dangerous consideration for the immediate profitability and long-term viability of phonathon programs. The reason why lies in the history of cell phones. Here’s a quick history lesson and some other reasons why I don’t think you should stop soliciting your young alumni through mail or phone (regardless of student loan status).
 
As I’ve discussed in this series, contact rates are a key statistic that governs the productivity of phonathon programs. Two macro-forces are at work which make young alumni some of the best pools for contact rate these days.
 
Wireless number portability
 
In 2003, it became mandated that users could keep their cell phone number when they transferred wireless vendors. Before that, cell phones numbers were much less stable. Today’s student will likely keep their cell phone number well into adulthood if not forever.
 
The Virginia Tech Effect
 
Since the shootings at Virginia Tech (2007), universities have been implementing systems to collect student cell phone data so that mass text alerts could be sent out on safety issues. The long-term implication of this process is that the numbers (at many institutions) migrate over to the alumni database upon graduation, which is great news for phonathon programs.
 
ACTION ITEM: Check with Advancement Services to make sure that when they undertake their “grad loads” the cell phones on record are coming over as well and are being coded properly.
 
Size of young alumni pools
 
Aside from your institution being able to contact these alumni more easily, these are also probably some of your largest groups. Most institutions have grown leaps and bounds over the last 30-40 years. It’s likely that your organization graduates many more alumni each year now than the institution did 20-50 years ago. If you hopes to keep pace with peer institutions in terms of alumni participation, calling these large, well-connected groups is essential.
 
ACTION ITEM: Do a quick experiment, find out how many alumni have graduated in the last 10 years and then see what just those alumni represented to your phonathon in terms of contacts, dollars and donors. The significance of the number will likely surprise you. Although the average gift is often lower than other groups, participation is usually higher and volume is on your side. Totals add up fast when you have such large groups.
 
Case Building and Setting Expectations
 
Even if a prospect tells you no this year, an important process of philanthropic education occurs. The student caller has still presented the needs of the university and planted a seed which may grow into future giving. The benefit of this cannot be overstated. Solicitation is important even when it results in a refusal.
 
If, for instance, those with student loan debt cannot give this year, having a phone call begins a process of case-building which may resonate in the future when they are able to give.
 
ACTION ITEM: I recommend capturing refusal reasons so they can be tracked over time. If possible, I recommend adding a custom refusal reason for student loan debt and utilize this over the next 3 years to track trends with respect to this refusal reason as an analytical tool. However, restricting solicitation is not the best method for dealing with this refusal. Building a better case over time would be a better way to handle it.
 
Long-term lead generation
 
A report on Cultivating Lifelong Donors (2010) from Blackbaud states:
 
“Research shows that donors make $1,000 gifts to organizations most often when they have already been giving to the organization for about seven years. Long-term research with successful nonprofits also shows that those very same donors are approximately 900% more likely to make a major gift in their lifetime than individuals without that progressive history.”
 
For those of us in higher education, this means that we must acquire our new alumni very soon after graduation. Otherwise, they will develop a habit of giving to another non-profit organization and any major gifts they might make later in life are less likely to be given to our institutions.
 
I hope you found this blog post insightful and helpful. If you did, please subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising. 

For those of us working in higher education fundraising, the issue of student debt has an increasing amount of relevance. The Project on Student Debt through the Institute for College Access and Success writes, “Over the last decade—from 2004 to 2014—the share of graduates with debt rose modestly (from 65% to 69%) while average debt at graduation rose at more than twice the rate of inflation.” How can we expect our young alumni to give back to our institutions when they can barely make their loan payments?

Many in society are questioning whether a college education is good investment and the view of college is shifting to one that is transactional, rather than transformational. Not only should advancement professionals stay up-to-speed on these issues because of how it may affect the way young alumni give (or don’t give), but we should also utilize this as an opportunity to put out positive messages about how philanthropy can mitigate this situation for scholarship recipients.

There are great resources available that track this information. The organization cited above (The Project on Student Debt) collects data from most colleges and universities and reports it online. You can access overall statistics, historical trends as well as data by state and by institution. With a little bit of research time, you can learn how your institution compares with peer institutions and with other institutions in your state. You can also see how the trends have change over time. The historical reports are a bit more difficult to find so here are links to the reports for 2011, 2012 and 2013.

2011: http://ticas.org/content/pub/student-debt-and-class-2011
2012: http://ticas.org/content/pub/student-debt-and-class-2012
2013: http://ticas.org/sites/default/files/legacy/fckfiles/pub/classof2013.pdf

Another great resource for geeks like me is this interactive graph from the New York Times.
​
I love this resource because it lets you see how the trends with student debt change across time and you can see how the cost of tuition has risen. You can break it down by all different kinds of criteria. For instance, here’s the some data for the Southeastern Athletic Conference for 2004 (top graph):
 
 
Notice how low nearly all of the schools are in terms of both cost and student debt (blue dots). The only outlier is Vanderbilt (orange dot), which had slightly higher debt loads but was much more expensive. The expense is not surprising since it’s the only private school in the SEC.

Now take a look at the 2nd graph. It’s the same data for the same schools 6 years later.

At the University of Georgia in 2004, the annual tuition was only a bit more than $4,000 and the student debt was around $13,000. By 2010, tuition at UGA was over $7,500 and the average amount of student debt was now almost $16,000.

There’s a totally different story at Vandy and it’s completely counterintuitive. In 2004, the average Vandy grad carried over $24,000 in student loans. The cost of an education was almost $28,000. The cost to attend Vandy rose to over $38,000 in 2010, but the average amount of student debt DECREASED to $18,600.

How could this be? The answer is obvious: philanthropy. Vandy must have raised and awarded more scholarship during this 6-year period. So, charitable giving can make a marked difference in the future of an average student where debt is concerned. Why are we not writing this into each single phonathon script and direct mail piece that we produce in higher education fundraising?
​
I encourage you to play around with these tools and do some research into the trends at your own institution. You can then build statistically relevant objection responses for alumni who say they cannot give due to student loan debt loads and more importantly you can more effectively market the potential positive impact that major donors can have when they make a gift for scholarships.