Many organizations run an appeal at the end the year. This is frequently a multi-media effort conducted through both email and letter, segmented & customized for the constituent group.
Segmentation
As a first step, identify your segments. These could be:
- accounts whose last gift was in the early part of this year
- accounts who gave to the last year-end appeal
- accounts who have not given yet this year
- volunteers
Split these segments, as well, based upon how you will be contacting them: email or letter.
You'll also want to make sure to exclude some groups: major donor prospects and those who gave in the last couple months, for example.
Create an email audience for each segment to be emailed.
Create a campaign letter or external material for each segment to be mailed. Use a household report to only send one letter to each address.
Appeal Emails
Write your digital appeal as an Email Campaign.
To organically track donors' response to this appeal, create a fundraising campaign for your end-of-year appeal. Link directly to the campaign donation form in your campaign email. Donations received through this form will be a part of the campaign.
To cut down on duplicates, you can turn on Email Link Authentication. Donors who respond to the appeal will have their donations added to their existing accounts.
Appeal Letters
If you would like to create the letter, identify the recipients, merge the recipients' information with the letter, and track your progress toward sending out the printed mailing in Neon, use a campaign letter.
If you already have the letter made in an external program, you can use Neon to a) identify who should receive the letter and b) download an Excel file of those constituents' information. You can use that information to do an external Mail Merge and personalize each letter. For this, create an external material.
Appeal Results
Donations from your online appeal will arrive directly into NeonCRM.
Donations sent in response to your letter can be entered into the CRM in batches. Use Neon's Batch Donation utility to enter multiple donations at once.
