August 20, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
When people sign up to receive online newsletters and other information from a charity, they usually receive little more than an acknowledgment from the organization for at least month.
Cutting that lag time can produce fund-raising benefits for nonprofit groups, according to a new background paper by Common Knowledge, a San Francisco consulting firm that advises nonprofit groups on online fund raising. (Free registration is required to download the document.)
The paper cites the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which reaped donations from 83 percent more of the people on its e-mail list when they were sent a series of 10 messages that started showing up in their e-mail boxes within two days after they first signed up to receive information.
The messages continued at a pace of two per week for five weeks. Only the last message in the series requested a donation. Those who donated money in response to the final message gave $40.86, on average, or 15 per cent more than the typical gift made by people who had signed up for e-mail alerts but did not receive the quick succession of messages from the animal-welfare charity.
One reason donors responded, says Jeff Patrick, president of Common Knowledge, is that the charity used the series of messages to highlight its most appealing and successful programs. It also included surveys for recipients to fill out and used other techniques to engage readers. “Content and interactivity are critical,” says Mr. Patrick.
