You get it.  You’ve read all the think pieces, including ours and our other one, that show that many, if not most, mature organizations overcommunicate with (and especially overmail) their donors.

You know it’s the top complaint you get: “you mail too much” and “take me off your list” fight for your #1 and #2 comment and you can’t see third place from those two.

And you know the amount of effort you personally put into crafting more, more, more appeals, scripts, emails, and more, thinking there must be another way.

But you have a goal to meet and promises to keep and miles to go before you sleep.  You don’t know how to make goal without the volume machine.

Here are three off-ramps that have worked for three very different organizations.  There may be more and I’d love to hear about your experiments in the comments.  But three should get you started…

1. Donor clustering. Our friends over at DonorTrends just released a case study from a human services organization where they were challenged to mail 15% less and hit the same revenue numbers.  The organization separated their donors into three tiers: one who could bear the most communications, the least, and the Goldilocks in between.  From there, they were able to send their more marginal pieces only to their best donors and only their best pieces to their most marginal donors.

Results: The organization didn’t just stay where they were; they increased net revenue by 14% and decreased their cost to raise a dollar by 17%.

This type of modeling won’t help you figure out if your top-end of donors are getting too much mail, but it’s a way to start down the path of decreasing volume and increasing value.  And it will get you buy-in for more radical solutions.

2.  Going where the money is. Our friends at the Agitator did a piece earlier this week about how behavioral science can impact fundraising.  In the piece, Roger talks about the US Olympic Committee.  In looking at their program, they realized that much of their donor file was premium dependent.  For a $20 donation, you could get all manner of Olympic swag in the mail.  Not surprisingly, this attracted more donors interested in the merchandise than a philanthropic gift to support Team USA.

USOC took a bold step: changing the offer to focus on a philanthropic gift and turning everyone who wasn’t interested over to their merchandise sales department.  The Sixth Ring program focused on fewer, higher-touch communications and an offer of a quarterly gift with a minimum yearly commitment of $100.  They’ve increased annual gift frequency from 1.6 to 2.4 gifts per year and substantially increased their revenue per donor, average gift, and response rates.

All because they chose to focus on those people who matter most to them.  Think how much mental energy you put into $10 donors (who are wonderful — it’s great to give something of yourself, no matter the amount — but you have to focus on increasing revenue and thus mission overall) and what would happen if you channeled some of that toward your best and brightest.

3. Pilot testing.  I should mention that the USOC example started as a pilot test and became so successful it is now the focus of their direct marketing program. DonorVoice has had the pleasure of working on their program along with a couple other pilot programs that have decreased mail quantity while increasing donor value.

But I want to talk about the Union of Concerned Scientists, whose bold move to test four communications instead of 12-15 got within five percent on a gross basis and saved a quarter of a million dollars in costs.

Or better yet, I’ll let Laurie talk about their strong results:

As we said at the beginning, conceptualizing and implementing radical change can be tough.  But hopefully by reducing quantity through modeling, focusing on your best donors, and/or running a pilot test, you can get off the volume hamster wheel and start investing your time and treasure more on getting to know your donors and letting them know you know them.