Zero Is No Hero When It Comes to Response Rates

It’s your worst nightmare: You send out mailings to prospects about planned giving, and no one responds. A university recently experienced this—they sent out 15,000 surveys to planned giving prospects, and they got zero results!  

Believe it or not, a lot of our customers have this concern. They’ve had disappointments and setbacks in the past, and they wonder if it’s even worth trying. 

We can help. This year we helped a major Midwest food bank start a dialog about legacy giving with 10,000 of their donors. They received 2118 of the initial surveys back. 

That’s right, we helped them achieve over a 21% response rate! Not only that, we have also helped them identify 37 new legacy givers—that amounts to an estimated $1.8 million in newly-discovered bequest gifts. 

The key to getting good results is making sure you use the right message and method.  

Rather than overloading donors with information or making a survey that is purely transactional, you should be finding out why they care about your organization and learning more about them. This will begin a continuing conversation that will make your donors feel more comfortable and valued. 

What could your organization do with another $1.8 million? Learn more about Canopy and how we can change the future of your nonprofit.