Using the Internet to Increase Major and Planned Gift Fundraising (part 4 of a series)

Using the Internet to Increase Major and Planned Gift Fundraising (part 4 of a series)

By Tom Wilson Major Gifts Guru

Here is a continuing article from the San Francisco 2009 AHP International (Association of Healthcare Professionals) annual meeting. These gems were gleaned from Sandra Henningsen who presented a session on Maximizing Your eMarketing Success for Major & Planned Gifts.

eNewsletters – these can be effective ways of communicating with prospective major gift and planned estate gift donors. They can include stories of donors, news articles about your organization, and links to staff “welcoming” web pages. Be sure to include links to further information on your website and to a PDF of your longer, print newsletter.

I was intrigued by the information about a staff welcome page. Sandra suggested putting the lead gift officers at the top of the page with smiling pictures and also including any staff that donors may interact with – receptionists, other major gift officers, etc. Some website use an optional video greeting as well to help break down barriers and make the staff more real and approachable.

Send eNewsletters to your existing list and let them know they can opt out at any time. Most will stay in.

There is a trend to eNewsletters as they are relatively inexpensive and very “green;” no paper or postage. The speaker noted Blanchard Valley Health Foundation invited people to the opening of their imaging center through their eNewsletter.

You can also announce planned estate giving seminars by eNewsletter and then link to the professional speakers and their photos on your website. Again, this breaks down barriers to communicating with advisors who will complete donor gifts and provides your professional advisors with good visibility to potential clients (a win for everyone).

A personal note from a client experience – they went to an eNewsletter format and it was great. But, they stopped doing a traditional newsletter. I recommended they do both because we were missing 35% of the emails from our target audience of 70 and older prospects. Maybe 10 to 20 years from now we can go all electronic, but not yet. Keep using multiple platforms to reach the most people.

This article is part of a series. To read the rest of the series, please click the links below:

• Using the Internet to Increase Major and Planned Gift Fundraising (part 1 of a series)
• Using the Internet to Increase Major and Planned Gift Fundraising (part 2 of a series)
• Using the Internet to Increase Major and Planned Gift Fundraising (part 3 of a series)
• Using the Internet to Increase Major and Planned Gift Fundraising (part 5 of a series)

Permanent Link: Using the Internet to Increase Major and Planned Gift Fundraising (part 4 of a series)

http://majorgiftsguru.com/2009/10/using-internet-to-increase-major-and_07.html