For the Carnival this month, we look to posts that especially help fundraisers as we enter a new year. Let's hope 2010 is all-around better than 2009. If you read and practice what you find in these posts, that will be somewhat more likely for you.
The ad agencies strike again, providing a hapless nonprofit with a strikingly stupid nonprofit ad.
The victim: Movember (the organization that encourages guys to raise money to fight guy cancers by growing mustaches in November. The offending ad agency: the slash-challenged TBWA\Chiat|Day.
I can see the power in giving people the opportunity to beat up a terrible disease; there are a couple of diseases whose teeth I wish I could kick down their throats. But when you symbolize that by making the kickers look like homophobic thugs and the disease look like a cute team mascot -- well, you've turned the concept upside down.
Seriously, did the creators of this video even watch it? Didn't anyone among all the people it takes to produce such a project raise their hand and say, Um ... guys ... it looks like we're kicking Mickey Mouse's butt...
Of course not.
The ad agency geniuses were wrapped in their usual world of abstraction. In all their creativity, they missed the central fact that prostate cancer is a terrible thing. It's not a goofy costume -- it's a real-life disease that hurts and kills men.
Want to move people to fight prostate cancer? Show them there's a problem, make the problem real, give them a meaningful action they can take, and show how their actions make progress against the disease.
Abstract symbolism doesn't accomplish any of that.
Here's another video from the same campaign that's even weirder:
All I can say about this one is WTF? I mean: W? T? F? Prostate cancer is trying to pick up prostitutes? That's what has our thug-protagonists all riled up? Huh?
Here's what amazes me about ad agency work for nonprofits: They start bad, with pointless, dumb, misdirected abstractions. Then they manage somehow to make it even more surreally worse. Is there LSD in the water coolers at TBWA\Chiat|Day?
So remember the standard warning for when an ad agency comes to you pitching their wares: Just say no!
You know all the reasons people should give to you. Do you know the reasons they don't?
A post at About Nonprofit Charitable Orgs, Why People Don't Give to Our Causes looks at some of those as put for by ethicist Peter Singer, author of The Life You Can Save. Here are things that block donors from giving, and what good fundraising can do about it:
No Identifiable Victim. Donors are much less likely to respond to a huge, abstract problem than to a specific person in need. Good fundraising shows how large-scale problems play out in the lives of individuals -- and how the donor can impact individuals.
Parochialism. People are much more inclined to help solve nearby than far-way problems. Good fundraising erases the distance by bringing those distant problems close to home.
Futility. Donors are less inclined to act when they sense they can't make a difference. Good fundraising makes it clear that every gift makes a meaningful difference.
The Diffusion of Responsibility. There's much less compulsion to act if you feel like one of a large number people standing by, waiting for someone who. Good fundraising zeroes in on each donor shows their responsibility and opportunity in the situation.
The Sense of Fairness. Many donors need proof that they aren't "unfairly" shouldering the burden. Good fundraising lets them know that there are other donors like them who are all doing their part.
Money. Research seems to show that thinking about money can depress altruism. Good fundraising is about the cause, not the money.
Something to keep you busy during the upcoming long boring weekend:
I'm hosting the Nonprofit Blog Carnival this month, and I'm looking for great posts that will help your fellow nonprofit folks succeed as never before in 2010.
Here's how to be featured in the carnival:
Pick a post you've written some time this month (and I'll stretch that to include the latter part of November) that will help your colleagues succeed in 2010.
Use Twitter and fundraising in the same sentence, and the response from fundraisers is likely to be, "sure, it's great for talking, but you can't use it to raise money."
Well, you can -- but in a really roundabout sort of way.
Enter twollers. Twollers are "twitter dollars" that denizens of Twitter send and receive. Each Twitter account comes with 50 twollers. Users send twollers to others to express their appreciation for sharing a tip, passing on some useful information, or helping in some way. Thus, twollers circulate in the twittersphere.
Now say for example that you hear about a charity or cause and want to support it. You can donate twollwers to the charity in acknowledgement of its good work. Your tweet might be something like this: 50Twollars@usaafrica to fund relief for Africa.
As the charity accumulates twollers, businesses or individuals can then purchase them with real dollars (at the rate of $1 for 10 twollers), and the money goes to the charity. Once purchased, the twollers are given out again to others, continuing the cycle. Twitter takes nothing in this exchange, so the charity is the full beneficiary. It's an interesting approach.
But is giving twollers as direct an experience for donors as writing a check in response to a heartfelt mailing?
No, and that's the problem. It's got to be a lot more straightforward for more donors (not just people who love Twitter unconditionally) to really get behind it. If this is the first step toward monetizing social media for fundraising, it's a wobbly one at best.
Here's an error a lot of us make: Making large numbers the heart of a fundraising ask.
In this case the Who Cares Campaign (raising funds to increase the number of medical professionals in Tanzania) builds the entire case on the facts that Tanzania is badly undersupplied with medical professionals:
When you throw a bunch of numbers out, you require you audience to build the connection between the numbers and their human impact. That seldom works, because:
Most people don't have the personal experience to make the connection between the abstraction of large numbers and the human impact.
Even when they can make the connection, they don't go to the trouble.
But it's even worse than that. The larger the number, the less compassion it stirs. That's not logical. It's not even fair. It's just the way the human mind works. Ignoring that is like constructing a building while ignoring gravity. Doesn't work.
I'm no expert on the subject, but I'll make some guesses about the situation in Tanzania that the Who Cares Campaign aims to change:
People are dying needlessly, pointlessly, of things like treatable infections.
Mothers are dying in childbirth, and/or their babies are dying.
Young children and the elderly are the ones who suffer most.
Outbreaks of easily treatable diseases can spread uncontrollably in underserved areas, causing preventable suffering and death.
Those are the stories they need to tell if they want a lot of people to join the cause.
There's a nice post at the eJewish Philanthropy blog by author Ruth Andrew Ellenson titled The Sweetness of Giving. It's about her childhood memories of putting coins in the tzedakah box every Shabbat, and the lessons that taught her:
Our whole society is geared towards acquisition. The idea of owning that one thing that will bring us perfect happiness ... is something we are programmed for from birth. The idea that material things can bring satisfaction is a fantasy that's hard to let go.
And yet sooner or later (hopefully sooner) we learn the lesson that ... wealth really has no meaning unless you go out into the world and share it with others.
As fundraisers, it's easy for us to forget the sweetness of giving. We sometimes think what we're doing is a type of sales. And it is, yet it's completely different.
Giving expands and improves donors. It connects them to their faith. It deepens their ties with family and with others in general. Giving is deeply precious, far beyond the revenue it generates.
We'll be better fundraisers if we keep that in mind.
This is just what everyone is afraid of: As reported in The NonProfit Times at One-Third Of Web Donations Didn't Go Through, a recent experience by fundraising agency Amergent showed a lot of stuff just not working. They gave online donations of $25 to 30 Catholic charities. Here's what happened:
Ten out of the 30 online gifts could not be processed online: five organizations required the mailing address to match the credit card billing address, two didn't accept online donations, and for two the donation processes did not go through. One organization had a bill-to company requirement.
Okay, it's a small sample size, so it's not reasonable to call these results typical. But that's a stunning failure rate. If your direct-mail caging or data-processing vendor were screwing up that bad, you'd fire them, immediately.
The only excuse would be that online revenue is too small for an organization to spend a lot getting it right. Of course, that's a self-perpetuating decision: If your system is rejecting your donors' attempts to give online, you won't get a lot of online gifts.
Right now, go online and try to give your organization a gift. If something goes wrong, fix it.
Just as some people are saying direct mail is getting finished off by email, others are proclaiming email is busy getting killed by social networking sites!
Jeez. One outrageous over-generalization at a time, please.
When you see results dropping in any medium, the best response is not to say the sky is falling, but to look at the details. You'll likely see that there are clear explanations for the softening. That's what the Engagement Marketing Blog did with email, and found it In Transition, Not Fading Away.
Any softening we see in the email marketing world is largely because so many emailers are doing it poorly. Things like:
Poor permission and opt-in practices.
Lack of relevance.
Overmailing.
Lack of differentiation.
Lack of personality.
Poor design.
If email is dying, it's suicide.
Where it's being done well, it's thriving. Same with direct mail.
What this blog is about
The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here.
About the blogger Jeff Brooks, creative director at TrueSense Marketing, has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 20 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff.brooks [at] truesense [dot] com. More.
Instead of talking at donors, TrueSense is proving it's smarter to listen. Asking donors how they prefer to give. Because we’re about creating relationships and building trust and communicating honestly and powerfully. One to one. Want to talk fundraising? Drop me a line.
Jeff Brooks, creative director at 
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