Posts by Fiona McPhee

Fiona McPhee is a Fundraisingologist at Moceanic. She is also a Fellow of the Fundraising Institute of New Zealand, a member of the Fundraising Institute of Australia and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. She has over 20 years of experience developing sustainable and growth focused fundraising programs and helping fundraisers, fundraising leaders and boards as a coach, consultant, and mentor. Fiona shares her best knowledge and tips with Moceanic members and blog readers. She is also a Moceanic coach and available for bookings on the Coaching+ program to help fundraisers by providing training, answering your questions, mentoring individuals and teams and working hands-on with you.

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5 Donor Love Must-Do’s for the COVID-19 Crisis

Coronavirus, Donor Love
Think for a moment what it’s like to be a donor right now during this pandemic crisis… You are afraid — for your own health, your economic future, for your family and loved ones, for the world. You want to…
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2 Truths Your Donors Wish You Understood about Direct Mail

Creativity, Direct Mail, Donor Care, Donor Love, Donor Psychology, Writing
I am a Gen Xer. I am not the core target market for direct mail. In my early twenties I had to learn two lessons quickly in order to do my job as a Fundraising Appeal Manager. Lesson one: The…
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What Your Direct Mail is Like for Real People

Direct Mail, Donor Psychology
I’ve spent a good decade and a half defending direct mail. Mostly in response to anxious nonprofit insiders saying things like “I’d hate to get all the mail we send.” I won’t pretend everyone you mail wants it. And I…
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3 Last-Minute Tweaks for Your End-of-Year Campaign

Direct Mail
Tweak: a fine adjustment to a mechanism or system Here are some fine adjustments you can do that can meaningfully improve your upcoming year-end campaign. Tweak One Make a direct ask. As in “Fiona, will you please make a donation…
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4 Ways to Secure That All-Important Second Gift

Direct Mail, Donor Care, Donor Love
I met up with a fundraiser — let’s call him Brian — a couple of years ago to talk about the work my team had been doing for their donor acquisition program. The direct mail acquisition was doing really well.…
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My Worst Fundraising Fail, and What You Can Learn from It

Boards and Fundraising
When Jeff suggested this blog topic my immediate reaction was, Um, no, I’ll look silly. Reality is we all make mistakes … and my best fundraising learnings have come from my fails. So here you go … In my early…
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5 Tips and Tricks to Loving Your Donors

Donor Love
For many years I gave to an organisation that organised an annual fun day for children with disabilities. The kids and their caregivers were hosted at a day-long party with activities, games and entertainment accessible to all. I have no…
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5 Reasons You Must Invest in Donor Service

Donor Love
In the commercial world, there is no arguing that:  Customer service has long been recognised as an incredibly important revenue driver. Excellent customer service vastly lowers churn rate (loss of customers). When complaints are handled well,  customers become more loyal than they were before…
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The Most Important Gift from Your Donor – It’s the 2nd, Not the 1st!

Direct Mail, Donor Care, Donor Love
I started my working life in customer service, selling women’s shoes. This had two major impacts on my life.  I have a shoe addiction that appears to be incurable. I have always believed that understanding your customer leads to the best…
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6 Ways to Measure Your Fundraising to Understand Your Donors

Maths of Fundraising
I love data. Please don’t worry about me, I also like skiing, Star Wars, sneakers, dancing, and playing Lego with my daughter. I also really like people-watching. I can easily spend hours watching people and pondering why they are where…
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