Direct mail (letters sent in the mail) is highly effective, even with the costs of producing, printing, and mailing. Why? Because direct mail, something physical that you hold in your hand, deepens the relationships you can have with your new and existing camper families and donors.
And do you know what’s even better? A letter in the mail followed up with an email! Read
this article about the importance of direct mail and integrating it with your digital communications to learn more.
“But,” I know you are thinking, “we don’t have both good email addresses and home addresses for most of our donors and alumni.”
First, start with what you have! Engage those people for whom you DO have both email and mailing addresses NOW.
Second, there are solutions to this problem. Engage volunteers to help you improve your data. They can reach out to their peers to provide email and mailing addresses for the people in your database. You can also work to
find long-lost alumni who aren’t even in your database currently. For example, you can use services such as AlumniFinder to help you update postal addresses and append email addresses for your constituents for a relatively low-cost fee. If you are interested in this service, check out JCamp 180’s
Data2Donors program that will pay for your data to be run through AlumniFinder. And the JCamp 180
JTEC program can help you improve your communications planning and develop a powerful one-two punch of direct mail with digital marketing.
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Written by Julia Riseman. Julia is a Mentor with JCamp 180. Julia leads Data2Donors, a program to advance Alumni Outreach, improve camp databases, and raise more major gifts, and Fundraising Fundamentals. Julia has also sparked the creation of many JCamp 180 programs and offerings, including this blog.
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Who we are: JCamp 180 is a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation (HGF). Our goal is to significantly enhance the long-term effectiveness of nonprofit Jewish camps in North America. To meet this goal, we provide affiliated Jewish camps with consulting services, annual conferences, shared resources, professional development, and matching grant opportunities. Find more at www.jcamp180.org.