Trail Blazer, Non-Profit and Political Talk!

This past year Trail Blazer has joined several professional organizations including: Minnesota Council of Nonprofits (mncn.org), Midwest Political Science Association - MPSA (mpsanet.org), and American Association of Political Consultants and Public Affairs Professionals - AAPC (theaapc.org).  The AAPC sent me a certificate of membership, I like certificates.

We just got back from the Trail Blazer annual Holiday party.  (Is an annual party if we only have one every other year?)  We went to the local bowling ally and bowled, ate pizza, and had root beer.  Jim, who has his own ball, bowled 144, 171, and 138.  Pat a 75, 118, and 163.  Mark was 114, 147 and 105.  I bowled a 139, 131 and 154.

So that was fun, we got to get out of the office and talk about stuff that we don’t normally talk about, like politics and cool new technology. J

OK now I need a nap.

We are now past Halloween (and campaign season) so the holiday fundraising has begun.  So I have compiled 9 Tips for success for those needing to raise money via email.

1. What name appears in your “from” box?
   Be sure your organization name is in the “from” box.  Lots of people might not know that Jane Whosit is the Director/Manager of your organization.

2. Your subject line needs to grab them.
   Let the reader see what you are going to tell them in the email, Newsletter Fall 2008, doesn’t make me want to open the email.  Be aware that your subject line does NOT look the same in all email packages (Outlook, AOL, Eudora).  This tool,  http://www.emaillabs.com/tools/from_subject_line_tool_popup.html,  this site is down now can be handy in showing you how the from and subject line will appear in these packages.  this tool helps with subject line creation http://www.localnews.biz/subjectLine/ValidateSubjectLine.asp
    
3. See the big picture!  Does your message look like something out of a magazine?  Lots of graphic images.  Cut ‘em out!  Well at least cut the amount and size down.  Half or more of your subscribers probably block images.  Break it down so only have a few and they are not critical to the message.  Make sure the important information is in text form so it shows up regardless of the images.  If you have some HTML ability use the “alt” tags in the HTML code to describe what is in the picture, often this will display if the image does not. 
   
   
4. Just the Basics, No web Programmers allowed
   Remove CSS (Style Sheets) because Outlook 2007 will not display an email properly that utilizes CSS.  For those with some technical skills anything that is not “plain” html should be removed, that means no style sheets or scripts.  The images you do have should be references (web links) and not imbedded.  No attachments.

5. Include the essentials:
   1. Organization name prominently displayed
   2. Address and contact info: Telephone, email and web contact page link
   3. Email address used to send the message should be displayed in the email
   4. Does the unsubscribe link work (and directions prominently displayed)

Note you should also have an EMAIL/SPAM policy on your web site, and the email should have a link to this policy.

5. Optional: Keep a copy of the email on your web site. Link to this from within the email.  This is beneficial for people who read your emails in TEXT only format.  You’re on-line email version can have as much graphics and special programming (like CSS) as you would like.

6. Proof, test, proof, test, proof …
   As the king of bad spelling and grammar I know how critical this is.  Nothing makes you look like a second rate organization (or a spammer) like spelling or coding mistakes.   Often this is in the body or the links you want your readers to use.  Always, I mean never, let an email go out that you have not sent to 2-3 people with various email providers (AOL, Yahoo, Gmail etc.) as a test.  You want to see from as many views as possible how the message looks.  And have those friends who test read the email look for spelling, grammar, and general look and feel.  Find a friend that gets only text versions so you have that view as well.

7. Consider your target and action time needed to boost results. 
   Make sure that readers who you are asking to volunteer tomorrow live in the area in need of volunteers. On the other hand if the request is far enough in the future, so they could make travel plans, don’t exclude people.  If you’re holding a $1000 dinner, a 20 year old college student who donated $10 when they were 18 might not be the best person to send an invite to, but the 55 year old doctor who donated $500 each of the last 10 years might be.

8. Contact newcomers with enthusiasm. 
   An immediate welcome email should be sent.  Follow-up phone calls are great for thanking them, and asking why they signed up – if resources allow of course – to establish a bond.  In any case let them know what to expect from your organization, in terms of email, other contacts and activism.  Always let them know what is your organization is missing. Keep that list on your web site as well.  Our client, Kairos Dance, has a great example of a wish list (what’s missing), http://www.kairosdance.org/pages/kairos-wish-list-donate.

9. Handle Spam Complaints NOW! 
   As more email is sent, from your organization or others, the subscribers just feel overwhelmed and you can expect complaints to go up.  Having a simple unsubscribe process is not enough; there are people who will complain via your ISP or other methods.  When you get feedback of an unsubscribe, act on it right away.

You can attempt to minimize increases in unsubscribe requests by planning your frequency, and sticking to the plan.  Resist the temptation or orders from those higher on the pay scale to send more often.

A resource, which is worth checking out, is http://www.emailexperience.org/ for more tips.  They are a group of email marketers.

These 9 items, in my opinion, have the ability to be implemented without a major investment in time or labor.  Keep notes during the holidays and your organization will have lots of feed back on what worked and did not work.  Keep those notes close so you can make improvements when the smoke clears in the New Year.

While the historical statistic is that 90% of incumbents win elections.   Trail Blazer clients continued to do better than that statistic again this year. 

Out of our clients that were candidates challenging an incumbent, we have a 2008 win percent of 16%.  It should be noted that over 20% of our challengers were 3^rd party candidates while none of them won several did very well – more on that later.  Our incumbents won 100% of their races.  In open seats we had a win percent of 42%.  We had one client drop out very early in the 2008 election cycle - they dropped out in December 2007.

We had victories in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Colorado, California, Louisiana and our home state of Minnesota.

We want to congratulate all of our clients on hard fought campaigns.

Our political clients are city council and state house level clients.  Most are small grassroots efforts with volunteers and not a paid staff.   

We are a nonpartisan firm and look forward to continuing to work with candidates from all parties.  I stated before that over 20% of our clients that challenged incumbents were running under a 3^rd party ballot line.  Most note worthy of those this past year was former senator Dean Barkley.  The Barkley for Senate campaign started in the polls at around 4-6% or they were not included in the poll at all.  In the end he received over 15% of the vote total for that U S Senate race.

Trail Blazer would like to thank all of our clients who are/were candidates in 2008.

Good campaigning to you!

Visting another Blog ran across an interesting project, people creating yard signs.   http://myyardourmessage.com/ has a whole bunch of yard sign's, some are pretty partisan, below is my favorite.

Just got my copy of this fall 2008’s “Nonprofit News” and came across an article from Jon Pratt (Executive Director for Minnesota Council of Nonprofits’) on 990 changes.

In it he points out that the new Part VI – Governance, Management and Disclosure – has 22 new yes/no questions about organizational policies and board procedures.  The suggestion he has is to take a dry run at the document now, if you have not already done so.

This is very good advise and I am hoping that everyone reading this will take that advice and make sure they can answer the questions, just don’t leave it to the accountants to do.

Traditional wisdom is that nonprofits have a delayed recession effect.  But we are hearing that nonprofits are being hit very hard right now.  Our thoughts are with everyone struggling.  

We are building new tools and partnerships to improve our performance and the results that you see in your fundraising and your activism.

With that in mind we joined the “Minnesota Council of Nonprofits” about a year ago and I came across a link that might help some of you on their web site.  http://www.mncn.org/moneysavingtips.htm

Hope it helps.