Are you like me in that you cringe when you see Santa in the stores right next to the Halloween costumes? I think I should probably chill out, because the shopping public is indulging in what we in the non-profit world are already into. Raise your hand if you have already activated your holiday fundraising plan.
As I was finishing a set of mailing lists yesterday, it occurred to me that the hardest part of making the list is getting the frontline fundraiser to really decide what they want out of the list. “Give me all donors from last year.” Okay – does that mean gifts-in-kind too? What about those with pledges that have a payment due by December 31? And what do you want me to give you – just mailing information? Or maybe last gift amount and fund? Email perhaps?
You don’t want getting to the ultimate list to be like opening an Advent calendar, even if there is chocolate behind each window. You want an efficient process that pinpoints those you want to solicit and by which means before you resort to exporting anything to Excel.
At the risk of rushing the season, WIST would like to give you a Christmas present. Attached, you will find a list request form that we modify for those for whom we do back office work. It’s a fillable Word form that you can change
as you see fit. We have found that it helps requestors to think through what they are asking for and gives the database managers something to refer to in the end.
We hope this saves you some time and frustration. In our next blog post, we’ll talk about what to considerations for the output of the list. Have a sip of egg nog and stay tuned!
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