Harvey McKinnon Associates is a consultancy specializing in fundraising, relationship building, and direct response for the nonprofit community. With offices in Vancouver and Toronto, we offer services to clients around the world.
Our mission is to increase the income and stability of our nonprofit clients by building donor loyalty. We believe our work can make a difference in the world, and we use our skills in raising money to help nonprofit organizations accomplish their missions.
New HMA-produced Video
for Vancouver General Hospital Campaign
Watch our new video clip featuring Vancouver General Hospital patient Catharine Martin. The video is part of an integrated appeal campaign: direct mail with a drive to online plus an email follow up. Catharine is also using Twitter to fundraise to her personal network of family and friends. Check our HMA blog in late September for updates.
Latest from the blogs
Top 4 reasons why direct mail donors stay loyal
Looking at the reasons why direct mail donors have the best retention rates
We often hear – and say – that mail-acquired donors have the best retention rates. It’s one of those industry truisms that we follow, especially those amongst us who are direct mail geeks. However, it’s always important to periodically take a step back and question even the most established rules of thumb – take the time to ask why.
Recently, one of my colleagues did just that.
And here are the top reasons:
Maybe it’s because I’m approaching a big birthday, but I’ve been taking stock lately, and one of the things I realized was that I’ve been in fundraising now for over 15 years. Yikes! During the 15 years, I’ve spent 5 years ‘client-side’ and 10 years on the dark side sometimes known as the ‘agency.’ I’ve been in and around lots of incredibly successful client-agency relationships, and a few that were a bit trickier.
I honestly believe that the relationship between a non-profit and its consultants or agencies has a huge impact on results. So these are the ingredients that in my experience, make the happiest working relationship, and have the best chance of raising the most $ too:
Trust. Nothing works in life without it. I think that clients get the most out of their consultants when they truly believe the consultants have their best interests at heart, and aren’t just trying to make a profit. In turn, an agency that feels they don’t have the trust of their client will be constantly scrambling to make their client happy, rather than giving the realistic and sound advice that isn’t always popular.
The Power of Giving is launching a great initiative taken from Joseph Jaffe and Mitch Joel (thank you)... to raise money for relief efforts in Haiti.
We are auctioning Azim's "Power of Giving" keynote presentation with 100% of the proceeds going to Oxfam for Haiti Relief. The reserve has been set at $10.
If you want to place a "bid" please do so in the comment box under this blog. If you are the highest bidder, we will contact you once the bidding has ended. If you prefer to place a confidential bid, call us at 604-732-4351, extension 100 or e-mail info@thepowerofgiving.org.
Bidding ends Thursday, January 29nd at midnight.
Here is the fine print:
• Travel outside of Vancouver would be over and above.
• Copies of Azim's book, The Corporate Sufi to each participant (maximum 250 copies) will be included as a gift.
Challenge!
If you are a speaker/presenter, I challenge you to run a Keynote For A Cause event as well.
While you're at it, please donate $10 via www.oxfamamerica.org/ (in the US) or www.oxfam.ca/ (in Canada).
This morning Ecojustice announced a victory in Canada’s Supreme Court:
Today, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Canadian government has violated a national environmental law aimed at ensuring sustainable development. In a case centered on the proposed Red Chris mine in British Columbia, the Court ruled that the federal government cannot split projects into artificially small parts to avoid rigorous environmental assessments. The ruling also guarantees that the public will be consulted about major industrial projects, including large metal mines and tar sands developments.
Congratulations to Ecojustice on this victory. And a big thank you to Ecojustice and their lawyers as well for working so hard to hold the government accountable to the law in the service of protecting our environment.
I have said before, in every crisis there is an opportunity. And this crisis is no exception. In these times we are all called to be compassionate, and today, for Haiti, I hope you’ll be as generous as possible.
That is why I sent my donation to Oxfam. In this extreme time of need for Haiti, I ask that you do the same. As Haitians suffer tremendously right now, Oxfam is there helping them.
Please go to their website and give:
www.oxfam.ca
I worked at Oxfam for a decade and Oxfam is the best organization on the ground. They already have close to 200 staff in Haiti, including a special emergency response team. As Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam says: “When you send your gift, you’ll save lives. That's a simple fact. Your gift means life. Please send your gift today. And let me assure you, that even when the emergency is over, Oxfam will be there to help the people of Haiti rebuild their lives.”
Thanks for caring.
Photo credit: Diane Hernandez Corder/Oxfam
Spice Market (Mısır Çarşısı) Istanbul by flickr user exfordy
Not literally, obviously... unless you are using some sort of spice as a premium. In that case, yes, literally spice up your mail!
But, what I’d like to talk about are various techniques you can use to make each mail package you send to your donors a little bit different so that they are getting new and fresh packages from you. And hopefully this will mean that they get excited each time they hear from you, and hopefully respond often!
The most obvious ways to make each package different are to have different outer envelope, letter, and reply designs, premium package incentives (labels, cards, note pads...) and different stories. If you’re doing this and it’s working, then great!
However, I’d like to dig a little bit deeper than those common ‘ingredients’. Here are a few suggestions, or we can call them ‘spices’ to add to your DM spice rack, that might help to differentiate your appeals from your other appeals, and perhaps more importantly - from your competitor’s appeals.
The 24 hour marathon of good work for charities a huge success!
The definitive Goodstock HMA recap
HMA’s (and Canada’s) inaugural Goodstock 24-hour give-back event is now over. And what an amazing experience and wonderful success it was!
We invited charities from all over Vancouver and Toronto to send in applications telling us why they should be the recipients of 24 hours of free professional fundraising advice, design, copywriting, video web work and so much more.
Choosing was perhaps the most difficult part of the whole event, but we somehow narrowed it down to 4 Vancouver charities and 3 Toronto organizations.
Our new clients-for-a-day were:
In Vancouver:
- Battered Women’s Support Services
- Small Animal Rescue Society
- From Grief to Action
- L’Arche Greater Vancouver
In Toronto:
HMA Writes for Rights!
and you should too!
On International Human Rights Day HMA Vancouver and Toronto took some time to participate in Amnesty International's Write for Rights Day. With us internationally, individuals, friends, co-workers, families etc joined in on this succesful campaign lobbying leaders to condemn human rights abuses and promote justice and sending messages of hope to prisoners of conscience across the world.
While a majority of causes are international, two case studies focused on issues in Canada. We all wrote to Mr. Ignatieff asking him to support Bill-300 (and so should you!) to ensure that Canadian mining companies overseas respect human rights in the countries in which they are working. We also wrote to Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach asking him to ensure justice for the Lubicon Cree and their land rights struggle against oil and gas companies. Kudos to Amnesty for highlighting these local and urgent issues.
The combined efforts of HMA produced 62 letters and message of hope! Congrats team!
The Amnesty tally for letters written and sent so far is: 4425. Amazing!
More more info please visit or to participate next year, please visit:
www.amnesty.ca/writeathon/
Closing words...
...two days later!
I was at a loss for words as Goodstock 2009 came to a close around 10:15 Saturday morning- and not only because I couldn't physically string a sentence together...
At 9:00 am Saturday morning our charity representatives gathered into our boardroom eagerly anticipating what we had prepared for them. We, team goodstock 24- hours, desperately tried to gather ourselves and show them how our hard work had paid off. The result? Success. Each team delivered astonishingly eloquent and coherant presentations showcasing the impressive quality and quantity of work we had managed to create throughout the day and night. As the presentations ended our exhaustion was met with enthusiastic applause, a few tears, snuggles from some cuddly creatures (on behalf of Small Animal Rescue Society) and immense gratitude and excitment from all the participating non-profits. The positive feedback from the charities renewed our energy (a little..) and we all walked back into our offices (...new found homes...) proud of what we had accomplished and feeling surprisingly good. Our first attempt at Goodstock was an immense success and while we don't want to think about it just yet... I think we'll be back for round 2 in 2010! A big thank you to all of our sponsors, the 4 participating charities and our amazing volunteer designers and copywriters!
Goodstock! Hour 9 of 24...
only 15 hours to go...
Group update!
Nancy is eating her Xth piece of pizza while her and the folks working on the Battered Women's Support Services have finalized some logos and copy and are working on key messaging and a viral video! Small Animal Rescue Society (yes, still SARS...) is feeling a little chaotic but will start to come together around 10, Glenn assures us. He is moving web content to wordpress while external copy heroine, Rachel, is busy writing form home. Jas is brain storming for fundraising activities enjoying the backdrop of her tropical palm tree and her mango snack at hour 7 (also enjoyed by myself and Christine). Team From Grief to Action has drafted a first DM letter with a special Harvey edition and Elaine and Francis are busy crafting out designs for web banners, brochures and packs oh my! L'Arche Greater Vancouver is close to two final concepts from their poster which feature amazing artwork by a resident artist (see below).
Group photo: check!
A homemade muesli snack (courtesy of one very kind lady....): check!
And while most of you heading off to start your weekends- we're back to work!
!
