Your Reply Slip: Donor Trick or Treat?
Focus Your Reply Device for More Effective Donation Letters
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.
I host my brother’s kids, make gruesome treats (brownie eyeballs, anyone?), and enjoy watching my neighbors deliver some mild scares to the kiddos.
Halloween also marks 2-4 weeks until most nonprofits will start dropping their year-end donation letters. And if your appeal isn’t yet with the printer, let me suggest taking one last look at your reply slip.
Most nonprofits spend hours cleaning their data, crafting just the right copy, then designing that donation letter to perfection. Does the humble reply slip get the same attention?
Hardly. But since it’s the actual device most donors use to make their gift, it should.
Vanquish stoppers
Too many reply slips contain stoppers. This is direct mail talk for stuff that makes the donor say, “Yuck. I’ll do this later” and set aside your donation letter.
Here’s a reply device with more stoppers than mummies have bandages.
Gross like zombies, right? In a word … yuck.
I’m 49 years old – 16 years younger than the average donor (age 65), according to Blackbaud. Donation letter expert Tom Ahern says the average donor is closer to 75 years old.
Even at my age, I have bifocals and the early symptoms of carpal tunnel. And I have stuff to do. I just want to fill in the least amount of information possible to make my gifts to the causes I love.
Right now, I don’t want to:
Look for scissors or tear the reply slip off the letter
Search under my desk for a loose reply slip
Squint or take off my glasses to see this tiny type
Fill in my address information (which it seems you already have)
Add missing information to your database
Also sign up to volunteer, become a major giver, put you in my will, etc.
What I might like is to have a web address where I could give online. And if I were a bit older, I might like the phone number of someone in your office who could help me complete my donation.
Now, anyone in the nonprofit sector can tell you what created this Frankenstein’s monster of a reply slip. It was a committee. Good folks who were just thinking about what was best for the nonprofit, but not necessarily the donor.
It happens to the best of us.
But I would humbly submit to you that your appeal will perform better if both your donation letter and your reply slip are as donor centric as possible.
Use a donor-centric reply slip
At Abeja, we start clients out with the most basic reply slip.
Here’s the front:
And here’s the back:
A few things to note about this slip, which we designed to minimize what the donor must hand write:
It’s attached to the bottom of the letter and perforated. Using perforated paper makes it easy for the donor to simply write their check, tear off the slip, insert in your envelope, and go celebrate their role in making the world a better place.
The donor’s address is preprinted on the slip. Donors with correct addresses don’t have to write the whole thing out every time. And donors with a wrong address can simply cross out the errors and correct them on the slip in all that nice white space. Or contact you to correct it, since there’s also a nonprofit phone number and email address on the slip.
There are pre-determined ask strings based on each donor’s individual giving history. That way you’re asking the donor for at least the amount they gave last time and suggesting some upgraded amounts that are likely within their budget.
There’s an appeal code and a personalized Donor ID. This helps with tracking how much this appeal (BEE05) really made and whether you’re successfully retaining and upgrading individual donors and donor segments. (This particular slip went to lapsed donor 123.)
It reminds donors they’re making a good choice. In marketing or sales you learn that people often have a slight hesitation right before they make a purchase decision. (And older adults are often the target of scammers, so they tend to be especially wary.) This basic reply slip reminds donors why they’re giving (“to create healthier habitats for bees”) and then it provides reassurance it’s a good decision (“gifts are tax deductible”) to a credible organization that is clearly stating its brand and contact information on the slip.
When to add new elements
Over time we might add a few elements to the reply slip. For example, Arizona has a special tax credit for giving to some organizations. We often call out that specifically on the reply slip for those organizations.
But we carefully consider any additions because they have the potential to distract the donor from what we need them to do with the appeal – give – vs. all the things we might want them to do for the organization. Donation letters are about making money for your mission.
Bottom line: Don’t trick donors with a complicated reply slip. Instead, give them a treat and keep it simple.
Then plan to run separate campaigns for things like completing your database, planning giving, and recruiting volunteers. The results of all your campaigns will be more effective and easier to track with one specific call to action.
At year-end, keep donors focused on what matters most. Making their gift.
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