In “We’re All In This Together” is Horseshit” I castigated some consumer companies for their disingenuous and near-universal language proclaiming their shared concern with us while pressing their under-paid and under-protected “essential” employees to serve those of us privileged enough to be safe at home.

To be fair, I did see some advertising from insurance companies, mortgage lenders and banks indicating they were responding by offering some “Covid-19 Relief.” Partial refunds of insurance premiums, extensions of time for mortgages and credit card payments. That sort of thing.

In turn, these questions:

What sorts of “Covid-19 Relief” beyond the federal PPP program and other Small Business Administration loans are being offered by companies and consultants who serve our sector? And just as importantly what sort of relief should nonprofits in need be asking for?

A Pandemic Cost-Cutting /Relief Checklist

Here’s a starter checklist for the obvious sources of some relief or discounts. Please feel free to share additional suggestions:

GENERAL:  Landlord (reduced or deferred rent) …. Internet provider (discount)…Maintenance services(discount)…Insurance (premium discount or deferral) …legal (reduced fee or pro bono for some services).

NONPROFIT SPECIFIC OPPORTUNITIES

CRMs – Ask your CRM provider what Covid-19 relief they offer and for what period of time.  Monthly discount or forgiveness of fee? Discount in storage fees? Discount in payment processing fees?  Even if they don’t have a blanket policy ask them anyway.  Remember, it’s a lot more expensive for a CRM to replace you as a customer than it is for them to give you some relief.

CONSULTANTS – Some consultants have already cut their fees.  If yours hasn’t, ask for a reduction. It’s not just the fast food and pizza delivery services who are claiming, “We’re in this together.”  There’s lots of this going around the vendor ecosystem as well.

Be creative. Maybe a consultant can’t reduce fees, (they too have a payroll to meet) but are willing to perform some extra work at no charge.  For example, I know for a fact there are copywriters like Lisa Sargent and Tom Ahern and online trainers like Moceanic who are going the extra mile and doing rush work or extra editing and coaching at no additional charge.–and that’s probably worth more than any fee reduction.

And of course, you should also take advantage of the free array of good information available to help you navigate this crisis.  For example check out Steven Screen and Jeff Brooks library of resources on fundraising in the pandemic. If you’re curious how the pandemic is affecting the public’s view of supporting charities you’ll be interested in the last 12 weeks of research presented in this webinar on June 4^th  presented by About Loyalty featuring their Covid-19 Sentiment Tracker.   Register free here.

My point in this post isn’t to provide an encyclopedia of all the good advice out there, but to urge you to take positive action in this crisis to learn while also seeking a to make the most of your fundraising dollars.

DATA PROVIDERS – Just as you should request Covid-19 relief from your CRM and consultants you should be discussing the same with your data providers.  What kind of additional reductions are your direct mail list brokers, coop database managers, wealth screeners,  data append providers, and predictive analytics services willing to offer during this crisis?  Are there some services like merge-purge they’ll perform for free?  Will they forgo some commissions? Eliminate minimums or long-term contracts?   You won’t know unless you ask.

Help Begins at Home

And so, I asked the sister companies affiliated with The Agitator what Covid-19 relief are they offering?  Here’s what they’re currently providing free:

DonorVoice.  To help you improve results and improve donor loyalty DonorVoice will:

• Provide a free copy analysis using their new Copy Optimizer™ . They’ll score  the effectiveness of your copy and personally review it with you indicating where and how to improve it.  (CopyOptimizer™ is explained here and here.)

And…

• Provide free installation and three months’ free use of the Donor Feedback Platform™ to help you automatically collect feedback across your channels and begin turning complaints and bad experiences into loyalty and increased donor value.

  Contact Kevin Schulman at DonorVoice at kschulman@thedonorvoice.com

DonorMailers. Last week I raised the issue of the under-use of direct mail and Todd Hector, who runs DonorMailers,  responded with this generous offer to encourage more use of mail, particularly from smaller organizations:

Provide, free of charge, except for postage, the paper, envelopes, printing and mail shop services for the first 2000 pieces of mail for any nonprofit. So, if you’re a small organization  or a consultant with a client that may have a file of 2000 or less, here’s your chance to discover the power of mail for the mere cost of postage.  And, if you have a larger donor base here’s your opportunity to save some money. 

Contact Todd Hector at DonorMailers at todd@donormailers.com 

TrueGivers.   Two of the most frequently requested services of TrueGivers  these days are for cleaning and updating addresses to assure greater delivery, and for appending age to donor files – particularly for organizations who are concerned about communicating with the vulnerable age groups at this time of the pandemic.  Here’s some Covid relief from TrueGivers:

• Provide a free age append to your file via TrueAppend. First 10,000 matches are free.  TrueAppend also has dozens of attributes always available for free that you can use for modeling and segmentation – you can view the list here:

And…

• Provide a free address cleaning and NCOA update via TrueNCOA. Free regardless of file size. This includes CASS, DPV, and 18+48 Month NCOA.

Contact Mary Doyle at TrueGivers at MaryDoyle@TrueGivers.com

What Have You Discovered?

That’s my check list of cost savings  and opportunities to enhance your fundraising at a time when money is tight.   What’s yours?  Please share.

Roger