Targeted Marketing: Asking Appropriately

Research shows that the two main reasons that potential donors don’t give are:

1. They haven’t been asked.
2. They don’t support the mission of the organization.

There’s a third reason: Potential donors who do support the mission may say no because “the ask” was not appropriate to their circumstances (such as soliciting an unrestricted gift from younger donors who tend to be more interested in specific impact and accountability). One way to ensure appropriateness is with targeted marketing pieces—and this is relatively easy for universities because they already have two key
pieces of targeting information: degree earned and years since graduation (which identifies the generational cohort).