Fundraising Toolkit Case Study: Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT)
As told by Will K. Wilkins, Executive Director.
Summary
A Successful Direct Mail Campaign
Original Goal: $100 per person
Amount actually raised: $3,000 (30 people at $100 each)
Cash investment: 65-cents per letter
Staff time and value: 4 days
Total unpaid volunteer hours: 0
The rest of the story
Real Art Ways, like many other alternative spaces at the time (1991), hadn't put much effort into raising money from individuals. Most of our support had come from the government—at first from the CETA jobs program, then later and increasingly from the State arts commission and multiple programs at the NEA.
When I arrived in 1990 it was apparent to me that we needed individual supporters for political and for financial reasons. In the spring of 1991, Real Art Ways was completing our presentation over the previous twelve months of the “NEA 4”—the four performance artists who had had individual artist grants vetoed by the then NEA chairman. We were presenting the wonderful actor and performer John Fleck, here in Hartford and in New Haven.
I was in the midst of writing a direct mail letter to go out to our mailing list, and I mentioned it to John. His eyes lit up, and he said, "I have a friend in New Haven who makes his living writing direct mail pieces. I'll put you two together." I was happy to follow up on John’s suggestion because I had had no experience with direct mail.
When I met John's friend, I handed him a solicitation letter I had written, and he very generously offered some suggestions. He said we should include every reason I could think of to support the organization, because different people would respond to different things. He offered a few other pointers on layout (always indent, and use underlining, but use it sparingly).
Then he told me the one thing that brought in immediate results: "Always include a PS. In the PS ask for a higher amount of support, and tell people why that is important." I took his advice, and added the following: "PS - If you contribute $100, you will get…" something I can't recall at the moment. We sent out the letters, and waited.
Keep in mind that prior to this Real Art Ways only had three donors who gave $100 or more. The first day of returns five people gave us $100. The second day, seven more. By the time the returns were in, thirty people had contributed $100. I had learned the power of the PS, and one other simple lesson—the pros know what they are doing and can be helpful, even if they don’t know about our organizations and what we do. (John's friend's main client was a renegade priest in Canada who claimed to know the three secrets of Fatima—and all his direct mail fundraising was based on that secret info.)
Today, thirteen years later, we are about to go to over 1,000 individual contributors, and our average contribution is $123.
What helped make this effort a success
A program worth supporting. Listening to an expert.
What we wish we had done differently
I wish I hadn’t sent the renegade priest $100. I never did find out the secrets of Fatima.
Advice to colleagues
Collect your constituents’ mailing and email information – consistently, assiduously – and put it to work.
Some resources I find helpful:
- Mal Warwick’s web site.
- COMPASSPOINT: has good board information
For more information on this story contact wwilkins@realartways.org, 860.232.1006 x100
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