The Age Old Question: Mailing Too Much or Too Little?

Whenever nonprofits talk about direct mail or I talk with my own board, staff and fellow volunteers about mailing, the first question that allows comes up is "are we mailing too much?"  There are always a fair amount of advocates for the less is more philosophy, who hate getting too many letters from various organizations as well as stickers, trinkets and other brick-a-brack. I can, of course, understand there concerns. I tend to lean towards the side of more communications, as I tend to feel that otherwise your donors will forget about you and you should be constantly sharing.

Today Gail Perry, who I follow on Twitter @GailPerrync, posted an article to Twitter about starting the conversation - are we mailing too much?  The article suggested rather than focusing on mailing we should focus on questions like

• What do my donors expect from their relationship with my brand?
• How satisfied and committed are my donors to the brand? And, what's driving satisfaction and commitment to my brand?
• What's the "story" I'm telling my donors across all of my touches? And, what messages truly resonate with what my donors need to hear?(quoted from the article)

I think the stories we're communicating, branding, and also calls to action should be included in all our mailings - this alleviates donors feeling like piggy banks and also reminds them why they are involved in this cause in the first place, making the mailing about more than just the ask.  However, I do think the ask is a critical part of any mailing and you shouldn't shy away from stating what you need from the donor a few times a year.

In regards to the too much question, the article says that a recent industry study in 2011 revealed that if messaging was on point there was not a case of too much mailing.

Food for thought?  Do you have the ongoing discussion on too much/too little?

Blogging Blues: Creating an Editorial Calendar for Consistency

We've had a very hard time getting staff on board with regular blog posts and trust me, I know it is hard!! I haven't blogged on this blog as often as I'd like and I sometimes forget to post my regular Tuesday workouts on my fitness/food blog. 

However, for an organization, it's good to have some sense of order and regularity in your blogging.  I recently acknowledged the issue with staff and we decided to set up a calendar. However, it is very hard for program staff to make time to blog; however as we came up with ideas to help them, creating a calendar, talking through the idea and creating a draft with me, things seemed easier.

I began a rough draft based on a model from Beth Kanter, an expert at nonprofit social media, and some drafts I found online.

I've been using it temporarily and so far I've managed to fill all of February!! Yay!  I created a monthly section for us to put ideas and conferences and track holidays we may want to reference.

And I also created a weekly section where I can track:

• What week we're on
• Topic of the Blog
• Brief Description
• Author
• Due Date to me
• Due Date to Drop
• Did we push out to Social Media?

I noticed this also made me realize when I'd be on vacation in late February and to make sure the blog was due the prior Thurs COB and was posted on Friday evening to drop the next week.

How do you track your blogging efforts? And how do you get program staff to help blog?

Where's My Agenda!!??!!!

I am having an agenda crisis.  I have a small agenda or rather I keep my large and unruly agenda and things to do list in a small adorable black Coach agenda.  (The picture shows it in red but I had bought it in black to match my black stripe big C bag.) I love that agenda and come October when they tell you to order a refill I should've listened but I did not and I forgot and I asked for it late at Xmas and no one got it for me and no I've been too lazy to run up to Coach or put in the order to get one line.  I started crossing out the Sept/Oct dates and writing in the past few week's dates.

I use both the monthly calendar and the day to day section. In the day to day section I write to do lists for the day and big items fill up the weekend.  I use the agenda to track my training for races, to keep track of Shelter meetings and events, to track work activities and progress and to try to organized when on the weekend I may finally get around to my resume and my thesis. (Let's hope it's not never!).  At any point in time you can find training calendar tucked in the back with formal plans.  A MILLION post its with to do notes, phone numbers to follow up on for Shelter activities, notes from non-profit trainings I attended, usernames I need to remember, lists of cool races I want to run and things to do.  Since we don't have formal hours at work each night I print from Outlook my calendar for the next day and put in my agenda accordingly.  With my new role stepping in as Development Manager from more an associate position, I find it nice to start/conclude each day with going over the list of to-do from the Outlook Calendar and adding to it as needed.  I recently redid all my files so that they were color-coded to match the color-codes I'd used on the Development Calendar. While at home I am completely disheveled - though I think my partner is my crime is much to blame for this - I think that systems and order in the workplace make it easier to move forward. I took my boyfriend's advice and have a notebook for notes, one for to dos (plus my daily calendar printout) and a section for phone messages. I also have to-do lists and calendars posted on my desk.  So far so good. While this may be overkill, I realized quickly that we had few notes on where items were other than from my boss' memory.  I wanted to make sure that we had the system's in place to manage activities so anyone could follow along.  We'll see how this comes along.  I just have to make myself keep to the system rather than follow the easy route and let it slack. 

I can't wait to go get an agenda for work so I can continue to put in early meetings, activities and try to carve out time for myself and personal needs like attending to school, career training, and the Shelter.  I also find myself totally slacking about training at the gym so I quickly need my agenda back and to formalize a training calendar. I am sure I could do all these things online or put them in my phone (sometimes I do) but I like the feeling of writing things down and I love post-its most of all and being able to put in phone numbers to follow up with and tracking to do lists. And people still use business cards - where do those go  - AGENDA!!

Do you use an agenda?  Do you miss it when it's gone?  hoping to get to Coach this weekend!