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First, just to clarify my terminology for this article, a "gift string" is the series of dollar amounts orioles jersey asked for in a nonprofit, direct mail fundraising letter. You've probably seen typical direct response devices that ask for a gift string of $25 - $50 or $100. It's easy to see that they provide options to the donor, but did you know there are many ways for nonprofit organizations to select the amounts that will enhance the donor's likelihood of increasing their donation amount?

The Psychology Behind Gift Strings

Gift strings work to increase donations because they play on people's resistance orioles jersey to being in the lowest category. None of us like to be at the bottom of anything. We all have a natural tendency to want to move our status up. When given a choice among three items, many of us would like to be in the middle or above. We don't want to feel guilty about being in the lowest choice.

Be careful about selecting the dollar amounts. Simply wanting to be in the middle or top category won't force people to select a higher gift amount if the higher amounts are too high. Finding the right balance of how much more to ask for in each category will nudge a percentage of the donor file up without offending those who can't or won't move up. Asking for too much can turn people off and make them unlikely to give at all. They may react with an internal thought "They want HOW MUCH? Are they crazy?" Then they throw away your mail piece and forget about it.

Keep in mind that gift strings only affect a portion of the donors. Many people simply aren't going to orioles jersey change their

Setting the Dollar Amount when a Prior Giving History is Known

giving level. The good new is that gift strings will move a portion of the donors up. There's a good chance that you'll get 20% of your donors to increase their donation by 25% or more. Make that happen and you will have acquired more income without having to find new donors.

One very common gift string technique is based on prior giving history. It assumes you have a donor file with known gift amounts for each individual from a previous fundraising campaign. Using gift strings in this way also assumes you are producing your direct mail campaign with a personalized response device such as a tear-off coupon on the bottom of a letter or a personalized response card. A mail house programmer is usually needed to automate the gift string functions, but they can be done manually by novice spreadsheet users on small lists (under 10,000 or so).

When you supply your donor list to the mail house, include the last donation amount for each donor. Instruct the mail house to fill the gift string amounts based on this formula: the first amount is 1x the previous gift, the second option is 1.5x the prior gift, and the last amount is 2x the prior gift. To keep the gift amounts from becoming unusual amounts with pennies, tell the mail house programmer to round all numbers up to the nearest $5.