FundRaiser Blog

Do your appeals sound like “holiday family” letters?

For many people December’s mail brings two kinds of letters: holiday cards with family letters and appeals from non-profit organizations. And all too often both types of letters sound alike. How come and what can you do to avoid it?

Holiday family letters, the kind you slip into cards, are often seen as “catching up” for friends and family who don’t keep in touch. Sometimes when such letters are received, the person is scrambling to remember how they knew the person or even what relations they have in common. The same thing occurs with fundraising letters. You might get one in the mail and think “when did I support them?” or “how did they get my name again?”

FundRaiser software has several different analytical reports that can help you and your organization look more deeply into your data. While some of them, such as the donor level report or the donor period comparison report provide gift and monetary totals, which are easily used to determine giving levels over a set period of time, other reports give plain statistical data.