DM 101

After segmentation strategy, copy and design are the two most critical elements of any campaign. This section will cover the most critical components of creative strategy

• How to get attention
• Crafting a strong fundraising offer
• The key elements of fundraising success
• Integrating your online and offline message

This session will provide unique insights and information surrounding both the organization's donor file and the mailing lists that make up new donor acquisition efforts. The discussion will include topics such as:

• The Donor File – Most Important Asset for an Organization
• Types of Lists – Markets and Targeting
• Sources of Information & Types of List Transactions
• Structure of Acquisition Plan & Strategy
• Education & Fundraising
• Attrition & Acquisition of Donors

The understanding and proper use of, both data hygiene and data processing technologies can dramatically affect the success of any direct marketing campaign. This section will provide attendees with:

• A complete understanding of the many data hygiene options that are currently available. How to use them, what to look for, what kind of results to expect, and the USPS requirements surrounding the use of data hygiene products.
• The knowledge of the many steps involved in the Merge/Purge process, and how to best use the technology to your advantage. From file conversion to matching logic to file output, what you should be asking, expecting, and looking for.

• Working knowledge of the production process and the elements of production
• A template to help you build an effective production schedule
• Tips to help you reduce postage expenses

Below are the five things attendees will come away learning:

• What you should expect from a Database
• How to get the most out of your system
• The importance and value of a system that is easy to use
• Understanding what data needs to be collected
• The difference between Process Data versus Analyzing Data

Integrating the online channel into your fundraising and communications mix is critical. But it’s also critical to apply the same direct marketing disciplines to your online program that you do in your other channels. This section will cover the basics of an online program. Below are the six things attendees will come away learning:

• The components that are the foundation of any online program
• How to integrate online with other direct marketing channels
• How to build an email list that will stay engaged
• The anatomy of an email campaign (with examples and testing options)
• Some ways to capture data to aid in list segmentation and ask strategies

The telephone is a vital avenue for fundraising. But, when and how should a nonprofit use it? Will calling donors leave a wake of negative reactions, or can it possibly cultivate a deeper commitment to the organization’s mission? This session pulls the curtain back to reveal the inner workings of telefundraising. In this session, you’ll discover:

• How to make the most positive impact with a telephone campaign
• What telefundraising firms don’t want you to know
• How to integrate telefundraising to produce the greatest synergy with your other fundraising channels
• The growth and effectiveness of text marketing for nonprofit’s today, and how to get your campaign started.

Speaker: Ron Guberman, President, Media Reactions

This brief presentation delves into the logic behind how and why many leading charities use DRTV to fuel category dominance and exponential donation growth as part of a multi-channel campaign. We will explore the highly persuasive nature of effective DRTV creativity along with what types of charities should and should not use it.

John Bell
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
MMI Direct

John has been a leader in the Data/Direct Marketing industry for almost four decades. He began his career in 1983 at Wiland and Associates, at that time a leading data processing services company headquartered in Fredericksburg VA. In 1998, John moved to California to work with the West Coast division of PSA, a Capitol Heights MD. based data services organization. In 1992, he moved back East to work with Merkle, a cutting-edge direct marketing firm, servicing both the commercial and nonprofit sectors. In 2002, he joined MMI Direct to partner with Marvin Dawson to build their data processing division. At that time MMI Direct’s primary focus became the nonprofit industry, and it has remained as such. MMI Direct has become a trusted data partner to hundreds of nonprofits and the agencies that serve them.

Since the beginning of John’s career, he has always found ways to engage and educate the sector. 

Ross Fate
Senior Account Manager/New Business Development
MMI

21 years at MMI Direct. I work almost exclusively with our Non Profit clients. I am involved daily in the list conversion, list hygiene, and merge purge processes. I manage a team of Account Managers at MMI and head up the onboarding of our new clients. Prior to MMI, I was at Merkle for 3 years working in client services.

Tom Fleming
Senior Vice President, New Donor Acquisition
Adstra

Tom brings 25+ years of direct marketing experience to his clients. Tom started his career at Fingerhut, where he gained valuable experience in both customer acquisition and reactivation marketing. From there, Tom moved into executive-level positions at Novus Media, Paradysz, and ALC. He has deep experience in circulation planning, list brokerage, and database marketing across direct mail, print, and radio channels. Tom has worked with nationally recognized brands such as Special Olympics, Easterseals, Alzheimer’s Disease Research, North Shore Animal League, and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Tom was a Co-Chair for the 2013 DMA Nonprofit Conference in NY, a frequent speaker at the DM101 training series, and serves on the Education Committee for The Nonprofit Alliance.

Ron Guberman
President
Media Reactions

Ron Guberman has been engaged in all phases of creation, development, and production of Direct Response TV advertising campaigns for a variety of companies ranging from large local retailers to Fortune 100 corporations. His prior nonprofit sector efforts include work for Wounded Warrior Project, Shriner’s Hospitals and UNICEF just to name a few. 

His agency, Media Reactions opened its doors in 1973. In the mid 1980’s, Guberman started developing a unique computerized media response tracking tool to provide clients and media buyers with accurate cost per response and sale data on results generated by each and every spot.  Over the past 50+ years, the response tracking program has been licensed and used by a variety of clients and other advertising agencies including Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Job Corps, ITT Educational Services, Bates-USA, Bell Canada, Lennox A/C, National Rifle Association and Piper Aircraft.

Chrissy Hyre
Principal and Senior Vice President
CCAH

Throughout her career, Chrissy has been obsessed with driving innovative, impactful ways to communicate with donors and supporters. She has a particular passion for developing multichannel strategies designed to increase new donor recruitment, build midlevel programs, expand SMS fundraising and engagement, and grow monthly giving programs. Her wide breadth of experience in fundraising across channels has helped her pioneer new strategies to grow her clients’ programs – and nothing thrills her more than testing something totally out of the box and new… especially if it’s successful!

Since (re)joining CCAH in 2009, she’s been a key part of the team in both our Bay Area and DC offices. Her work has been instrumental in the fundraising success of many well-known Democratic political organizations and candidates and progressive advocacy organizations.

Chrissy graduated from Radford University and lives in Alexandria, VA (though a piece of her hillbilly heart will always be in West Virginia.)

Dara Igersheim
Vice President
Avalon Consulting

Dara joined Avalon in 2006, after spending her early career in development at the Smithsonian and The Phillips Collection. Dara has long had a passion for museum membership programs. No matter where she travels for work or fun, Dara scopes out the local museums to see how they’re positioning their membership program. From visiting the member desk to photographing examples of signage to signing up for e-communications, Dara is always researching effective membership programs and bringing that knowledge back to her clients’ campaigns.

From her early days in college majoring in jewelry design and art history, to spending her weekends with her husband and two young sons enjoying DC’s incredible museum offerings, Dara knows the transformative power of welcoming art into our daily lives.  Through her work with Avalon clients including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Museum of American Indian, and American Film Institute, Dara has found a way of uniting her personal passion for the arts with her well-honed talents as a fundraiser and champion of the cause. The result?  Award-winning, revenue-driving, mission-enforcing fundraising campaigns that help ensure her clients continue to raise the bar in the non-profit fundraising world.

David Lothamer
Digital Account Director 
Avalon Consulting

David joined Avalon after serving as communications manager at Calvary Women’s Services, where he honed his digital fundraising and communications expertise by creating successful online marketing campaigns, working with a web development team on a complicated website refresh, and designing content strategy and development for social media platforms and the website. As a digital account director at Avalon, David’s deep knowledge of how to design and implement complex digital fundraising campaigns, as well as his exacting project management skills, are instrumental in helping his clients raise more funds online. He also works with clients on special events like Giving Tuesday, with digital paid media, and by helping them to increase their presence on social media platforms.

Jason Robbins
Vice President Creative
ROI Solutions

Jason Robbins is a 25-year veteran of the nonprofit direct marketing fundraising industry. Jason began his career by joining his father’s firm, L.W. Robbins Associates, where he provided his nonprofit clients with direct mail counsel and strategy. From there he joined Manhattan College as Director of Development/Special Gifts managing both the direct marketing and annual/anniversary funds’ leadership giving programs. Prior to ROI Solutions, Jason worked as an account director at Target Analytics helping a diverse portfolio of clients improve their bottom lines through the best use of analytics, reporting, and data modeling.

Jason holds in B.A. in Classical Archaeology from Dartmouth College and in his free time enjoys golf, basketball, hiking, camping, and most of all spending time with his family in all types of New England weather. He also proudly serves on the Board of Directors for the Direct Marketing Fundraiser’s Association (DMFA) and chairs the Boston Programming Committee. Jason most recently went on a healthcare mission to Peru and got to spend some downtime at Machu Picchu.