Can you motivate a donor to respond to your next mailing with a thousand dollar gift? Absolutely, says Mal Warwick in his book, Raising $1000 Gifts by Mail. Mal is the dean of high dollar direct mail he practically invented it. Mal points to organizations like yours that have, somewhat astoundingly, turned small givers into big ones ... with just the right mailing. Here is one example. Heeding Mal's advice, a regional activist organization sent just 889 letters to selected donors. This small mailing produced income of $59,450. That is impressive. But even better: gifts averaged $2,123! And the cost of the mailing was 14 cents per dollar raised. A second example: An anti-hunger organization sent just over 10,000 high-dollar pieces. The mailing yielded 679 gifts totaling $117,749. And the overall response was a whopping 6.4 percent!
When there is gold underfoot, you can scratch the surface and content yourself with $25 and $50 nuggets. Or, using Mal's strategies, you can drill down and mine that rich vein of $1000, $2000, even $5000 donors by mail.
Consultant, author, and public speaker Mal Warwick has taught fundraising on six continents to nonprofit executives from more than 100 countries.
He is the founder and chairman of Mal Warwick & Associates, Inc. (Berkeley, Calif.), a fundraising and marketing agency that has served nonprofit organizations since 1979.
Among the hundreds of organizations Warwick and his colleagues have served over the years are many of the nationÂ’s largest and most distinguished charities as well as six Democratic Presidential candidates and scores of small, local, and regional organizations. Collectively, Warwick and his associates are responsible for raising at least half a billion dollars.
This is Warwick's 17th book. His previous works include the standard texts, Revolution in the Mailbox and How to Write Successful Fundraising Letters, both of which are classics in the field.
Product Details
Paperback: 92 pages
Publisher: Emerson & Church Publishers (April 30, 2005)
Since July 2010, Mal Warwick has worked as Managing Director of the One World Futbol Project, a social enterprise he helped establish in Berkeley, California. One World Futbol manufactures and distributes a revolutionary new soccer ball designed to withstand the harsh conditions prevalent in refugee camps, war zones, and impoverished inner-city neighborhoods and rural villages.
The One World Futbol responds to two widespread problems: the vulnerability of standard soccer balls, which are often destroyed within days or even hours in rough terrain, and the environmental impact of the millions of discarded soccer balls that end up on trash heaps or landfills (an estimated 20 million annually in Africa alone).
Previously, Mal distinguished himself through his contributions to the nonprofit sector as one of the world's leading authors, consultants, and public speakers on direct response marketing and fundraising for nonprofit organizations and as an advocate for socially and environmentally responsible policies and practices in the private sector.
He is the author of Fundraising When Money is Tight: A Strategic and Practical Guide for Surviving Tough Times and Thriving in the Future, which was released in March 2009 by Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Mal has written or edited a total of nineteen books, including the standard fundraising texts, Revolution in the Mailbox and How to Write Successful Fundraising Letters, both of which are now in second editions. His two books on fundraising strategy--The Five Strategies for Fundraising Success and (with Steve Hitchcock) Ten Steps to Fundraising Success--are in use throughout the world as strategic planning guides for nongovernmental organizations.
Mal is the founder and chairman of Mal Warwick Associates (Berkeley, CA, and Washington, DC), a fundraising agency specializing in direct response fundraising and marketing. The company has served nonprofit organizations since 1979. Mal also founded its sister company, Response Management Technologies, Inc., a data processing firm for nonprofit organizations, and was a co-founder of the telephone fundraising firm, Share Group, Inc. (Somerville, MA). In 1994, he co-founded Donordigital (San Francisco, CA), which assists nonprofit organizations with online fundraising, marketing, and advocacy. In 2008, Mal Warwick Associates acquired Donordigital, and the two firms are now working in tandem to pioneer new approaches in integrated, multi-channel fundraising.
A serial entrepreneur, Mal has been active in promoting social and environmental responsibility in the business community nationwide for two decades. He is the co-author of Values-Driven Business: How to Change the World, Make Money, and Have Fun (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006) with Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's. Along with Cohen and others, he was a co-founder of Business for Social Responsibility in 1992 and served on its board during its inaugural year. In 2001, after more than a decade as an active member of Social Venture Network, he was elected to its board and served as Chair (2002-2006). He also was a member of the Founding Advisory Board of the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002-3.
Until February 2011, Mal edited the free monthly electronic newsletter, Mal Warwick's Newsletter: Successful Direct Mail, Telephone & Online Fundraising™, which had more than 10,000 subscribers in 69 countries. During his fundraising career, he was widely in demand as speaker and workshop leader throughout the world. Mal taught fundraising on six continents to nonprofit executives from more than 100 countries. He spoke annually for extended periods at the International Fundraising Congress (The Netherlands), the International Workshop on Resource Mobilisation (Thailand, Malaysia, and India), the Hemispheric Congress on Fundraising (Mexico), and the Association of Fundraising Professionals' International Conference on Fundraising (U.S.). He also speaks on the topic of socially responsible business at leading business schools in the USA as well as for groups of business owners and executives.
Among the hundreds of nonprofits Mal and his colleagues served over the years are many of the nation's largest and most distinguished charities as well as six Democratic Presidential candidates and scores of small, local, and regional organizations. Collectively, Mal and his associates were responsible for raising at least half a billion dollars--largely in the form of small gifts from individuals.
Mal played a leadership role in the fundraising and direct marketing fields both nationally and internationally. In 2009 and 2010, he co-founded and chaired the International Fundraising Congress Online, the world's first virtual fundraising conference, involving more than 400 sites in 42 countries, and he served as chair of its successor, Fundraising Online 2011. Previously, in 2007-8, he served as Chair of that event's sponsor, the international Resource Alliance (London, UK). The Resource Alliance is the organizer of the annual International Fundraising Congress in The Netherlands and a leading force globally in developing the fundraising capacity of nongovernmental organizations to build civil society. Having helped establish one of its two predecessor organizations in the early 1980s, he was also an active member of the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation (Washington, D.C.). He also served for ten years on the board of the Association of Direct Response Fundraising Counsel (Washington, D.C.), two of those years as President.
In 2004, Mal received the Hank Rosso Award as Outstanding Fundraising Executive from the Association of Fundraising Professionals Golden Gate Chapter and Northern California Grantmakers. In 2009, he was granted the Max L. Hart Nonprofit Leadership Award by the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, in recognition of his lifetime contributions to direct marketing.
Mal chairs the board of Great Nonprofits (San Francisco, CA), which is partnering with major institutions to bring the voice of donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries to the forefront in evaluating the impact of nonprofit organizations. He is also a member of the advisory boards of several companies, including Mission Research (Lancaster, PA) and GoldMail Inc. (San Francisco, CA).
Mal was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador for more than three years in the 1960s. Since 1969 he has lived in Berkeley, California, where he is deeply involved in local community affairs. Early in the 1990s, he co-founded the Community Bank of the Bay, the nation's fifth community development bank, and the Berkeley Community Fund, where he served on the board (with one year as its president) until 2006. He also served for 11 years as Vice-President of the Board of the Berkeley Symphony (1991-2002).
In 2006, Mal was awarded the Benajmin Ide Wheeler Medal by the Berkeley Community Fund as "Berkeley's most useful citizen" in recognition of his lifetime contributions to the community. Mal joined environmental leader David Brower, celebrated chef and restaurateur Alice Waters, renowned orchestra conductor Kent Nagano, and other notable Berkeleyans as a recipient of the award.
He is the grandfather of Dayna, Iain, Matthew, Gwen, Andrew, Kaleb, and Benjamin.
This review is from: The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising $1,000 Gifts By Mail (Paperback)
As someone who has been raising money for many years, I was dubious that this book would tell me something I didn't already know. I was right and wrong. Much of what Mal says in his latest book on fundraising is not new to fundraising professionals. BUT, the book presents everything you know in a new and useful way that is focused on high dollar fundraising. It is well written, easy to follow, and provides great examples and techniques that will challenge even the long-time fundraising professionals to rethink their fundraising programs. I'm making it madatory reading for my fundraising staff!
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This review is from: The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising $1,000 Gifts By Mail (Paperback)
Fundraising is an art and a science, and Mal Warwick is a master of both. Warwick has been helping non-profit organizations, charities and political parties raise, collectively, billions of dollars for more than 40 years. As Founder and Chairman of Mal Warwick & Associates, in Berkeley, California, Warwick helps clients raise money by mail and, through his other companies, by phone and the internet. He has authored 17 books on fundraising, and his most recent, The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to . . . Raising $1000 Gifts by Mail gives up the secret he has known since he started his company in 1979: charities can raise
gifts of $1000 or more through the mail.
Warwick stresses his methods are different than those of typical direct mail fundraising. High-dollar donors, as Warwick calls them, are well-educated, wealthy, rational thinkers who want to invest in solutions. Warwick has crafted direct mail packages for them that are masterfully written, with personalized proposals akin to those used in major gift fundraising. He invites donors to invest at a level that's higher than their previous gifts, in special projects that will have a significant impact on advancing the charity's mission.
He insists that charities, in turn, must do their part in adequately acknowledging, informing and engaging the donor in the cause. This special treatment and the initial higher investment in the smaller print runs of more specialized direct mail packages and information pieces pays off, big time, according to Warwick's results. The effort creates long-term, loyal donors, who will be ready and willing to make more generous major gifts and planned gifts in the future.
Raising $1000 Gifts by Mail is indeed mercifully brief - and non-technical. It is a must-read for fundraisers who know their donors deserve more than the standard ask that arrives in the mailbox. Warwick has done philanthropy and the charitable sector a great service by sharing the art and science of high-dollar fundraising my mail.
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This review is from: The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising $1,000 Gifts By Mail (Paperback)
This book was a little shocking, to be honest. I raise money through the mail practically every day, but this book lays out a completely different approach that I am definitely going to try. It takes a lot more work, and I think it should only be used for very special programs, but it sounds like the high-dollar approach promoted in this book could work for just about any organization.
The book, unlike most fundraising books, is very easy to digest and written in a breezy style that makes it easy to get through. You can finish it in one sitting, easily. There are a lot of illustrated ideas from successful campaigns, and the author makes it sound easy. It's not, I don't think, but the book certainly encourages you to try.
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