the urgent artist

An analysis of the AOMC’s 2010 Fundraising Campaign

So we’re almost in the clear as the “now more than ever” season is about to pass us by.  Phew!

If you noticed that it’s been quiet here, it’s because i’ve been doing a fair amount of it myself: in the first two weeks of December, the AOMC launched our seasonal fundraising campaign for our FY10 Season.  What follows is an overview of what we did, why we did it, and what decisions are made.  If you’ve never headed up a campaign (as i know is the cast with a few of my PRO clients that i’ll be helping) or if you’ve done a few but want to see what other people are doing, please feel free to use this as one example of what one group is doing.  Please know that there’s nothing definitive about this – this is just what we tried this year.  Questions and comments welcome as always! Onwards…

The Synopsis:

So this year marks a huge shift for the AOMC as it will be our first professional season in NYC.  Not only will be be presenting our first show, but it will be a show comprised of only our own work, and an evening length work at that.  This is fantastic and terrifying (as all good things are) for a number of reason both business and artistic, but the main shift for us this year is as follows: where, in previous years, our budgets were somewhere between the $3,000 and $6,000 mark, this years season budget is a whopping $11,000.

It’s not unreasonable by any means, especially given that it includes our rehearsal space, performance venue (which is subsidized through Joyce SoHo’s program), artist fees, etc, but it just feels undeniably huge.  It’s also intimidating knowing that that’s the bare bones budget (for example: each dancer only makes about $300 total for over a year of work).

To add to that, we have our current funding situation – when we were operating out of DC and still in college there were numerous local supporters that made our summers in DC possible.  While we’ve been able to hold on to  a surprising number of these supporters (we’ve been sure to keep in touch via newsletters, emails, and tours to DC) we haven’t been able to hold on to all of them, and as we transition from students to professionals, the educational draw of funding us wears off.  Simultaneously, we’re still young in the NY scene, and almost all of our supporters here are around our age and artists, read: broke just like us.

So the challenges that the season presented off the bat were a budget more than double the size of our last two years, our geographic shift, and the economic situation of our NY supporters.  Oh, and let’s just mention (like any of us aren’t aware) that we’re still mid-recession with government support being pulled left and right, institutions hitting hard to raise their own funds, and everyone and their mom launching a campaign before the end of the year.

To be honest, i think the biggest challenge this season was the dread – the feeling that there was nothing we could do to stand out, the fear that we wouldn’t raise much, and the knowledge that even if we raised money, it wouldn’t be enough.  Heavy stuff, certainly.

The Strategy:

As with my creative work, I’m haunted by the feeling that what I make has to be different, has to stick out somehow, or it isn’t worthwhile.  For fundraising, i don’t think this is a bad approach.  Initially, i had wanted to make a video to go with our mailing and email campaign, but after making the one for DTW (take a peek here) and pulling a few all nighters to get it done, that idea went out the window.  Perhaps we’ll revisit the idea for our May event.

In the end, we decided on a few basic ideas to make a structure for our ask:

• We’d do separate messaging to our mail list and email list, which are mainly separate contacts
• For our mailing list, we’d cut down from previous years, and only mail previous donors from the AOMC’s list and new contacts (mainly family of new dancers)
• For the mailing list, we’d do three separate letters
  • one for previous donors, thanking them for their support and encouraging them to donate again
  • one for families of past dancers, reminding them that we’re doing exciting things, and asking for their support even though we were no longer working with their daughter/son
  • and one for new families on the list, telling them a little bit about who we are and what we’re planning, and asking them to join our family of support.
  • For each of the letters, we used much of the same messaging and language, but made sure that each was specially written for that specific group.  For each group, i chose a specific person in that group and imagined writing it specifically to them.
  • We went strategic.  Since every little factor counts in getting the potential donor to a) open the letter b) be moved by the letter and c) follow through with donating, we put in some extra touches
    • We hand addresses all the envelopes.  Time consuming (huge shout out to Noah, Sae, and Lillie for all the help!), but hopefully worth it!
    • We used mail merge to have each letter addressed by name rather than starting it “dear friends”
    • We made stationary that included all the dancers names at the bottom
    • For the letters to new contacts, we mail merged it so that it was from each dancer (ie: sincerely, Lillie) and had each dancer sign their letters, and i signed as well.  For the other two types, I signed
    • We tried to jot a personal note on ever letter in festive pen colors to make the letter stand out from others.  “Merry Xmas!” was good, but when it was appropriate, something like “thanks so much for coming to the showing last month, hope you can make the one in Jan!” or “Can’t wait to see you over the break, hope you’re doing well!” was better.
  • We made it easy – each envelope contained the letter, a donation form, and a pre-addressed envelope to send their check to us.
  • We made it tax-deductible.  Through our fiscal sponsorship through Dance Theater Workshop, our donors are able to deduct 100% of what they donate!
  • We kept our budget low.
    • In past years we had stamped the return envelopes so it was easy and free for donors to send their check. However, it doubled our postage budget for the campaign, so this year we opted to leave the envelopes unstamped.
    • As mentioned, we opted to hand-label the envelopes (using printer labels for the return addresses).  It made it personal, but it also lowered our cost, as we were able to use the remnants of labels from past years rather than buying new ones.
    • Rather than getting everything printed at Kinko’s as we’ve done in years past, we printed it all from my home printer.  We went through 2 cartridges, but I think it came out cheaper in the end.
  • We made a specific ask towards a specific goal.  We let them know that our total budget was $11,000, and that we wanted to raise $4,000 through this fundraising campaign.

We also decided to do a separate e-campaign.

• For the e-campaign, we decided to go specific, and target the young artists who make up our NY support base but who had yet to donate.
• • This group has proved to be our most illusive – it’s exceedingly difficult for the penniless yet media saturated individuals of our generation to a) have something shown to them that stands out enough to merit time and attention and b) be convinced that their donation of any size is really very helpful to us, but also make them feel like we’re asking for an amount small enough that they can afford it.
  • We created a specific challenge “the Hundred Club”  Our challenge was to get 100 donors from our e-list (mainly young artists, students, and young professionals) to each donate $10, getting us to our goal of $1,000 specifically from the e-campaign.
  • We also created specific rewards: Members of the Hundred Club would get acknowledged in a web video, specially listed on our program/website, and invited to a members-only Hundred Club event in the spring that would be a behind the scenes look at our upcoming piece followed by drinks and networking.
  • We kept it visually simple and clear in our message, with the only links in the email leading to the donate page.

Right at the end we got a HUGE boost!  One of our long-time donors was excited about our Joyce SoHo news, and offered to match our donations up to $2,000! Though the news came a little late in the game and sent us scrambling to re-design our letters to fit that information, the match was great for two reasons:

• • First, we were able to offer it to our donors as incentive – who doesn’t love to double their money? Especially for the email, I thought it would make people feel like even their small donations were worth something.
  • Second, it gave us, the AOMC admin/fundraising team hope! That meant to reach our total $4,000 goal, we only had to hit $2,000, which we’ve done before and I am confident (knock on wood) that we’ll do again this year.

The Campaign:

When writing the campaign, i had the wost cast of writer’s block that i’ve ever had.  Partially a result of the fear i mentioned about the economy and competition, and the nihilism about raising enough money, it just seemed like everything i wrote seemed just like everything else – one droning voice in the sea of many, saying the same thing over and over again.  But what are you going to do? Onwards.

While the end result wasn’t revolutionary by any means (i’d like to start thinking ahead to next year and see if we can create something that will really be a new take on fundraising and stand out more) I was very happy with what we’d accomplished.  We ended up with the three versions of the ask letters, and then the one email campaign.  The letters got sent out to a total of  108 contacts on our mailing list (52 previous donors, 8 families of previous dancers, and 48 new contacts), and the e-campaign got sent out to our general list of 774 contacts.

And….drum roll please…here they are! (click to see full size versions)

The Design:

The Letter Variations:

The Email

We got everything sent out by the second week of December, and then/now it’s a matter of crossing our fingers, trying not to be neurotic, and waiting to see what comes in the mail!

Results: The most nerve-wracking part

While I can’t tell you yet about the mail end (we’d received a few donations, which was exciting and encouraging before i left for DC for xmas, but since i’ve been gone, i have no idea what’s come in.  It’s unbearable) I can tell you about our success with with email campaign.

For our e-campaign, which we send out through constant contact like we do our emails, we got a mere 165 opens out of 774 emails sent, which is pretty average (it’s 21.9% and the industry average is 20%) but a bit disheartening nonetheless. Out of those 165 opens, only 7 clicked the donate link, with only 6 of those going on to donate online.  On one hand, it’s totally disheartening.  On the other hand, 6 donations from people who have never donated, and are part of our young NY supporters on top of that is GREAT, and really really exciting. While these results are a little discouraging, they’re in no way surprising. It’s always been like pulling teeth to get people our age to donate, and it’s a tough season, city, and economy.  I think it’s less a factor of the email not being composed well, and more a factor of how many fundraising emails go out around this time, and how competitive it is especially for NYC. I’m debating whether or not we’ll send another one out after new years (i do feel like there are more people who would be willing or mean to donate and just need a push, but also don’t want people to feel like i’m spamming them and unsubscribe from the list).

So that’s that.

I’m really confident about the mail campaign, and will write another post once the majority of those have come in and let you know the results, as well as give a wrap-up analysis of everything made clear by hindsight.  In the meantime, questions, comments, and stories from your holiday campaigns are encouraged! What struck you as new about how we did ours this year? What stuck out to you? Would anything turn you off from donating? How did the letters/email effect you?

Happy Holidays, and for those of you that are anxiously awaiting the mail to see how your campaigns have fared, best of luck!

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Tags: dance theater workshop, fundraising, FY10, how to, industry tips, reasource, the A.O. Movement Collective