I have long been an advocate of using sweepstakes (or raffles) to raise money.  We had a very successful sweeps while I was at Thirteen and here at CBA, we’ve helped KQED run their very successful raffle for quite some time.

Sweeps got a bunch of bad press in the 90s as some of them (not ones that non-profits ran) were seen as deceptive, especially to the elderly.  As a result, many non-profits let theirs fall to the wayside (including Thirteen unfortunately).

That’s too bad, as sweeps can be very profitable because they give donors another way to give.  (Read on …)

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CBA has been in the business of helping others via direct marketing for over 32 years. We often receive praise and criticism from the organizations we partner with. But I don’t remember ever being critiqued by a member/donor who received our mail piece.

Pat Callahan, Director of Membership at AZPM Tucson (formerly KUAT), passed along notes written on our December ‘08 special appeal letter from one of her members.

(Read on …)

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Recently we set out to determine if the gift ladder we have been using in our Special Appeals is in fact doing its job: getting as many members as possible to become multi-gift donors and maximizing the amount of their gifts.

Specifically, we are looking for ways to increase response and income, but are concerned that too many members are downgrading their gifts.  Although we realize that the weak economy is influencing smaller gift giving, we want to know if any of the suggested amounts are more compelling than others and we especially want to know how the donors are using the “Other” option; to go higher or lower? (Read on …)

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