Tis the season...for gift catalogues!

I LOVE Gift Catalogues. I think they are a fantastic way of honoring your loved ones while improving the lives of people around the world. The truth is, most people on your gift list probably don't need, or even want, anything for Christmas. According to a poll conducted for World Vision by Ipsos Read in 2007, 8 out of 10 Canadians said they didn't need anything, and eighty-four per cent agreed that they would prefer to receive a meaningful gift that would help someone else, rather than a traditional gift like a pair of socks or a sweater.

For this reason, our mailboxes are being flooded with stacks of catalogues for all kinds of different organizations. You can buy a pig, goat, cow and even an alpaca for your friends; you can pay back that brother that always picked on you with a latrine; or you can honour the teacher in your life by providing school uniforms or school supplies for a child in a developing country. If there is someone in your life who loves the outdoors you can adopt a piece of land or an endangered species. Or you can help out at home, by providing gifts for the homeless or toys for children spending Christmas at the hospital. There are so many special gifts you can give that will really make a difference this Christmas - and I think its brilliant!

As a fundraisers though, we need to ask 'what next'? We know that gift catalogues can acquire new donors with a very high efficiency rate. Realistically though, this group are better classified as catalog buyers than donors. As someone who has purchased from a variety of gift catalogues I am regularly thrown into the direct mail stream but catalogue buyers cannot be cultivated in the same way as your traditional dm donors.

How have you manged to turn catalogue donors into committed donors? Have you found away to get a second gift? Or better yet, have you been successful in converting these donors into monthly givers?

Oh - and one more thing. If your still looking for a gift for the person who has everything - here are the links to three of my favourite gift catalogues...

World Vision Canada

Operation Eyesight

WWF

Homeless Charity in Sweeden gets innovative with their Christmas Appeal

I came across this Christmas appeal on the Epica Awards web site. Its an innovative approach to a Christmas appeal which should break through the holiday clutter that.

During a season when people are more likely to give, charities are much more likely to ask. Donors receive countless DM appeals from charities and are bombarded by asks outside of their mailbox as well.

Gothenburg Homeless Aid relies on generosity at Christmas which is when a substantial portion of their entire year's funding is collected. In order to stand out, they developed their no fixed abode Christmas card appeal. They produced a standard Christmas Card, that at first glance doesn't look to different from what anyone else would send out at Christmas time. Where they got really creative, was with the address.

The charity wanted to draw attention to people with no fixed address in Gothenburg, so they addressed the pack to "Lasse Persson, a doorway/tunnel/stairwell, Hisingen (a part of Gothenburg)”. They then wrote the details of the actual intended recipient on the back of the envelope. When the Swedish post office received the letters they were unable to deliver them to Lasse because he has no real address.

When they couldn't deliver the envelope, they were "returned to sender" and sent "back" to the intended recipient with a post office stamp saying "not known at this address". The yellow label on the envelope not only highlighted the fact that there are people in Gothenburg who have nowhere to live, but made it almost impossible for the recipient to simply throw it away without opening it to see what it’s all about.

The Christmas card was sent to 20,000 people in Gothenburg, and raised approximately 255,000 US dollars, making it their highest performing Christmas appeal to date.

What innovative approaches have you taken to encourage recipients to open your pack?