From Karen Zapp's Nonprofit Blog, 5 Most Common Mistakes in Fundraising Copy. Here they are:
- Assume a level of knowledge and familiarity that just isn't there.
- Every letter or email tries to cover everything you do.
- Fail to show how a donor makes a difference.
- Fundraising appeal written by committee.
- Copy is NOT donor-centric. It doesn't put the reader in the hero's spotlight.
In my experience, all of these super-common mistakes are symptoms of an even more common mental error: Fundraising from yourself.
It's so easy to aim your fundraising message at yourself -- to create the message you find compelling. That's what causes you to assume the donor knows and cares about things they've never considered. It's what makes you try to say too much. It's what makes you skip telling the donor she's critical to the cause. And it allows committees to grab control of projects -- because, after all, we have to make all the insiders happy, don't we?
Remind yourself every day that you are not the donor. Neither is your executive director, your consultant, or any of your board members. Keep that in mind, and you'll be a lot less likely to make those copy mistakes.
