Nonprofit Fundraising - The Back Story

Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 13, 2009

Nonprofit fundraising is so prevalent today that it’s hard to imagine life in America without it. But organized nonprofit fundraising is a relatively recent development in our nation’s history.

In the years following World War II, the Easter Seal Society and a few other big American charities began to make extensive use of the mail to meet their growing fundraising goals. With little cash outlay, they mailed millions of inexpensive  fundraising letters and saw it pay off in huge returns for their causes. 

That was more than half a century ago. A great deal has happened since: a more than twenty-fold increase in charitable contributions, the advent of zip codes, powerful personal computers, 1,000 percent inflation in nonprofit postal rates, and a similarly giant rise in printing costs - and above all, competition in the form of appeals mailed by thousands and thousands of nonprofit groups and causes both large and small. 

In 2008, the U.S. Postal Service distributed more than 14 billion pieces of mail for nonprofit organizations. Most of these were appeals for funds. But this isn’t simply a matter of volume. Direct mail fundraising accounts for a major share of the financial support given to many of our nation’s biggest charities, and it has come to loom large on the political landscape as well.

This proliferation of mail has created a challenge for nonprofit organizations to generate funds through direct mail. To help meet this challenge, hundreds of consulting firms have come into existence. They often charge high fees to offer a staggering variety of approaches.  Although it continues to be popular, direct mail definitely has grown more complicated since its early days.

But no matter what type of outreach your nonprofit organization utilizes, we recommend selling the Samaritan Card. It’s a valuable shopping discount card that pays for itself after only a few uses.