Future Fundraising Now

Where to find good ideas

Cool post at My Brain Blog, answering the question, How Do You Come With So Many Ideas?

1. I come up with more good ideas because I come up with more bad ideas
2. I make room for more ideas
3. I constantly fuel my brain

That first one is the key: Good ideas don't exist in a vacuum. They come out of a rich environment of all kinds of ideas: good, mediocre, bad, would-have-been-good-a-few-years-ago, will-be-good-in-a-few-years, not-so-good-but-fixable ...

It costs very little to have a bunch of bad ideas on the way to a good one. But there's a massive hidden tax on the organization that blocks all ideas because it blocks bad ideas. Those organizations fail to solve problems, lose their smartest employees, and eventually find themselves unable to adapt to changing conditions.

If you want good ideas, you have to tolerate a lot of other-than-good ideas. Embrace quantity. Accept failure.

Stupid nonprofit marketing in the mall

In a swanky office in Madrid:

Ad Guy 1: We face an amazing challenge. Nobody in the history of the world has ever been asked to get people to give away their money for free! Are we up to the challenge?

Ad Guy 2: What are we asking them to give it to?

Ad Guy 1: Let's see ... it's the Red Cross ... whatever.

Ad Guy 2: How about reminding people that the Red Cross helps a lot of people during disasters of all kinds, and that they rely on the donations of ordinary people.

Ad Guy 1: [snicker] Like that would make anyone give away their money. C'mon dude, we have to invent the wheel here. Like open up a high-end pseudo-bookstore in a mall, so people can walk in and hand us money.

Ad Guy 2: I see -- the store will be full of books about the amazing things that happen when people give to the Red Cross ...

Ad Guy 1: Mr. Literal! Blank books! For this thing to be cool, it's gotta be symbolic.

Ad Guy 2: Symbolic of ...

Ad Guy 1: Symbolic of the state of incompletion that exists until someone hands over some dough!

Ad Guy 2: How will people know that blank pages mean that?

Ad Guy 1: [sigh] I guess we'll put bookmarks in the books that spell it out for the weak-minded.

Ad Guy 2: And that will make people give?

Ad Guy 1: Just to make sure, we'll display large photos of abstract images like tree roots and people's feet. Our work is finished here. Happy hour!

I'm thinking a conversation very much like this happened a few months ago at Leo Burnett Madrid (Warning: This website is almost completely unreadable, and not because it's largely in Spanish.)

I have a theory for why ad agencies do such insanely bad work for nonprofits: It's because the people involved don't give to charity. To them, the very idea of people voluntarily handing over money is utterly mysterious. So they tie themselves in creative knots because the whole thing simply doesn't make sense to them.

A literally, straightforward presentation of need? No way that would work they think. Our only chance at getting the message through is analogy, symbolism, and metaphor. It doesn't hurt that awards juries love the indirect approach.

To be fair, a high percentage of commercial advertising, which these people presumably do understand, makes the same obtuse error. Could be that they aren't singling out nonprofits for their stupidity.

Check out the Madrid retail fundraising project here. It's scary.

Thanks to AdRants for the tip.

Doctors find wrong cure for fund designation problem

A donor moved to respond to the Haiti Quake through Doctors Without Borders will end up on a giving page that has, in part, this copy:

We are now asking our donors to give to our Emergency Relief Fund. These types of funds ensure that our medical teams can react to the Haiti emergency and humanitarian crises all over the world, particularly neglected crises that remain outside the media spotlight. Your gift via this website will be earmarked for our Emergency Relief Fund.

I understand the problem. A large-scale disaster like the Haiti Earthquake can motivate so much giving that it swamps an organization's ability to spend the revenue effectively. At the same time, lesser-known situations go under-funded. Naturally, it would be better if the funds that are pouring in for Haiti relief could be used more flexibly to save lives in Haiti or in the next disaster.

But why are they taking the decision out of their donors' hands? By doing so, they force each donor to make a decision:

1. "That's okay, no problem. I was moved to give by the situation in Haiti, but I see your point and I'll gladly help in this way."
2. "No, I specifically want to make a difference right now in Haiti, not elsewhere."

I'll guess a lot of people go with #1. Those who say #2 have to go find another place to give. Or not give at all.

Doctors Without Borders is missing an opportunity here. If they would let the donors choose whether their gift goes to Haiti or the Emergency Relief Fund, they'd see three things happen:

1. They get the revenue that they're now turning away from those who are determined to give to Haiti and nothing else.
2. They'd also get the revenue from the others who are okay with the beyond-Haiti choice -- probably more of this than they get when they don't give a choice.
3. Better yet, they'd see improved giving across the board. Testing shows that giving donors meaningful choice increases average gift as well as subsequent gift frequency and retention

By unilaterally taking choice away from their donors and would-be donors, the organization limits their own revenue. That's too bad.

Donors don't automatically do exactly what we want them to do. Rather than limit their options and force their behavior, why not act in partnership, treating them as adults who can make meaningful choices?

Thanks to Prospecting for the tip.

Keep your fundraising out of the garbage

Here's a good reality check from Pro Copy Tips: Is your direct mail copy headed for the trash?

There are dozens of reasons the people you write to trash your message. But the main one is that you don't quite get around to telling them what they need to know.

The reason you do that is you're too wrapped up in the beauty of your copy or your brand. So never forget ...

... copywriting isn't art. It's selling. So don't waste your time rewording the seventh paragraph on the back panel of your brochure.... Focus on the offer. When people glance at your mailing, they're looking for what you're selling and the deal you're making to sell it. So make it good. Make it fast. And make it clear. Doubt fills trashcans.

Having a great offer -- and making it crystal clear -- that's what fundraising is about.

TrueSense Marketing opens Seattle office

If you work for TrueSense Marketing, as I do, this is a big week. We opened up our Seattle office. Photos here.

Fundraising is good for them too

If you look at charitable giving as a mere transaction, it's pretty lop-sided: Whatever the donors gives, she longer has. She gets nothing in return, other than a fairly minor tax incentive (depending on the country she's in). The fundraiser walks away with all the money, all the advantage.

No wonder so many people in the nonprofit world feel vaguely guilty and a little bit cheesy.

They shouldn't. The donor gets quite a lot back. Nicholas Kristof's recent New York Times column points this out at Our Basic Human Pleasures: Food, Sex and Giving:

Brain scans by neuroscientists confirm that altruism carries its own rewards. [One project] found that when a research subject was encouraged to think of giving money to a charity, parts of the brain lit up that are normally associated with selfish pleasures like eating or sex.

So at a time of vast needs, from Haiti to our own cities, here's a nice opportunity for symbiosis: so many afflicted people, and so much benefit to us if we try to help them. Let's remember that while charity has a mixed record helping others, it has an almost perfect record of helping ourselves. Helping others may be as primal a human pleasure as food or sex.

Half-way branding does more harm than good

The other day I got an newsletter from a local nonprofit (which I won't name). The lead story on page one starts out like this:

We are pleased to share [Charity]'s new brand with you! After much research, serious analysis and consideration, we made a decision on a new "look and feel" for our organization. You will see this new brand reflected in future newsletters, mailings and our website. While our outward appearance is new, our commitment to [the organization's cause] remains the same.

It goes on and on in that vein: Proud but boring navel-gazing about their new "brand."

Big warning sign: If it seems you need to say Our look has changed, but we still do what we've always done just as well, you probably are digging yourself into a hole.

Unfortunately in this case, the "brand" they're so proud of consists of sans-serif fonts (significantly harder to read than serif fonts in print) lots copy in ALL CAPS (hard to read) and a lot of reverse-out type and type over color (also hard to read). The central pillar of the brand, it seems, is hiding what they do from people by making it hard to read.

But unreadability is only part of the problem: This organization has bought the damaging myth that a look is a brand. That's like thinking your clergyperson's haircut is the content of your faith. Your "look" is not your brand: What you do and who you are is your brand. The look is a small part of the real package.

There's nothing at all wrong with creating a distinct look -- assuming it's not unreadable. If the "look" is readable, nice, and appropriate, it will do no harm and probably do some real good.

The problem is the belief that look equals brand. It lets everyone off the hook. The newsletter article is a perfect example of the distortion that myth causes: They used prime donor-attention real estate not to promote the cause, not to motivate donors to care, not to reward donors who gave -- but to yammer on about the "brand." Cause-wise, they would have been better off leaving the page blank. (That would get people wondering what's up. Maybe they'd poke around in the newsletter and discover some cool things about the cause.)

If someone in your organization, or some outside branding expert proposes a branding project, make sure they are expert in your cause -- not just graphic design, marketing, and the latest fad color palettes and fonts. Because if all you get out of the project is a "look," you will have lost ground in your quest for a better brand.

Three Big Screw-ups in Online Fundraising, and How to Avoid them in 2010

I'll be teaching an online webinar through Network for Good, on Tuesday, January 26 at 1 p.m. (Eastern). It's free.

Here are the three big screw-ups we'll tackle:

1. Not doing online fundraising.
2. Not learning from your online fundraising.
3. Failing to grow your online fundraising.

Practical, hands-on help you can put to work immediately. And we'll be done in just an hour. And it's free. I hope you can make it next Tuesday.

Details and registration here.

No amazing results without amazing effort

A lot of nonprofits have extremely aggressive growth goals. And that's great, because the need for their work is huge.

They want more donors. And they want donors who will do more.

But there's a problem: They are unwilling -- or unable -- to give more to donors.

That's why, in most cases, they are not going to accomplish their goals.

Because if you want more donors -- and especially if you want more from donors -- you're going to have to give more to donors. More choices, more say in how their money goes to work, more reporting back on what they've accomplished through you, more programs that make their hearts soar.

The traditional arm's-length approach to donors -- where they obediently furnish us with money so we can spend it as we see fit -- is getting less viable all the time.

There are plenty of donors out there. Their ranks are growing, and soon there will be more donors than there have ever been. But they're going to ignore us if we keep ignoring them.

The same old approach isn't even going to get the same old results. We're not just going to have to change if we want to meet ambitious goals. We're going to have to change if we intend to survive.

Podcast: Haiti and Non-Haiti Fundraising

A look at what's going well, what's not, and what we need to know as the nonprofit world responds to the catastrophic January 12 Haiti Earthquake. Includes ideas for fundraisers who are not connected to the disaster.

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: