Future Fundraising Now

Writing persuasive copy might be easier than you thought

Here's some straightforward copywriting advice from the KISSmetrics marketing blog, at The 4 Keys to Writing Persuasive Copy Without Hype, BS, or Other Icky Gimmicks:

1. Conversational style
2. Narrative structure
3. Benefits, then features
4. Scannable elements

When you put it this way, it looks so easy.

Good luck!

How to spend all your time on social media and never raise a dime

Please! Give the poor nonprofit people a break! Do they think we're sitting around twiddling our thumbs, waiting for something useful to do?

The Sprout Social Insights blog has posted 16 Social Media Sites Every Nonprofit Should Use.

That's right -- 16 sites every nonprofit should use! OMG! Are they kidding?

The must-use sites are Twitter, Twitpay, Facebook, Causes, YouTube, Flickr, Give2gether, Crowdrise, Change.org, HelpAttack!, Care2, Eventbrite, Meetup, DoSomething.org, Citizen Effect, and Socialbrite.

You could spend all your time trying to maximize (or even understand) these 16.

And some of the sites on this list are exceedingly silly and useless. I'd hate to see what didn't make the list.

But even the well-established, highly trafficked, sensible sites there are not meaningful sources of donor revenue. The time you spend on these sites is almost entirely speculative. It's fine to explore things that are likely to matter to us some day, but if you're doing it at the expense of actually raising funds, you're just being irresponsible.

Don't listen to these social media dilettantes who think you can fritter away all your days on non-productive social media speculation.

Instead, focus on a real must-do list, like this one:

• Direct mail
• A properly functioning website
• Email
• Telemarketing
• Major donor fundraising
• Planned giving
• The Combined Federal Campaign (for some, not all)

These things really can produce revenue, and they can do it now, not years from now.

Should fundraisers get rich?

You Should Be Able to Get Rich in Charity. That's about all you need to know about Dan Pallotta's recent post at his HBR Blog. Dan says we're not really using the incentive of money to solve the world's problems:

There should be no limit to the amount of money a person can earn making the world a better place, so long as the money is commensurate with the value they produce.

I mostly agree with Dan. We should pay effective people in nonprofits salaries that are at least in the competitive ballpark with the for-profit world. The best people are well worth paying for, and we urgently need the best people.

But he's missing a couple of important things:

• There are other form of richness than having lots of money. In fact, most other forms of richness are better, deeper, stronger, and more lasting than money ever will be. People in nonprofits tend to know this better than people in the business world.

  The soulish compensation of changing the world really kicks butt over monetary compensation. I've worked at companies that are all about money, and it sucks. Bringing that kind of culture into the nonprofit world would be a tragedy.

• Setting out to get rich isn't a good way to succeed. This is true not only in the nonprofit world, but everywhere. The best of most sure way to be a great success is to serve very well. If you know whom you're serving and how, and you're very good at it, you will do well in any setting. You might even get rich. If your goal is to get rich, you'll have a tendency to short-cut the stuff you really need to do to succeed.

  The last thing we need in nonprofits is small-minded get-rich types. We need great servants, rich or not.

I wish nonprofits paid their best people a lot more. I also wish they'd get better at letting go their incompetent people.

But a focus on getting rich won't get us where we need to go.

Get ready for the burst of year-end giving

There are about 11 weeks left in 2011. These weeks are the "prime time" for fundraising. For online fundraising, prime time is concentrated onto December 31st.

Now is the time to prepare, and the Marketing for Nonprofits blog has some thoughts for online fundraisers, at Is Your Donation Page Ready for Prime Time?

We are fast approaching year-end -- that time of year that all fundraisers dream about and dread!

Year-end giving is not for the faint-hearted. Use every opportunity to get it right. Specifically, spend time next month optimizing your donation form. You'll be glad you did!

Go read the post for a lot of things you can do now to prepare for "prime time."

And here's maybe the best recommendation I can give you:

Make your homepage a giving page on December 31.

On that day, the main reason anyone is at your website is because they're thinking about giving. Don't them jump through hoops. Just let it all hang out there where they can find it.

Frankly, my even better recommendation would be to extend that time for your homepage as giving page. Make it all December. Make it all year!

But don't ignore prime time this year.

Download The Online Giving Study for some amazing findings on year-end online giving.

Do your fundraising landing pages collect donations, or send people away?

So much online fundraising collapses on the landing page.

Generic, disorganized landing pages that seem engineered to turn away donors who have clicked through intending to give.

Here's some landing page advice from the commercial world from Michael Hyatt's blog: 7 Characteristics of Landing Pages That Get Results. Landing pages should have well-executed versions of these things:

1. Headline.
2. Sales Copy.
3. Product Photos.
4. Testimonials.
5. Guarantee.
6. An Offer.
7. Call-to-Action.

This is a product sales landing page. But the elements you need are a lot like those on a fundraising landing page.

The one person who should not be writing your fundraising

Is the person writing your fundraising the one person in the whole world least able to do it right? Might be, according to Roy H. Williams in a recent MondayMorningMemo, Everyone is Entitled to Their Own Opinion But Not Their Own Facts.

The person who most should not be writing your organization's fundraising is you:

... most people believe that everyone else thinks like they do. This has led to more disasters in advertising than you can possibly imagine.

Consequently, you are uniquely unqualified to write ads for your business. You know too much about it. More importantly, you care too much about it. This causes you to assume that everyone else cares, or should care as much as you do.

Williams is talking about commercial advertising, but he could easily be talking about fundraising.

You are uniquely unqualified to write your own fundraising!

Almost all the knowledge and personal qualities that make you effective in a nonprofit organization will make you a crappy fundraising writer.

I know it's self-serving for me to say it, but please: Get outside help for your fundraising. Get a smart agency (I can steer you toward a very good one!). If you can't afford an agency, a consultant. At the very least, a freelance writer who knows fundraising.

It will be worth it.

Podcast: What is your website for?

If the purpose of your website is to raise funds, why is fundraising limited to a couple of "DONATE" buttons? Here's a look at how you can maximize online revenue by making your website relevant, useful, and easy for donors.

To listen, click here to download the audio file or visit the Fundraising Is Beautiful page here, where you'll find several listening and subscription options.

Or subscribe with iTunes:

The Goliath Fallacy

We often draw inspiration from the story of David and Goliath. How inspiring that the little guy boldly walked out there and took the big guy down.

Here's the bad news: 99% of the time, Goliath wins.

That's why it's so exciting when David wins.

We tend to take the wrong inference from the story, because we know the ending of the story. We seem to think it tells us the underdog wins. We're going to win, just like David!

That's not what it tells us. It tells us that the underdog can win. But it's amazing when it happens. And part of the reason he won was he was very well prepared.

If you want inspiration from that story, make it this: When the little guy has a secret weapon that he really, really knows how to use -- sometimes he beats the odds.

Practical takeaway for fundraisers: More likely than not, your keen new idea won't work. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try -- in fact, you'd be crazy not to try. But be prepared for failure. And don't bet the farm on David.

Your donors get a lot more than a tax deduction

Your fundraising is basically a mental-health improvement program, at least according to a recent study reported at the Charity Info Blog, at Scientific proof for karma? Small acts of kindness boost well-being:

Researchers asked participants to act compassionately towards someone for five to 15 minutes a day, by actively helping or interacting with them in a supportive and considerate manner. Six months after that week, participants were still reporting increased happiness and self-esteem.

Giving is not entirely about money. It's about other things that may be a lot more important than the money that changes hands.

Congratulations and thank you for making people's lives better!

You can find the study, "Practicing Compassion Increases Happiness and Self-Esteem," here.

Ask, and it will be given to you

fundraising

I see a lot of fundraising that's really brilliant in every way except the one that matters most: The ask.

They choke on the ask. Which means everything else they did right goes to waste. Miss the ask, and your fundraising won't work.

Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Guide has a good diagnosis of this common problem, at 5 Ways Nonprofits Blow Their Asks:

1. Assuming One Size Fits All.
2. Being Too Vague.
3. Failing to Make It Relevant.
4. Not Making It Super Easy to Do It.
5. Asking Sheepishly.

If you get the ask right, other things will usually fall into line and give you great results.