Future Fundraising Now

A fundraising lesson from Art Linkletter

I was sad to learn about the passing of old-time TV star Art Linkletter Wednesday at age 97.

Linkletter was a genuine success who found his greatness in a way that critics and experts didn't understand and didn't like.

Television critics and intellectuals found the Linkletter persona bland and his popularity unfathomable. "There is nothing greatly impressive, one way or the other, about his appearance, mannerisms, or his small talk," one newspaper critic wrote. Another referred to his "imperishable banality."

Millions of Americans disagreed. They responded to his wholesome, friendly manner and upbeat appeal. Women ... loved his easy, enthusiastic way with children.

I don't know how he felt about being labeled with "imperishable banality," but he didn't seem to let it influence what he did.

And that's an inspiration. One a lot of fundraisers should note.

We so often get caught up playing to the experts -- in our case, it's our bosses and program directors who are the voices and personalities of our organizations. They want fundraising to be a certain way that tickles their fancy. And they are just as wrong as the critics were about Art Linkletter.

The stuff that works -- in fundraising and so many other fields -- is what the non-experts respond to. You can spend all your energy getting good reviews -- and fail. Or you can reach out to the real audience and do very, very well.

Thanks for the reminder, Art!

Fundraising that everyone likes never works

In a recent MondayMorningMemo (email newsletter), Roy Williams, writing about radio advertising, tells us a truth that really disturbs some people: "The ads we hate often work better than the ads we love." (Counterintuitive Radio)

In fact, the ads that everybody loves usually don't accomplish their purpose; that ones that generate all the complaints are the ads that bring home the bacon. Williams points out:

• Voices that belong on the radio are easy to ignore. Voices that don't belong on the radio usually sell more product.
• "Smooth ads" are built from worn-out phrases that are likewise easy to ignore. Effective ads often feature broken sentences. Half sentences. Non-sequiturs.
• Music beds "sound good" because they help blur the ads into the format. This makes the ads ... easier to ignore.
• Humor is like nitroglycerine.

This is also true about most forms of marketing, especially fundraising.

Things that are "rough," "loud," and strange work. The big winners always generate the most complaints.

Things designers don't like to design because it doesn't look so great in their portfolio. Copy writers sometimes resist writing because it's not elegant and refined the way they work so hard to be. And broadcast producers will fight like crazy to make your message blend in with everything else on the air like seamless aural wallpaper.

Our job as fundraisers is not to create a restful, tasteful, vaguely pleasant experience. It's to make a noise that startles donors to action.

This is why effective direct mail is almost never pretty.

But the results it generates to make the world a better place: Pure beauty.

The secret to powerful fundraising: know your audience

If you're a writer, chances are something like this incident, described at Fundraising Assets (Make your message crystal clear), has happened to you too:

The writer had to write a piece introducing a psychologist to an audience of non-psychologists. When she gave it to him for review, it happened:

When he was done "correcting" the draft, it was no longer warm and welcoming. In fact, it wasn't even understandable. It was full of jargon and technical language.... Why did he muck up the article? "I don't want my colleagues to think I don't know what I'm talking about."

I wish I'd got a nickel every time that happened to me. (Come to think of it, that probably is about how much I've got. Never mind.)

Most people have a very hard time understanding audience -- the idea that you are writing to a very specific group of people with their own level of experience, understanding, and connection to what you're writing about.

Experts really care about what other experts think of them, so they tend to convert anything they write into an occasion to impress fellow experts.

Many others think their audience is themselves, so they wishfully write what they imagine would motivate them.

Audience confusion is probably the top cause of lousy fundraising. If you can clearly visualize your audience when you write -- your real audience, not your preferred fantasy audience -- you are a long way toward moving more people to join your cause.

Nothing is stupid about this

Fundraising for a food bank during a recession is only marginally more difficult than falling off a log -- when you do it right.

I guess that's just too boring for some people. Like the creative agency that sunk its claws into the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.

These guys came up with a way to "brand" hunger by pointing out that the hungry have nothing to eat. The centerpiece of the campaign is empty cans, labeled "Nothing," that people can buy for $2.99.

So far, so good, and if they'd stopped there, they might have had an interesting alternative acquisition and awareness effort. But we're talking ad agency, so the approach quickly went off the rails. Here's how the Nothing.org website explains it:

Each day, thousands of hungry Rhode Islanders eat nothing. By turning nothing into a product you can buy, we're going to change that.

If you're noticing a heavy odor of self-reference in the above sentence, you've found the problem.

These guys were so impressed with their clever packaging of hunger, they couldn't stop talking about it. A spokesperson from the typically clueless agency explained the work this way:

[People in their 30s] can afford to donate, but they prefer to make donations to solve finite problems: to build a wing for a hospital, a playground for a school. Things like a cure for cancer to an end to hunger are intangible.

Good point. That's not just people in their 30s; that's everyone. But the real question somebody should have asked was If you realize people prefer to give to tangible causes, why did you create an abstraction about hunger?

Because that's exactly what this campaign is: Rather than talk about people who are hungry and the food they need -- which is a very powerful and proven way to motivate people to give to food banks -- they created a "product" that symbolizes the issue of hunger.

And then, in typical ad agency fashion, they fumbled in several other key ways that nobody who does fundraising would ever do: The "give" link on the Nothing.org website is hard to find. The giving form has some kind of programming error that renders it unusable. And, as if they're allergic to actually asking for a gift, here's what the ask itself looks like:

There are more design and writing problems with that than we have room to uncover here.

Finally, there's this goofy use of outdoor advertising for the campaign. Billboards say:

Nothing can end hunger in Rhode Island.

Okay, a well-built double-meaning can sometimes add resonance and memorability to a slogan or call to action. But when the second meaning is the exact opposite of what you're saying, it isn't working.

There are some cool things about the campaign.

Selling the empty cans of "Nothing" at grocery stores may generate revenue. And if the cans themselves include compelling copy and response options, they may even bring in donors. (I have a sneaking suspicion that this was neglected.) And some of the videos are very touching.

In what I'm sure is the campaign's greatest triumph, it was written up in the New York Times: Campaign Offer Plenty of 'Nothing'.

More Stupid Nonprofit Ads.

What fundraising does for donors

Here's a good way to think about donors and fundraising from Transformational Giving: Where are all the fundraising heroes? Here's the point:

If your fundraising doesn't make your donors better, more capable people ... then it's no wonder that you don't like the job of fundraising, that you see it as a necessary evil -- a vile means to a noble end -- rather than a mutual adventure of discovery with your weird and very cool donor friends.

I believe that even if the fundraising is completely crappy the donor is still a hero. Our ineptitude and disrespect can't take that away from them. They'll experience the transformative effect of charitable giving with or without our cooperation.

But if you get it, if you understand what giving does for givers -- if you see it and work with it ...

You'll do much better work. And you'll have more connected, passionate donors who will return the favor by giving more, staying with you longer, and being on your side in all kinds of ways.

Fundraising is a great source of good in this world. It's that way even before one penny raised goes to good causes. If you think it's just an annoyance, you're in the wrong profession.

The curse of unremarkable fundraising

Why is fundraising so hard?

One reason: We barely give people a reason to give, much less talk about us and spread the word for us. Really. Can you imagine normal, sane humans saying any of these things?

• "You've got to hear this: I can give some amount of money and this charity will use it to research a disease and provide services for people who have the disease!"
• "Get this: When you buy your symphony tickets, you can add extra money to the cost of your tickets, and that will help cover the symphony's budget that isn't entirely covered by ticket sales!"
• "Hey, here's something exciting: You write a check for some amount, and it will go to fight the root causes of poverty -- a problem so huge that no matter how much you give, your part is microscopic."

People don't talk about us because the fundraising propositions we put in front of them are just so boring there's nothing to say. They give because they care about the causes. But there's no additional magic that might get them to tell their friends.

Compare that to what a donor might have to say about giving to DonorsChoose.org:

You search through a database of classroom needs, find one you like, then write a check. A while later, you get a package of real live thank-you notes from the kids.

Now that's remarkable. There are a number of organizations like that with remarkable offers. They're getting remarked about. And they're growing.

The rest of the nonprofit sector? Not so much.

Why does it take upstart organizations to be remarkable? The established nonprofits have to infrastructure, brains, and funding to do it -- but most don't even come close.

Are we so married to our lazy and inflexible funding models that we can't change them even though that means not growing?

Is our contempt for donors and their needs so deep that we're unwilling to meet them?

Are we so unimaginative that we just can't see doing things in a different, better way?

Are we so afraid of change that we refuse to do it?

Of course, there are signs of hope, imagination, and great thinking happening in large and small ways all over. But if I were in charge -- we'd make it fundraising priority #1 to put unremarkable fundraising behind us.

How to get rid of your unrealistic Twitter-pusher

Noting that only 7% of Americans use Twitter at least once a month (and linking to a very useful article about Twitter use, Guess Who Doesn't Tweet: Almost Everyone), The Agitator asks, Who Tweets?

And, in inimitable Agitator fashion, they recommend:

If someone in your nonprofit is trumpeting the urgency of getting on board the Twitter phenom, fire them. Hire instead a really good copywriter.

I have to recommend a far more measured and moderate approach, the Future Fundraising Now strategy for your Twitter fanatic:

• Ask them how many donors or realistic prospects are using Twitter.
• Ask what value you intend to offer donors in 140-character bursts.
• Ask how you'll measure the quality of tweets.
• Ask the cost of having someone tweeting.
• Ask the expected ROI of tweeting.
• And, when you don't get answers to those questions, then fire them.

Replacing the Twitter guy with a really good copywriter is an excellent suggestion. One who understands email marketing would be an especially good hire.

How are you doing online? Study may help you know

It helps to know if your efforts are producing well or poorly, and it's awfully hard to tell if all you have to look at are your own results. And that can be hard to know for online fundraising.

You can get a lot of useful facts from the 2010 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study from M+R Strategic Services and NTEN (PDF; registration required).

There's a lot in the report that's worth your noting, but I want to point out a couple of them.

About email list churn

Some organizations really freak out over list churn. Yes, email lists are more volatile than traditional lists. This data saw a typical turnover of 16.83% in 2009. Of that, only 6.88% was unsubscribe -- that is, people leaving on purpose. The other 10% was other kinds of churn, most of it people not leaving purpose.

And get this:

... we found a positive correlation between email fundraising response rate and unsubscribe rate. The high unsubscribe rate on your fundraising email may be a sign that people are paying attention.

More response, more unsubscribe. That goes along with the old direct mail correlation of more response, more complaints.

Basic success numbers for email

	Low	High
Open rate	10.32%	16.42%
Click-through rate	0.29%	1.48%
Response rate	0.04%	0.28%
Unsubscribe rate	0.19%	0.38%

Go get the full study. Lots of useful numbers there.

For better results: talk about what people care about

What is opera about, really? If you ask an expert or a professional, it's about the music or maybe the technical aspects.

But here's how regular folks might talk about it:

Our watch it here on YouTube.

Mozart's Don Giovanni is a musical masterpiece. It's also a lurid story. Guess which of those things is more interesting to more people.

Are you focused in on the "expert" stuff about your cause -- and forgetting what most people are really into?

Young donors and other mythical creatures

Here's my column in this month's FundRaising Success magazine, Young Donors and Other Mythical Creatures.

Teaser: Let's face it: It takes a real act of the imagination to get into the head of someone older than you. It's even harder when you're impressed with your own hipness and think the oldsters just don't get it.