Bucks County Free Library 2021 Annual Appeal
Design: Print Design, Web Design, Digital Design, & Social Media
At the end of each year, Bucks County Free Library reaches out to its donors for support to their Annual Appeal Fund. The proceeds of this fundraiser fund new materials for the collection, programming supplies, and support for operations for the following fiscal year.
Although the library has a group of consistent large-sum donors, they wanted to use this campaign to add more donors to this group. Our research showed that most current donors used the library consistently when they had children but no longer do since their kids left home. Our new target group focused on library patrons who are new empty-nesters who no longer have children living at home full-time.
The library wanted to use this campaign to also experiment with reaching out to patrons who currently use the library frequently, and could be added to a new donor segment: micro-donors.
Donor Mail
A bespoke card was created and sent to large-sum donors. Most of this segment does not visit the library often. They are used to receiving donor mail and are frequent to give when they receive it.
This letter was sent to new potential donors as well, so we designed it to feel more special than a regular letter to show the significance of this campaign.
Donor Return
Along with the card donors received a donor return card and special return envelope. The card thanks donors for their support and allows them to mail in their donation. Our research showed that most our current donors still prefer mailing in their donations, although some are now opting for online donations.
The return envelope features a special callout for our patron of honor. We encouraged potential new donors to take a photo with their envelope before they mailed it out, and to share it on social media to help generate attention to the campaign.
Digital Promotion
Digital kiosks graphics were displayed throughout each library branch to gain the attention of frequent library users.
These graphics were displayed on computers, televisions, and check-out kiosks to garner attention.
Donor Microsite
We created a microsite for this donation campaign. It served as a homepage for all donors to go to if they decided to donate online.
It also allowed donors to share this campaign on their social media accounts, email to coworkers and networks, and text to friends.
Mobile Microsite
It was vital that the donor site be adapted for mobile use. After research we knew that most micro-donors would donate via mobile.
Social Media
Social media posts were also created to help boost awareness. Although the mail campaign, microsite, and in-branch digital campaign were launched at this point we wanted to ensure that we reached as many potential donors as possible.
We created several different social media threads to be posted throughout the campaign. The threads were mixed in with the rest of the library’s social media to prevent spamming our followers.
Email Campaign
Lastly, several email campaigns were sent through our online mailing lists. With the entire strategy, the library raised over $40,000 for their Annual Appeal. Half of the donations were from first-time micro-donors, and one-quarter were from first-time large-sum donors.