Four Signs a Donor Relationship Wasn’t Made to Last (And What You Can Do About It) For all the talk in our industry about donor retention, donor desirability is a rarely discussed topic. But the fact is: Acquiring the right type of donor is as critical to strong retention as any post-acquisition cultivation strategy. Some […]

Heading into Giving Tuesday the year after the extreme generosity of 2020 was making many nonprofit fundraisers anxious. Yet, despite consumer pessimism, other economic indicators (unemployment trending down and markets trending up) seemed to bode well for solid giving metrics at year end. And so far, that’s proving to be true for Giving Tuesday. The […]

New iOS update and its impact on email tracking There are some upcoming changes to email tracking with Apple devices and Avalon is on it. Apple’s upcoming release of iOS 15 on Monday, September 20, 2021, will include the rollout of Mail Privacy Protection. This feature allows users to block tracking of email metrics like […]

Coming off a strong Giving Tuesday, we raced towards the end of the year with a little anxiety. Not only do most nonprofits raise upwards of 40-50% of their online revenue at year end, but given USPS mail delays—some significant—many organizations were looking to rely on digital revenue streams to keep their critical programs moving. […]

  As we enter the final gasps of 2020, nonprofits are looking ahead. And Giving Tuesday is giving them reason to smile. Despite the ongoing pandemic, rising unemployment rates, and voters still recovering from the election, donors maintained their generosity and are giving nonprofits – and those they serve –hope of closing out 2020 on […]

Most of us who work in fundraising were deluged with emails from various nonprofits. But we were also refreshing our donation totals to see how generous donors were being to their favorite causes. In all, Giving Tuesday, the global day of giving, spurred record numbers of charitable giving this week with $511 million raised online […]

We took in Digital Day at the DMAW and brought back a host of ideas and trends—here are some highlights that we might think about testing…knowing that none is one-size-fits-all: Lots of organizations shared ideas for designing successful fundraising emails and discussed website trends they are trying out with mixed success. But the most interesting […]

M+R recently released its Online Benchmarks Study 2019, with lots to inform how we move forward with online fundraising. This year’s study consisted of 135 non-profits, including five Avalon clients (National Museum of the American Indian, National Air and Space Museum, Monterey Bay Aquarium, National Geographic Society, and the National Parks Conservation Association). M+R breaks the […]

As portrayed on cult TV show Portlandia, Portland, OR has a reputation of being a little weird in its laid-back sensibility. But Portland also points out its endless possibilities, as its slogan promises: You Can, in Portland. This was the backdrop for this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC). Four Avalonians attended NTC in Portland, and brought back—appropriately—an […]

Here’s a quick rundown of Avalon best practices for three hot digital topics: monthly sustainers, donor thank-you packages, and avoiding spam filters Looks like everyone got the memo about how loyal monthly sustainers can be the lifeblood of fundraising programs! Monthly giving increased by 40% in 2017 and rose from 14% of all online revenue to 16% […]