When to appeal in an election year?
File under: The 2024 US presidential election will be a ....
When to mail your 4th-quarter appeal in a presidential election year
Liz, CFRE, from a hospice, wanted an opinion:
"I was hoping you might point me in the direction of how to time for our Fall/Holiday direct mail? With the election on November 5th, when should we do our large direct mail drop? Mid-October? Late October? The week after the election?"
Amy Pokela's firm response, posted on LinkedIn:
"A battle-tested timeline for your year-end appeal? Put it in the mail the day after Election Day. You will avoid the political stuff and your donors will have it before U.S. Thanksgiving.
"I’ve sent fundraising mail that day for 25 years ... and it always works."
My wandering response, posted below:
Hello, Liz!
My crystal ball's in the shop for repairs, but here are some thoughts:
Until the election's done and dusted, there's an 800-pound distraction screaming: Who's going to win this nail-biting contest for the "most powerful job on earth"?
Which isn't really a wipe-out distraction, IMHO, since most year-end appeals mail after November 5 anyway. So....
Maybe the question really is: How SOON after November 5 should we mail?
It depends. Let's look at recent history.
After the 2016 election handed #45 the keys to the White House, there was a HUGE, spontaneous, next-day explosion of giving to liberal causes such as Planned Parenthood and ACLU.
The media dubbed it "rage philanthropy." Turned out: liberals were right to be scared. With the appointment of three conservative justices under President Trump, after nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade — the constitutional right to abortion — was no longer law of the land.
Still ... hospice has zero to do with politics
Liz, your cause is NOT political. Hospice has universal, fundamental appeal.
As mortals, as caregivers, we are ALL candidates for hospice services ... if not for ourselves, then for our loved ones. Someone my age (I'm 77) has probably seen a priceless, comforting hospice intervention more than once with friends and family.
Your "warm" list (those who have given sometime in the last 12-18 months) are probably family and friends who deeply (unforgettably) appreciate the end-of-life, pain-management, empathy that a good nonprofit hospice delivers.
My feelings about timing?
If the conservative presidential candidate wins in 2024, expect an outpouring of rage philanthropy similar to 2016. So ... maybe wait awhile before dropping your appeal into that hot mess. You have more than 3 weeks between election day and the US celebration of Thanksgiving ... room to maneuver.
You asked about mailing in mid-October, AHEAD of the election.
Mailing BEFORE the election? Here's an anecdote, for what it's worth. We mailed a newsletter in the week preceding the 2020 election. This well-crafted donor newsletter ordinarily produced $400K in extra revenue for a national charity. Not this time. This time the newsletter under-performed financially. People had other things on their minds.
My two cents:
Adopt Amy Pokela's well-tested practice: mail the day after.
Or this lax variation from me: mail your first appeal soon after the 5 November 2024 elections. Let the dust settle ... then jump in while there's a lull at the mailbox.
THEN I'd consider mailing a second time to those on your "warm" (house) list who didn't respond already. You can mail the exact same appeal.
THEN try mailing the same thing a 3rd time maybe (excluding those who've already responded). When you mail multiple times to your warm list, response tends to ACCUMULATE. What started at 5% response, then accumulates to 10% with a 2nd mailing, then accumulates to 15% with a 3rd mailing. (And those numbers are conservative. Should you even try a 4th mailing to your warm list? Surprise me.)
Recently I did a survey of 10 direct mail experts in Canada and the U.S., asking their veteran opinions regarding response rates.
Response expectations
The consensus, Liz?
When you're mailing to people who have given in the past 12-18 months (the WARM list), you can expect a 5-20% response, rising even to 30% during the holiday period.
If you're mailing to a COLD list (people who have not yet given a first gift of any kind as well as the "lapsed"), a response rate of .5% is considered a success ... i.e., you mail 200 appeals and ONE gift comes back.
And that single gift might NOT come back as a check ... but, instead, be completed online. (Less-than-fun fact: New Zealand outlawed checks 3 years ago. That ban is a coming trend internationally. Financial system wonks desperately want to drop paper and go entirely digital.)
Hopefully helpfully yrs,
tomato (my summer name)
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