Direct Mail Fundraising in 2024 – What the Benchmarks Tell Us
We know you’ve been patiently waiting, and it’s finally here – the 2024 Canadian Direct Mail Benchmarks Report is now ready for you to download and discover! The Cole’s Notes, you ask? TLDR: This year’s benchmarks are relatively flat, with minor swings up or down for the majority of indicators. Direct mail fundraisers, you’ve weathered the […]
Why Do Benchmarks Matter to YOU?
Soon my fellow Good Workers and I will be releasing this year’s Canadian Direct Mail Benchmarks Report. As I was looking a draft of the report, two questions came to mind: Why are benchmarks important in the first place? Do fundraisers like you and me use benchmarks as much as we could (and should)? Today, […]
How To Analyze Your Direct Mail Performance in 2021
So, how did your direct mail program do this year? That’s the question that’s on every mail fundraiser’s mind as we head into the final stretch of year-end. Gifts are being processed, cheques are being opened, digital campaigns are being scheduled – and through it all, we’re watching to see: Will we hit our targets […]
Let Your Donors be the Jury
I’ve been a partner at Good Works for 25 years now. But, before I became a Good Worker, I was a client – twice! Back in the 1990s, I learned direct mail fundraising from the experts at Good Works. There was one lesson they taught me that stands above all the others – and that […]
My Big Benchmarks Surprise
Poor direct mail. It’s been the unpopular cousin of other fundraising channels in many people’s minds for years now. To many fundraisers, direct mail fundraising had its heyday back in the 1980s and 1990s, but then started its long, steady decline toward oblivion. ‘Cutting edge’ thinkers and fundraising pundits predicted that direct mail would just […]
Tell Them “Why” – Insights from the Global Online Fundraising Scorecard
I have a feeling I’m on the cusp of a dreaded parenting rite of passage with my almost 2-year-old: the “why” phase. (For you seasoned parents mocking me for calling it a phase, please just chuckle to yourselves at my naivete instead of bursting my bubble!) As a parent, I’m not looking forward to the […]
Direct Mail In Canada: Where It’s Been, And Where It’s Going
All things COVID aside, there’s never been a better time to be Canadian – amiright? Nice, friendly people, free healthcare, gorgeous scenery, timbits and all-dressed chips. The bottom line is – Canada is awesome. And the charitable donors in this country? Even awesomer. But like so many things, fundraising benchmarks, data and research is mostly […]
Search For New Donors The Smart Way
Where we’ve been In today’s direct mail marketplace, the fundraiser’s biggest struggle is the search for new donors. No matter how great our stewardship and retention efforts are, the fact remains that we need to replenish about a third of our direct response donor base annually if we want to avoid shrinking our donor pool. […]