Newsletter fundraising for departments, clubs and societies
Best Practice Guidelines, hints and tips
Individual Giving Team
Last updated 18 September 2014
Newsletters are excellent for keeping your alumni and supporters engaged. The addition of a
donation form is a simple but effective way of educating your constituents of your fundraising
priorities. However, don’t assume that this will result in lots of donations – because it is not as
direct an ask as other fundraising channels, it is possible that you may receive only a handful of gifts,
depending on the size of your constituency. This document is thus designed to help you think about
how, and whether, you might use your newsletter to solicit funds.
Please contact the Individual Giving team at annual.giving@devoff.ox.ac.uk with any questions. To
explore a newsletter fundraising appeal for your department, club or society, please complete a
Fundraising Communication Proposal form at: www.advancingoxford.ox.ac.uk/sharedresources.
Contents:
1. The five essentials to planning newsletter fundraising
2. When is a newsletter considered a fundraising communication?
3. 20 steps to including a solicitation in your newsletter
4. Presenting your case for support
5. Preparing your data selection
6. Donation form content
7. Your newsletter is sent – what next?
Best Practice Guidelines – Newsletter fundraising for departments, clubs and societies
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1. The five essentials to planning newsletter fundraising
1. Case for
support
Be really clear on what you are fundraising for and why it is important – see
section 4.
2.
Departmental
Fit
3. Resources
What are the priorities of the department and does it fit with other
fundraising priorities, e.g. of the Division and wider University?
Do you have buy-in from your newsletter editor and senior management?
How much time and resources do you have and what is your budget?
What does the calendar for the year ahead look like?
Have you contacted UODO to discuss your mailing? All fundraising must
be coordinated by UODO and 3 months’ notice is required.
Does your activity fall in October, November, January or June? Donation
forms by departments, clubs and societies must be sent in these months,
unless it is a partnership mailing with the college(s) whose alumni are being
contacted.
Have you completed the relevant fundraising request form?
Do you have all the necessary training and access to DARS?
Is there an existing fund set up and have you spoken to the Gift Registry about
processing donations?
Does this appeal affect your existing giving page on the Campaign website?
Cost
Minimal if you already do a newsletter
Time
3 months
Response rate Typically low – donation forms with newsletters are quite a
soft ask, and you may receive only a few responses
Key
Newsletters can take a significant amount of planning/time
considerations Good to measure how engaged alumni are
4. Other
Considerations
(also see the
Relationship
Management
Protocols for
fundraising)
5. Managing
expectations
2. When is a newsletter considered a fundraising communication?
For the purposes of the Relationship Management Protocols for fundraising across the collegiate University,
any newsletter, magazine etc which encloses a donation or legacy form qualifies as a fundraising
communication. A publication without a donation or legacy form also qualifies, if it includes a direct
solicitation – for example, a question (e.g. “Will you make a gift today?”) or statement (e.g. “Please
make a gift today.”) which leaves no ambiguity that it is asking the reader to make a gift. Fundraising
communications by the Central University, including those from departments, clubs and societies,
should take place in January, June, October and November only.1
1
This timing excludes circumstances beyond the University’s reasonable control, such as an unforeseeable delay by a printer or mailing
house in preparing or sending the communication.
Best Practice Guidelines – Newsletter fundraising for departments, clubs and societies
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3. 20 steps to including a solicitation in your Newsletter
Plan your schedule
Complete a primary
selection of your data on
DARS, if you are
responsible for this (exclude
Do Not Solicits)
Plan your budget, if you are
responsible for meeting the
additional donation form
costs
Get support from both
UODO and your
department
Complete the Fundraising
Communication Proposal
form
Check what the limitations
are for your article(s) with
the newsletter's editor
Collect images for your
donation form and quotes
and images for your
article(s)
Write your fundraising
article(s) and submit it to
your newsletter
editor/designer
Complete the Donation
Form request form
Confirm that the final data
excludes Do Not Solicits
Gain final sign-off from:
UODO , department,
anyone that features in your
appeal
Send your final article(s) and
donation form to the
printers and data to the
mailing house
Confirm your gift
processing (i.e. Gift
Registry) and thanking
procedures
Work out a post-mailing
plan, if appropriate (e.g. to
handle mailing returns,
letters etc)
Work out a stewardship
plan for any gifts to be
received
Set up a reporting process
Update your website and
online giving page on the
Campaign site
Ensure the appeal (and
responses) are added to
DARS
Write an analysis report
Develop your case for
support
4. Presenting your case for support
Your case for support is typically not your proposal or ask, but an internal document that you then
need to translate for your audience. What is it that you are raising money for, and why? Six key
questions you may wish to ask to help you in this:
i.
What is your vision?
iv.
What is the urgency?
ii.
Why is it important?
v.
How do you propose to meet the need?
iii.
Why do you need to meet this need?
vi.
What are you missing?
You will then need to translate your case for support into the copy for your newsletter article(s).
Often the ‘ask’ is included in the introduction and conclusion. Another good way to incorporate
fundraising is through demonstrating the impact of philanthropy in news stories or interviews with
recipients. Refer to the Campaign wherever appropriate (n.b. all mailings should use the Oxford
Thinking Campaign branding guidelines). The Individual Giving team can advise on these elements.
Best Practice Guidelines – Newsletter fundraising for departments, clubs and societies
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5. Preparing your data selection
Your newsletter data selection has extra elements if you are including a solicitation. Will all agegroups of alumni receive this Newsletter, and who are you excluding – in particular, will you remove
the donation form from those who are Do Not Solicit, and have you excluded current students?
Will you mail worldwide, or just the UK? Will you pre-populate details onto donation forms – such
as Finder Number, name and address details, and/or a suggested ask amount? There are lots of
questions around data and it is worth looking at who you already contact and how.
You must use DARS for your mailing, so ensure you have enough training to be able to use the
system properly or have agreed who will undertake the data selection on your behalf. Always get
someone to check your data – it is imperative that you have the right exclusions on your queries to
ensure constituents with negative Mail Preferences or Solicit Codes are not mailed. We
recommend that you use Finder Numbers in your mailing, pre-populated onto your
donation form or reply envelope. This will help to ensure that all donations are correctly
attributed to the appeal.
If you are working with a small budget, consider mailing a donation form to UK constituents only.
Overseas constituents require different donation forms, if you do decide to include them.
6. Donation Form content
All donation forms should be designed by UODO. There is limited space available on the donation
form due to the amount of information that has to be included. The Donation Form Request Form
will instruct you on all the steps you need to take to create a donation form. The designed form will
always include the DARS Data Protection Statement.
7. Your newsletter is sent – what next?
Getting the mailing to the stage of printing is not the end. If you have not done so already, you need
to be thinking about the next steps. Here is a quick check list of things to take into consideration:
 Is Gift Registry aware of your mailing and of which fund(s) to allocate donations to?
 Have you drafted a thank you letter and imported it to DARS? Who is the signatory? Who is
responsible for thanking? Do you have a broader stewardship plan in place for your donors?
 Do you need to communicate key information out to your department? Is there an FAQs
document for enquiries?
 After the mailing has landed, who is responsible for dealing with enquiries and returned mail?
These returned mail changes should be documented on DARS.
 What information will you be asked to report on? Have you set up queries in DARS to give
KPIs to monitor progress?
 Have you updated your website and your Campaign website giving page to reflect the
mailing and give further information about the appeal?
 Have you documented the process and written an analysis to help you in future years?
Contact the Individual Giving team at annual.giving@devoff.ox.ac.uk if you have any questions.
Best Practice Guidelines – Newsletter fundraising for departments, clubs and societies
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