Are You Being a Good Steward of
Your Nonprofit’s Money?
Continuing #2…

Post #9

May 12, 2023

Dear Conservative Leader/Activist,

I sometimes hear nonprofit executives question the high costs of direct mail, and whether they are being a good steward of their organization’s money when they send acquisition postal advertising letters and receive 60–70% of the cost back from those who receive the ad, as well as their contact information, including sometimes a phone number and email address.

By proper treatment of your new supporters, they will send you more money (often again and again) so that soon the money you invested in the acquisition/prospect direct mail advertising will be totally paid for, which means you conducted a free advertising campaign. You can’t do that with TV, radio, billboards, yard signs, bumper stickers, etc.

Many nonprofit executives never question whether they are being good stewards of their organizations’ money when they spend money on a TV campaign to promote their cause or a project and receive no money back and no names and addresses of new supporters.

And far too many focus only on high-dollar donors and fail to understand the importance and value of small-dollar donors. One of the reasons the Left is competitive with conservatives on Election Day—even though they are defending failed, terrible policies—is because they understand small-dollar donors are their “army.”

Not only do nonprofit executives make these mistakes, but so do members of boards of directors and major donors. Too many are biased against direct mail—they may have fallen for the old saying, “It’s junk mail.” Junk mail is advertising you’re not interested in.

An unsolicited direct mail letter arrives from a candidate for the U.S. Senate that you’ve never heard of, but you like her position on the issues, she is running a good campaign against a liberal you want defeated, and so you decide to rush a donation via her website. No one in this situation would think of the letter as junk mail.

In my next post, I’ll continue the discussion about how to be a good steward of a nonprofit’s money.