Future Fundraising Now

Awareness survey reveals the painful truth: Nobody has ever heard of you

It's kind of discouraging.

Recent polling of people's awareness of nonprofits by Grey Matter Research -- see topline results here -- basically show that hardly anyone (including active donors) is aware of nonprofits at all.

The survey asked American adults to name the first nonprofit that comes to mind for them (excluding any local place of worship). Here's what happened:

Brand	All Americans	Active Donors	Non-donors
American Red Cross	20%	19%	22%
The Salvation Army	11%	14%	7%
The United Way	4%	5%	3%
Goodwill Industries	4%	5%	3%
St. Jude Children's Hospital	3%	4%	1%
ASPCA	3%	2%	4%
Habitat for Humanity	2%	2%	-
YMCA	2%	2%	2%
American Cancer Society	2%	2%	2%
Susan G. Komen	2%	2%	2%
American Heart Association	1%	2%	1%
Catholic Charities	1%	-	1%
Humane Society	1%	1%	1%
March of Dimes	1%	1%	-
PETA	1%	-	1%
All others	20%	23%	15%
Can't determine the specific organization	7%	7%	7%
Not actually a non-profit	2%	-	4%
Can't think of any	15%	7%	24%

Only two organizations broke into double-digits. Most sat at one or two percent or less. The top four, and the majority of the rest, have physical presences in most US communities, which is probably the key to widespread awareness. Widespread being defined as 1% or more.

Some of the organizations on this list (and many more who couldn't even claw their way into the one-percents at the lower end of it) have spent immense amounts of time and money on "awareness" campaigns. In most cases, they bought snake oil from internal or external experts who told them making more people aware of them was a darn good investment that would pay off in stronger fundraising results.

Do you think anybody moved from 1% to 2% because of an awareness campaign? That would be a stunning success. I doubt it.

I'll guess the most successful awareness campaigns moved someone's awareness level from 0.966% to a commanding 0.968%

Despite all this discouraging news, thousands of intrepid nonprofits are managing to raise a lot of money. Hundreds of billions of dollars. They don't do it with "awareness." They do it by targeting the right people with specific calls to action. Do that, and you'll always be well-funded. Even if the percentage of Americans who say they know you is painfully small.

Is neophilia holding back your fundraising?

Do you know anyone who's hiding from the hard work of raising funds by spending all their time on exciting new possibilities?

Seth Godin has a good word for that: Neophilia as a form of hiding.

It's a significant problem in many quarters of our industry:

... what works is significantly more important than what's new. Racing to build your organization around the latest social network tool or graphics-rendering technology permits you to spend a lot of time learning the new system and skiing in the fresh powder of the unproven, but it might just distract you from the difficult work of telling the truth, looking people in the eye and making a difference.

Get the basics nailed down, and you'll be much more likely to succeed in the exciting new media.

Better yet, here's the cool part: When you focus on the basics and really know what works and what doesn't, you'll be much smarter about the new opportunities that come before you. The snake oil will be obvious. The promising will look promising.

If you flit from one Next Big Thing to the next like a butterfly, you'll never develop discernment. Every over-heated claim ("It's the next Facebook!!!!") is equally believable.

2012: not the worst year ever for fundraising

Well, 2012 wasn't too terrible a year. That's according to the Blackbaud Charitable Giving Report for 2012 (PDF, registration required).

Giving last year was up 1.7% over 2011. That small growth was not evenly distributed:

• Large organizations grew by 0.3%
• Medium organizations grew 2.7%
• Small organizations grew 7.3%

Giving was also uneven by charity sector:

• Religious organizations were up 6.1%
• Healthcare down 3.4%
• International affairs down 4.7% (no large disasters)

On the other hand, online giving continued to significantly outpace overall giving. It grew 11% in 2012, and accounted for 7% of all donations in 2012, an increase over 2011.

The sectors making the most of online giving were healthcare and international: 14.2% of healthcare giving was online and 11.8% of international giving was online. This is a bright spot for the two sectors that more most down in overall giving. It shows they are well positioned for future growth as more and more giving migrates online.

Fundraising Hell, Level 9: The Treacherous

If Dante had been a fundraiser, his Inferno might have been slightly different, featuring the sins fundraisers are prone to commit. I have corrected Dante's oversight. This is part nine of a nine-part tour of the levels of Fundraising Hell.

We've finally reached the deepest pit of Fundraising Hell. A place so vile, degraded, and horrific that all the levels above seem pleasant by comparison. This is the final home of the Fraudulent: fundraisers who betrayed their donors.

Their fundraising was a con job, meant to enrich themselves, not make the world better.

Those fundraisers in the levels above committed all kinds of sins. They neglected donors, they communicated poorly, they twisted their messaging, they killed relationships. But they were all fundraisers. Their sins were terrible and extreme, but they were trying to raise funds.

These guys in Level 9 -- they weren't about raising funds. They broke the very idea of fundraising.

In fact, some of them were very good fundraisers. They didn't commit any of the sins of the higher levels. They knew exactly how to motivate donors to give. Except for the most important part of all: the money didn't do what they told donors it would do.

It's the ultimate evil any fundraiser can do.

The Fraudulent Fundraisers are eternally frozen in ice. Some up to their necks. Others entirely encased in it.

Think that seems a bit anti-climactic after all the various torments involving fire in the higher levels? Hold an ice cube in your hand for five minutes.

You don't end up in Level 9 by accident or through incompetence. (Those fundraisers are in various parts of Fundraising Purgatory.) This is the level for the worst of the worst.

Please don't go there!

Next week: Wrap up. What Fundraising Hell means.

Previous levels:

• Level 1: Virtuous Unbelievers
• Level 2: The Lustful
• Level 3: The Gluttonous
• Level 4: The Greedy and Wasteful
• Level 5: The Wrathful
• Fundraising Hell, Level 6: The Heretics
• Level 7: The Violent
• Level 8: The Fraudulent

How to write headlines that will make people read everything you write

Here's what you need to know about writing good headlines, form the Constant Contact blog, at Headline Writing: Three Core Factors That Trigger Curiosity.

Every headline you write should answer one or more of these questions readers might have:

• Is this for me?
• Is it something I know or don't know?
• Would I get any benefit by reading this?

Answer those, and you're well on your way to involved readers who care about your superb copy. Clever, punny, self-involved headlines don't do that.

This applies not only to headlines, but also envelope teasers and email subject lines.

Are you writing bad fundraising copy?

Here's a scary post from Copyblogger: 7 Ways to Write Damn Bad Copy. I've seen all of these. Done quite a few myself:

1. Lyrical (excessively poetic)
2. Sentimental (falsely emotional -- but real emotion works)
3. Outlandish (packed with poorly supported superlative claims)
4. Humorous (you aren't as funny as you think, and unfunny humor is the deadest kind of dead any copy can be)
5. Short (short copy doesn't usually persuade)
6. Clever (nobody cares how smart you are)
7. Advertorial (ad dressed up to look like a piece of news)

The problem with most of these things is they call attention to the writer. I have very sad news for you: Nobody cares how clever, funny, passionate, or deep you are. Even your mother doesn't care. She's just acting like she does because she loves you.

In fundraising, more than most disciplines, good copy is about the reader and about what they can do. That's all. Save the look-at-me copy for ... well, there really isn't any good place for it. You can get away with it in poorly edited literary magazines.

When your common sense leads you astray

I read a blog post a while back that was written by a young blogger, apparently new to fundraising but already pontificating on what we should and shouldn't be doing in our fundraising messages.

Some of the points the blogger made were on target about how fundraising copy ought to be but often isn't. But one of the points went like this:

I got a 12-page appeal letter in the mail. That's ridiculous! Edit your copy!

The blogger apparently thought that the folks who sent the 12-page letter haplessly wrote a ridiculously long message and then neglected the important step of editing it down to a more reasonable length.

That blogger's common sense says that a short, tightly written message will be more effective.

It makes sense.

But it's wrong.

Longer messages do better, almost all the time. If you've been in the business (and paying attention), you've heard this. If you've tested it, you've seen it for yourself. I can almost guarantee you that the 12-page letter folks tested into that, and it works better than the tightly edited messages the blogger values so much.

I'd write 10 and 12 page letters all the time, but for one thing: Cost of paper.

Common sense tells us that precision is valuable, that one of the skills we should cultivate is saying a lot in a small space. But knowledge tells us otherwise.

Your common sense matters. But you can't always use it as a guide for fundraising.

How not to use video in fundraising

Video is a great way to tell stories. And it's easy to get it in front of people. What's not to be excited about?

Sometimes getting excited about it is what causes a problem. The fact that it's really cool is not a reason to use it, and not a platform for making video. The coolness of video is just a side-benefit for those who work on it. You get those little goosebumps of doing something new and different.

Other than that, video is like any other medium. Flat Earth Direct has some useful don'ts for video at The power of video storytelling:

• Don't use video to replace stuff that works.
• Don't use video to make you look cool/professional.
• Don't use video just because you have some great footage.

Video has its best chance of working if you think it through, know your goals, understand your audience, and have a clear call to action. Just like any other medium.

Fundraising Hell, Level 8: The Fraudulent

If Dante had been a fundraiser, his Inferno might have been slightly different, featuring the sins fundraisers are prone to commit. I have corrected Dante's oversight. This is part eight of a nine-part tour of the levels of Fundraising Hell.

You thought Fundraising Hell couldn't get any worse after seeing what's happening to the Brand Cops?

Think again. (Evil laughter.) It gets worse as we drop down a massive cliff to the level of the Fraudulent -- fundraisers who lied to donors.

These fundraisers were loose with the truth. They knew what kinds of stories moved donors to compassion, so they told those stories. Even when the stories weren't true.

They fudged a statistic here, exaggerated a truth there. They failed to tell the truth.

You might wonder why these little white lies -- told in service of good causes -- land people so deep in Fundraising Hell. After all they are deeper in than fundraisers who did committed much more dramatic evils. After all, fundraisers who preferred to brag about themselves over connecting with donors are way up in the 4th level. And Greedy fundraisers who only took and never gave are up in the 3rd level. Heck, even Brand Cops are higher than these guys.

Well, those little lies might look insignificant to us, but the harm they do is immense: Many donors live in fear that we aren't telling them the truth. In fact, one of the reasons people who never donate give is they don't think charities are trustworthy. When we let untruths go out to donors, we confirm their fears. We make fundraising that much harder not only for ourselves but for all fundraisers -- including the scrupulously honest ones. Worse yet, we put up a wall between donors and the causes they should be supporting.

For that, some of the Fraudulent are driven like cattle by demons with whips. Others are trapped head-first in tight holes, their feet on fire. Others just writhe forever, enveloped in flames that never go out.

Don't lie! Not even a tiny bit! You don't want to land in the 8th Level of Fundraising Hell!

Next Monday -- Level 9: The Treacherous

Previous levels:

• Level 1: Virtuous Unbelievers
• Level 2: The Lustful
• Level 3: The Gluttonous
• Level 4: The Greedy and Wasteful
• Level 5: The Wrathful
• Fundraising Hell, Level 6: The Heretics
• Level 7: The Violent

Design that doesn't interfere with fundraising

One of the most common self-inflicted injuries in fundraising is hard-to-read design. No matter how cool your design is, if it impedes readability, it is bad design.

Here's some design help from the Hilborn blog, drawing on readability guidelines from The Canadian Association of Optometrists: Make your materials clear for older donors. Please don't think this is only for elderly readers. Better readability is better for all ages.

• Printed material is most readable in black and white.
• Bigger is better. Keep your text large, preferably between 12 and 18 points
• Leading should be at least 25% to 30% of the point size.
• Avoid complicated or decorative fonts.
• Opt for fonts with medium heaviness and avoid light type with thin strokes.
• Don’t crowd your text: keep a wide space between letters.
• Break text into columns to make it easier to read.
• Use a matte or non-glossy paper to cut down on glare.

Do these things conflict with your brand guidelines or your personal preferences? If so, your guidelines (or preferences) are hurting you. It's time to change them.