September 10, 1998 | Read Time: 8 minutes
Charities use electronic messages to reach computer-savvy donors
No one was more surprised than Kirk Gardner when the results of his e-mail fund-raising campaign netted more than $100,000. As director of major gifts at the University of Maryland Medical System, in Baltimore, Mr. Gardner’s mission was to support research into a rare digestive disorder called celiac disease. He had hoped to bring in $10,000 — maybe $20,000, if he was lucky.
Except for a kick-off party, which cost less than $200, the campaign was conducted entirely in cyberspace.
Mr. Gardner contacted editors of three electronic-mail newsletters on the disease and asked them to request donations in a forthcoming issue.
For months afterward, people who got the e-mail newsletters told friends and relatives about the request for money. They printed out the electronic-mail messages and passed them out at support-group meetings for people affected by the disease. Some even placed the appeals in regional print newsletters. With almost no cost to the university, the fund-raising appeal spread far beyond the Internet. “These were people we would not have otherwise had any access to, that we did not know existed,” says Mr. Gardner.
The kind of campaign Mr. Gardner used shows how successful Internet fund raising can be when it uses e-mail to reach out to donors rather than relying on people to come to a Web site.
“People create bigger and brighter home pages and try to get folks to respond,” says Mr. Gardner, who is now director of major gifts at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in La Jolla, Cal. “But fund raising has never worked that way. You have to go to the people.”
Charities are using e-mail to send electronic newsletters, to provide updates on their activities and campaigns, to thank donors, to invite them to events — even to negotiate major gifts. It is well worth the effort, say experts. The potential to reach donors is growing all the time. Currently, 47 million people over the age of 12 use e-mail at home, and an estimated 105 million will be using it by 2002, ac cording to Forrester Research, in Cambridge, Mass.
One reason Mr. Gardner succeeded is that he didn’t send any unsolicited e-mail but instead found a way to reach people who already had asked for electronic information about celiac disease. Few charity fund raisers send direct appeals via e-mail, largely out of concern that they will alienate donors, who often do not like getting mass electronic mailings — sometimes referred to as “spam.”
Some people pay for Internet access by the minute, or per message, so unwanted e-mail costs them money, in addition to cluttering electronic mailboxes.
Children Now, an Oakland, Cal., group that promotes the well-being of youngsters, includes fund-raising appeals in every issue of its e-mail newsletter. To avoid complaints about spamming, the newsletter is sent only to people who sign up for it, says Michael Stein, senior development associate. Furthermore, each issue includes instructions on how to cancel the subscription and assures users that the charity does not trade or rent e-mail addresses.
“The fact that we don’t get angry letters and e-mails tells me we are doing something right,” says Mr. Stein.
Like Children Now, other charities are creating their own e-mail newsletters and asking for money in every issue.
In just three months, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has accumulated 6,000 subscribers to its new monthly e-mail magazine. That’s almost as many names as are on the organization’s direct-mail list of 8,000 donors.
Each “e-zine” has a brief summary of articles that appear on the group’s Internet site and contains an appeal to donors. Readers who have certain kinds of e-mail software can link directly from the e-mail to the Web site, where each page contains information on how to contribute.
Keith Stroup, executive director of the group, does not know how many gifts have come in as a result of the e-mail publication, but that doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm about its fund-raising potential.
“We have 6,000 new people who were not members of the organization but are obviously interested in the work we do,” he says. “One presumes that a percentage of those folks will at some point switch over and become regular supporters.”
Other charities are using e-mail to enhance relations with donors by sending them special updates, inviting them to events, and sending prompt thank-you messages for gifts.
“It’s a fabulous cultivation tool,” says Nick Allen, director of Internet services at Mal Warwick & Associates, a direct-marketing consulting firm in Berkeley, Cal. “E-mail lets you stay in regular contact with supporters in a very inexpensive and unobtrusive and friendly way, so you can tell them about your successes and your campaigns, as well as opportunities for them to help your organization.”
California State Polytechnic University, in Pomona, collects e-mail addresses for its alumni directory by periodically mailing graduates a postcard that asks for that information, as well as other data included in the directory. Staff members have also been instructed to request e-mail addresses whenever alumni call on the phone.
The university now uses e-mail, whenever possible, to keep graduates abreast of campus news, tell them how donations are being spent, and give donors a timely thank-you for gifts.
Some charities have found that requesting e-mail addresses from potential donors improves fund raising in unexpected ways. After the New York chapter of the Stanford Alumni Association started sending e-mail to give people updates on special events and other activities, attendance at fund-raising events increased significantly, according to Jerold Pearson, director of research in the university’s development office.
Mr. Pearson had a similar experience when using e-mail to recruit alumni to participate in “focus groups” to offer their ideas on how the university could improve its Internet site. He was able to organize the groups much more quickly than usual, he says, and alumni preferred the electronic invitation to getting a phone call.
Although fund raisers are starting to see benefits of using e-mail, most still do not use it as a substitute for more traditional methods.
“We use e-mail to raise money, but I don’t think it’s the e-mail alone that raises the money,” says Mr. Stein of Children Now. “We never expect an e-mail to be the deciding factor that will make someone write a check right then and there. We think it’s part of the membership development that’s important in any fund-raising campaign.”
E-mail, he adds, is “an important component of keeping our organization visible. My general philosophy is, collect as many e-mail addresses as possible from members and constituents and send them information regularly.”
Besides collecting e-mail addresses to reach out to potential donors, charities are trying to make it easier for people to make pledges, ask questions, or send comments electronically. Because donors are growing increasingly Internet-savvy, some charities find that plugging their e-mail addresses wherever possible — on letterhead, business cards, brochures, and in television and radio spots — helps stimulate gifts.
WPLN, a Nashville public-radio station, broadcasts its e-mail address every 15 minutes or so during its on-air fund-raising drives. The station gets 50 to 75 e-mail pledges in each week-long campaign.
E-mail is even being used to make big-dollar gifts. Last March, a fund raiser at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., received an e-mail message from a couple who wanted to make a donation to the university’s capital campaign. The negotiations were carried out almost entirely by e-mail, and within three months a gift of $2-million was on the university’s books.
“There were fewer phone calls and visits than usual because so much substantive exchange happened via e-mail,” says Penelope Hunt, assistant vice-president for development and campaign director at Northwestern. Electronic communications, she says, spared the president, dean, and development officer each from making several visits to the couple’s home in Bellevue, Wash. That saved not only the time of staff members, but travel expenses for the university.
Furthermore, negotiations between the couple and the campaign chairman, who travels a great deal, went much more quickly than usual. “His e-mail can find him anywhere, whereas his fax can’t,” Ms. Hunt notes.
As technology improves and more people use the Internet, experts predict that e-mail will become even more useful to fund raisers.
E-mail is not visually appealing right now, for example, but it is likely to become more so in the future. That could enable fund raisers to replace some direct-mail newsletters and other publications with e-mail versions, thereby saving money on postage and printing.
Computer software already exists that can add color, graphics, and a variety of fonts to e-mail messages.
So far, most charities are not sending this new kind of e-mail because only people with certain software can see the special effects, and it takes a long time to download. But as more people upgrade their software, colorful, well-designed electronic appeals may become standard.
In the meantime, charities are starting to see results from their forays into electronic communication. And whether they have had big successes or not, fund-raising experts are optimistic that more lucrative e-mail campaigns are right around the corner.
“If you’re not using e-mail to communicate with supporters, you’re not making use of an increasingly important channel for reaching people,” says Mr. Allen. “A few years ago you could say, ‘This Internet stuff could be just a flash in the pan.’ But now it’s becoming a gigantic force in communications.”
