[Lnc-business] Frequency of fundraising pitches

[Scott L.]

With all due respect to my colleague in Southern California, this board
should not be worrying about how often staff sends out direct mail or e-mail
fundraisers.

 

  Scott Lieberman

 

 

 

http://blog.westaf.org/2013/01/board-micromanagement-is-number-one.html

 

 

"Boards must ultimately understand that the decisions that impact the
overarching goals of the organization and its values are their job - but
that the specifics of how that is implemented is the line CEO / staff
function.  If the CEO fails to deliver, the Board option is to replace that
individual.  If they do not appreciate that role, or simply reject it, then
micromanagement is very likely to be an ongoing issue.

 

(and it is clearly in the interest of funders to shy away from funding
organizations that cannot get a handle on micromanagement.)"

 

  

 

  _____  

 

 

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
Daniel Wiener
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2015 6:10 PM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Subject: [Lnc-business] Frequency of fundraising pitches

 

At the last LNC meeting we had some discussion about how often to send out
fundraising mailings.  Wes Benedict had been receiving pressure to reduce
the frequency, based on complaints from a few individuals.  But I and
several other LNC members expressed ourselves emphatically that those
individuals should be ignored: The number of letters should be increased, as
long as they remained profitable.  Accordingly, the 2015 budget was amended
to authorize 9 instead of 6 major house letters.  Those would be
supplemented by occasional email fundraising pitches.

 

I therefore found today's Politico article of interest (Activists
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/activists-hillary-clinton-fundraising
-pleas-115199.html>  bristle at Hillary Clinton fundraising pleas --
Constant solicitations for cash in the absence of an actual candidate aren't
sitting well), especially the following paragraphs:

 

As frequently as Ready for Hillary sends its solicitations - recipients say
they arrive daily - experts say barraging inboxes has become the new norm.

 

"The best practice used to be that you would only send a couple per day at
max," said Michael Whitney, an email campaigning specialist at the
progressive communications firm Revolution Messaging. But in recent years,
he said, email campaigners have become more aggressive without registering
any meaningful backlash.

 

The new consensus is that constant emailing "might annoy a lot of people,
but it doesn't mean they're going to unsubscribe and it doesn't mean they're
not going to donate in the future."

 

"Three years ago, the idea of sending more than two emails a day was
considered abusive," he added. "That's gone out the window."

 

Now obviously Hillary is at the extreme other end of the fundraising
spectrum, and it's not something we want to emulate.  The article indicates
that the super-saturation of solicitations is finally taking its toll on her
potential contributors.

 

But two-a-day used to be the "best practice"?  And more than that is no
longer considered abusive?  Really?

 

Between what the LP is presently doing, and what the Hillary campaign is
overdoing, there's an enormous gulf.  It seems like there's ample room for
us to increase the frequency of our fundraising emailings and snail mailings
without getting anywhere near to the level which would turn out to be
counterproductive.

 

Dan Wiener

 

P.S.  I'm apparently on Rand Paul's email list (not that I've ever
contributed to him) and his RandPAC sends out a fundraiser pitch an average
of once a day.  (Sometimes it's twice a day, sometimes they'll skip a day.)
I have to assume that it's working or they wouldn't be doing it.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20150214/96e02305/attachment-0002.html>