Social media sites are not refuges for failing fundraising programs. If you're failing in the mail or email, you won't make it up in Facebook. And if you're not getting any action now in Facebook, don't think Pinterest will solve your problems.
If you aren't successfully raising funds through email, postal mail, telephone, or any other medium, the problem is not likely the media. It's what you're doing with them. You are failing to connect your cause with people, and there never was and never will be a communications medium that solves that problem for you.
This will probably be annoying. Pardon the mess. If you want to see this stupid nonprofit ad for the OC Foundation, you're going to have to click it over and over and over again.
Of course, it's that way on purpose. You see, it's a concept, one of those almost-brilliant, yet incredibly stupid ideas that's somehow supposed to bring crowds of supporters to a nonprofit.
Good luck with that. Here you go. If you have some time on your hands:
Yes. it's a frustrating experience, so I'll save you the trouble. The video is a text screen that says:
For some people,
Performing simple actions repeatedly is an everyday matter.
But this is just one of the issues people with
obsessive compulsive disorder have to deal with.
Get more familiar with OCD at www.ocfoundation.org
Get it? The idea is that you have to click it over and over. Sort of the way people with OCD are compelled to do things over and over. Of course, you had to do it because of a stupid concept. You could stop as soon as you got fed up. Someone with OCD is compelled to repeated their actions, and they can't just stop. Your multi-clicking experience is nothing like theirs. In fact, you've just minimized their experience, and likely have less understanding and empathy than before.
Why this is supposed to make viewers into supporters of the OC Foundation is beyond me. Especially with a call to action like Get more familiar with OCD. Get more familiar?
(I should note that to their credit, the Foundation apparently has nothing to do with this project.)
There are clues to what the point of all this is at a short, self-congratulatory video about the project by the makers. It notes that:
With a 0$ budget (literally), we were able to pass the experience on to tens of thousands of viewers
And achieved a massive online coverage.
Well, maybe not so much. When I viewed it, the YouTube views count less than 100,000 viewers. Of course, that's coming from viewers who may have watched it 5, 10, or more times in their effort to see what it was about. And that "massive online coverage"? The websites shown are all ad-industry sites. Not normal people spreading word-of-mouth about something that matters to them, but fanboys talking about a cool ad concept. (The fanboys love this one.)
It's not easy to help people understand an illness they don't have. It's even harder to move them from understanding to caring to taking action.
But here's a hint for anyone facing this challenge: Clever abstraction don't get you there. Real stories of human realities are the path to follow.
People ask me that too. Everyone would like to know if there's some magic number you can ask your donors -- the Goldilocks Number that's not too little and not too much, but Just Right.
Ken has a smart answer to that question:
It's not about how often you ask.... We have to consider our timing, our storytelling ability, the donor's comfort, interests and potential for resentment and our ability to inspire and create rapport. And the rest. There can be no optimum number to cover such an intimate and personal inter-relationship. I wouldn't pronounce upon it any more than I might aspire to tell people how often they should have sex.
Any consultant or expert who tells you a there's a Goldilocks Number for fundraising is just as scoff-worthy as someone who says they know how often you should have sex.
Here's what I can tell you about the right amount of fundraising asks:
You can probably ask more than you do now.
I've never yet heard of an organization that improved its revenue by asking less.
If you're talking to all your donors all the time, you're doing it wrong.
Beyond that, I can't tell you anything useful on that topic until I know a lot about your donors. I'd be a charlatan if I tried.
Write to the Donor, For the Donor, About the Donor.
Ensure a High "You" Quotient.
Touch the Heart with Strong Emotion.
Surprise and Delight!
Appreciate the Donor.
Design for Readability.
Motivate Another Gift.
Make it Convenient to Give.
Appeal to the Most Basic Donor Benefit.
Refresh and Reengage.
The reason so many nonprofit newsletters are just big money-sinks is this: Their purpose is to educate their donors about how effective the organization is. The money-making donor-focused newsletter has a different purpose: To remind the donor what an incredible difference she makes.
When you change your newsletter from "look at us" to "look at you," you just might see the kind of five-fold increase in revenue described here. You'll also likely see improved overall donor retention.
Raising money online is somewhat more difficult than falling off a log. Actually, it's incredibly more difficult than falling off a log, which -- I'm ashamed to note -- I happen to know is pretty easy.
It's just as demanding as raising money in any other medium, plus a few tricks of its own.
Wouldn't you love to create some kind of breakthrough that would dramatically improve your ability to influence people, raise funds, get volunteers, and change the world?
A lot of smart nonprofits are trying to do just that. Too many of them, though, are barking up the wrong tree. Doesn't matter how long or loud they bark. It's the wrong tree. The Breakthrough Squirrel isn't up there.
The wrong tree
Better color pallet, modern-looking fonts, new and improved logo.
Really cool mission statement.
Tightly defined brand personality.
Massive PR and/or advertising campaign.
The right tree
Stronger, more specific calls to action.
More choice for donors.
More authenticity and connection for donors.
More thanking and reporting back to donors.
In other words, the Breakthrough Squirrel is up in the Donor Tree. Not the Brand Tree. You'll catch it by focusing on donors, not inward on yourself.
Real fundraisers know a difficult truth that the amateurs don't grasp: Fundraising is largely bad news. Take it from the Oneicity blog: Don't forget the bad news.
Many fundraisers zero in on the success their organizations have already achieved. The story they tell is this: Everything is wonderful!
And that feels good to say, but it leaves the prospective donor out of the picture.
Real fundraising is about need -- the broken or incomplete situation you're inviting the donor to help you transform. Real fundraising makes it clear that without the donor, things are bad. If the donor doesn't give, there will be consequences. As Oneicity puts it:
Give us the consequences, it'll help us make a good decision.
That's right: Be very open and forthright about the consequences. You need to show the donor that their giving matters.
The best fundraising also paints a picture of the way things will be with the donor's help. But that's secondary to the "bad news."
St Dunstan's, a century-old UK charity that helps veterans who've suffered sight-loss, changed its name to Blind Veterans UK.
You can probably see what their problem was. "St Dunstans" sounds more like a church than what they are. The legacy logo (see below) didn't help. Without massive mindshare, which they didn't have, they were saddled with a puzzling, abstract name that gave no hint of what they were about.
Most branding experts would have attacked this problem by creating a name that was even more abstract than St Dunstan's. Something about light or hope or empowerment or transformation. Vague, aspirational concepts.
Blind Veterans UK went literal.
You can actually discern what they do. And where they are. And the logo uses the flag to evoke national pride -- something that can't go wrong with veterans' charities.
The whole thing is clear and obvious. It's as if they actually want donors to support them!
So a tip of the hat to Blind Veterans UK and their branding consultants. It's wonderful to see something go right in this department. You can learn more about the rebranding here.
Here's Karen's one change: Change the word "we" to "you." And here's how it plays out:
We sent 220 volunteers to Joplin to help them rebuild. Ten families are now living in their homes again. This is just one example of what Acme Charity has done in this past year.
Yawn. But change we to you, and you get:
You helped send 220 volunteers to Joplin. Ten homes were rebuilt and families are living in their homes again. This is just one example of what Acme Charity has done in this past year.
There's still a lot more that could make that paragraph stronger -- but that simple change transformed it from organizational navel-gazing into genuine donor-connecting fundraising.
What this blog is about
The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here. More.
About the blogger
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.
I'm a Fundraisingologist at Moceanic, the company that can help you transform the way you do fundraising through one-on-one coaching or membership in The Fundraisingology Lab. Find out what we can do for you and with you!
A proud member of The Case Writers, a collective of the smartest, most donor-loving creative professionals in the business.
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So many people get thrown into the work of writing fundraising without ever being told about the weird they need to live with -- and master -- if they're going to succeed.
How to use rhyme to make your message more memorable and persuasive.
How to tell stories that motivate donors to give.
How to meet donors' emotional needs.
Whether you should use guilt as a motivator.
Whether you're working on your very first fundraising writing assignment or you're a seasoned veteran ... whether you want it for yourself or need to show someone else how the pros write fundraising -- or both -- this is a book you should
Discover how to make branding improve your fundraising in The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand: Motivating Donors to Give, Give Happily, and Keep on Giving. It's easier -- and less expensive -- than you may think!
If your organization is even vaguely considering "branding work," you need to read The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand by Jeff Brooks. Read more here.
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