Choices, Choices, Choices

I was opening my mail from the last week today and realized that we are starting the winter fundraising year as I had 6 different solicitations in my pile. Of interest was that 3 were from places that I have supported already and the other 3 were from places that I have never given to.

Of the three that I had never given to, none of the three made a effort to address the nature of our relationship thus far and only one made an effort to build a case for why I should give from a general standpoint.

Of the three that I had supported at some point, two made a clear case for giving while one made at least a case for what good they do.

The interesting thing is that of the six pieces, at least 4 came from organizations that have my electronic information as well. Yet, not one of them made any effort to contact me in a similar timeframe that way or to tie the mailing effort to an electronic appeal or informational effort.

That lack of connectivity and messaging combined with the fact that the only way I have ever given to the three that I have given to is online, leaves the door open for many other organizations. If you are not now doing so, at very least ensure that you match solicitation method to giving method on top of what else you are doing. IE if you have a donor who gives online, ensure that when you mail to them, you also email them and in the mail appeal reflect that effort.

pin it to win it

I know, I know, I used the play on Winning on my last post as well and that Charlie Sheen line is totally used up already. That may be, but "winning" still registers on Google trends above where it stood prior to Charlie. Of more interest here, Pinterest is now growing rapidly as a search term.

Of course in social media relationships, the vast majority of "importance" is driven by referals - in common terms, who is making it rain. For the month of January, Pinterest did just that, bringing in the visitors at a higher rate than Youtube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined!

So to continue the conversation that I started last time, the question is how do we leverage this growing tool? It does have some limitations and in some ways that is encouraging because they will start to make the adjustments needed to fix those challenges and that is only going to help continue that growth trend.