This video tutorial shows you how to set up basic formulas in MS Excel. By using this method, you would be able find out your direct mail response rates and average gift. Also, I touch on how to "reverse engineer" your statistics if you only know the response rates and average gift, perhaps from a past mailer. 

You can check out my other video tutorial on how to use Excel for fundraisers here. 

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When I was working at Southern Miss, we received a file to do a mailer to parents of current students. Of course, Admissions didn't have lovely and clean addressee and salutation fields and in fact, we didn't even have the parent's first name in most cases. 

I learned to use the "concatenate" formula to use that raw data to create addressees and salutations that were appropriate for direct mail. When we didn't have the parent's first name we used the student's name. It looked like "Dear Parents of John Doe,". Sometimes you make lemonade out of lemons. 

It's not uncommon in fundraising to get a list of prospects that has "raw data" with first name and last name as separate fields, no titles and no addressees or salutations. Before you can create a mail merge or import those into your database, you'll need to create the fields that you need. And you'll want to do it cleanly and efficiently. 

In this video, I'll show you 3 tricks in MS Excel that will help you save time and frustration in creating addressees and salutations for a list of prospects. 

1) Use filters to create working groups
2) Use the "concatenate" formula to string text together
3) Use "paste values" to turn your data set into editable text

If you liked this video, check out my video on using Excel's "filter by color" function to plan your donor trips. And subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising to get content like this in your inbox. 

I love to learn new tricks in MS Excel. Learning about how to use filters and specifically the "filter by color" function has helped me to stay organized in my work. In this video, I show you how I use Excel to get my visits for donor trips, including how to use filters and "filter by color". 

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Deciding where you need to go is the first step to planning your travel. In the absence of wealth screening data or other ratings, I've found it helpful to run a list of every donor who has given $1,000 or more in the last 5 years to my institution. That provides me with a basis for deciding what major metropolitan areas I should visit over the course of the next year. 

Then you'll need to decide on your travel method. I have used car, plane and train  to get where I need to be and each has its own set of pros and cons. You will need to try out different methods and develop your own personal preferences of course. 

​For flights, I start with kayak.com. I like it because I am close to at least 5 possible airports and Kayak gives you great results for looking at nearby airports. This means I can quickly see which airport has the best possible prices for my organization's budget. Then I also check out Southwest too. Southwest airfares won't be in any of the standard databases or searches. Once I have decided on the exact flights I want, I go over to expedia.com because I can pick my exact seat on every flight. This is useful if my family is traveling with me (as they do from time to time) because I go back and purchase the same exact flights with my personal card and select the seats right next to mine. 

​I'm a Hilton Honors member, so I often make that my next stop. (It doesn't matter which loyalty program you join but you will want to join one of them.) I use the Hilton website in close concert with Google Maps because I want to know where my hotel is compared with the home and office locations of most of the donors I need to see. I especially need to know how close everything is so I know whether I require a rental car. I find I'm partial to Embassy Suites, Homewood Suites, and Hampton Inn brands. They have tea always available in the lobby, generous breakfast and most have laundry on site (a must if you ever travel with kids).

For rental cars, I like priceline. I try to avoid doing rental cars whenever I can use public transport and/or taxis to get to my visits. When I must have one, I'm not loyal to any one vendor. Price is the big factor. 

When I arrive, I make extensive use of Google Maps and also Yelp to find places nearby to eat. To make reservations for donor lunches or dinners, I like Open Table. I also like a little history app called Clio. If I'm ever waiting anywhere, I just pull this up and the app shows me all the historical sites that are nearby. It's a great way to get to know a city even if you are too busy to actually go see much of it. 

I have a very specific way that I prep documents for my travel too.  Check back for that post next week.

In my current job, I have to be very budget conscious and protective of my own time. I am pretty much a one person shop but we do a number of events of various size throughout the year. I was spending too much money ordering invitations online from sites like Paperless Post. I would have to wait 10 days to get the materials before I could stuff envelopes and the designs were not customizable enough for my taste.

I knew we could do better. I searched for "corporate invitations" on Etsy and after a bit of searching I found Eden Creative Studios. I liked the style of her print-your-own invitations. I sent her a message letting her know I needed 8 different custom versions of her templates. She customized them and gave me a 20% discount for paying for them all at once.

Four custom save-the-dates and four custom invitations cost my organization only $144! We did a few drafts back and forth, getting it exactly how I liked it and then she sent me PDFs (for sending to the print shop) and JPEGs (for use in HTML emails).

I sent the designs to a local print shop and starting stuffing within 2 days of sending the invitations to print. I've gotten lots of compliments on how the cards look from donors and friends of the school. If you are a small shop with graphic design needs, you can get beautiful work done on Etsy and save your institution some money.

You can see redacted versions of some of the invitations and save-the-dates that Eden did for my organization in the slideshow above.