Direct mail fundraising is a form of

direct marketing Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a Target market, pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as ''direct response ...

widely used by

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

s in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and parts of Asia-Pacific to acquire new donors or members and retain the level of their contributions or dues as part of a

fundraising Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...

program. The professional use of direct mail fundraising requires an understanding both of the principles and practice of

and of the discipline of fundraising. In direct marketing, practitioners view large numbers of prospects or donors through the lens of statistics. Fundraising teaches us how to view prospects or donors as individuals, with unique values, beliefs, and preferences.

History and growth in the United States

In its modern form,

direct mail Advertising mail, also known as direct mail (by its senders), junk mail (by its recipients), mailshot or admail (North America), letterbox drop or letterboxing (Australia), is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail. Th ...

fundraising appeared in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, when nationwide charities such as the National Easter Seal Society sought ways to broaden their fundraising base. It was only with the advent in the 1960s of the ZIP Code and, later, the computer that direct mail fundraising began to gain wide use. Before the ZIP Code, it was difficult to target appropriate recipients of direct mail fundraising appeals, and before the computer, compiling and maintaining lists of supporters was tedious and costly. During the 1970s, when computers became increasingly affordable, the use of direct mail fundraising spread widely. It quickly became the means by which most Americans learned about and first provided financial support for their charities of choice. The explosive growth of the nonprofit sector in the United States — quadrupling in the 1980s and doubling again in the 1990s and early 2000s — led to a massive expansion in the use of direct mail to build and sustain large, nationwide donor and membership lists. Today, direct mail fundraising accounts for at least one-fifth of the more than $250 billion contributed annually in the U.S. to the nation's 1.6 million nonprofit organizations. Direct mail fundraising has its own unique jargon, much of it related to the art and science of creating, producing and mailing the right appeal to the right list at the right time, and measuring the results. In recent years, electronic communication media has been used more commonly among nonprofits. Online, email, and social media campaigns, collectively referred to as digital fundraising, have been used in coordination with direct mail fundraising. Nonprofits supplement direct mail campaigns with email blasts and social media posts, using similar messaging and visuals to tie the various communications together. However, digital fundraising has not grown fast enough to replace direct mail for most nonprofits. In 2018, digital fundraising accounted for 8.5% percent of charitable donations in the United States.

References

{{Authority control Direct marketing Fundraising

History and growth in the United States

See also

References