6 Lessons for River Groups’ End-of-Year Appeals
Hard Numbers from Organizations Using the WaterGrass Database
One of the purposes of the WaterGrass database is to gather data about what’s working and what’s not for river and watershed organizations. With 15 groups now using WaterGrass, we’ve can draw some first, tentative conclusions. Recently, we conferenced about end-of-year appeals – how previous appeals have gone, and what allows some groups to be particularly successful.
The 6 Lessons
- Lesson 1: Overall, rates of return are good.
- Lesson 2: Rates of response fell along a curve.
- Lesson 3: The acquisition mailings were actually worth it.
- Lesson 4: Segmenting your mailing list boosts rate of return and income.
- Lesson 5: Most income comes from major donors.
- Lesson 6: Some organizations manage to get much better rates of return than others.
