As we enter the most important part of the year for fundraising, Convio’s Blake Groves and Marc Cannon provided many useful pointers at this week’s NYC Convio User Group meeting, held at YAI in New York City.  Most of these ideas don’t require that you use Convio, nor do they need a large capital inflow.  But they do require a willingness to do things a bit differently than you may have in the past.  For example:

1. When you provide downloadable content on your web site, do you first ask for name and email address so you can build your list?
2. Have you explored ‘chaperoned’ email, where a partner organization provides your messaging to its own constituents?
3. Do you use petitions to ask constituents to take a stand on issues other than advocacy (also so you can build your list)?
4. Have you included surveys in enewsletters as a way of getting data to segment your audiences?
5. Do you plan a campaign approach / series of messages for year-end fundraising, filtering out those who have already donated?
6. Are you absolutely certain that you will have a final email appeal ready to be sent on December 31st, when many constituents are most likely to give?
7. Have you implemented a welcome series for new subscribers to your elist?
8. Do you encourage constituents to ask others to get involved with your organization (personal appeals are always more effective than when they come from the nonprofit)
9. Have you clearly identified who your audiences are – and developed separate ways to communicate with each?
10. Finally, have you tried A/B testing on your donation form, email messages, landing pages to determine what works best with your constituents?

Marc asked the group what mostly stops us from fully utilizing these approaches.  The responses (not surprising): limited resources, changing/competing priorities and lack of support from senior management.  Perhaps by using a prototype approach, how can you optimize fundraising and outreach efforts at your organization?