Future Fundraising Now

Stupidly hypnotized by the need to win an award

Award bait.

That's about all you need to know about this boring and self-indulgent video for Fundação São Francisco de Assis, a Portuguese animal-aid charity.

I don't really recommend watching it. The music is mind-numbingly annoying and the images don't really make sense. I think it's some form of medieval pantomime approach to dog rescue. And it's nearly five minutes -- a very long five minutes that will have you thinking about your own mortality and the preciousness of every moment that shouldn't be spent on weird, self-indulgent dreck like this.

Sorry about that. Here it is:

Or watch it here in Vimeo.

The main clue that this is award bait and not a serious attempt to connect with donors is that it's in English. Why would a Portuguese charity use English? Well, awards committees are overwhelmingly English-speaking.

When you don't really care about getting real donors to take real action, you can do stuff like this.

If your cause is in need of funds, though, let the award-hungry agencies figure out some other way to create the stuff they and their friends on the panels like.

Thanks to Osocio for the tip.

More Stupid Nonprofit Ads.

The secret for writing on target

Here's a great quote by British author C.S. Lewis:

In letter writing one ought to know when and where the other person reads, as it makes more of a semblance to real conversation.

Lewis wasn't talking about direct mail, but about real letters between one person and another. (Remember that?)

But his advice is good for those of us who write to donors: Always have a mental picture of the person you're writing to. That's right -- one person. You're never writing to a large audience. The person you visualize should be "demographically correct" -- most likely an elderly woman.

Imagine what she thinks and believes -- not what you want her to think, but what she really does think.

Picture the context she's reading your message in. A crowded in-box? A stack of direct mail?

These mental pictures can help you communicate more clearly and realistically. They help you get outside yourself so you don't create messages aimed at you instead of your real donor.

Try it. It works.

Should fundraising smell good?

Don't you love those weird experiments social scientists do? And the often wacky conclusions they draw?

Here's a study, reported at UK Fundraising, The power of freshly baked bread to stimulate altruism. A volunteer would drop a glove on the sidewalk outside a bakery or a clothing store. They then kept track how often strangers picked it up and returned it to them.

• 77% of the time by people outside the bakery returned it.
• 52% of the time those outside the clothes shop did.

Their conclusion: "spontaneous help is offered more in areas where pleasant ambient smells are spread. This experiment confirms the role of ambient food odours on altruism."

Okay that's a little bit silly. A few dozen, or even a few hundred, observed incidents cannot yield statistically significant results. Then there's the almost incalculable number of potential variables: what else is happening nearby, what the "dropper" looks like, etc. Direct response professionals laugh at this kind of study.

But look for the Shine Object Brigade to spring into action. They'll look for ways to make direct mail appeals smell good. (Doesn't work; I've tested it.) Or perhaps somebody will invent something called "HTMsmell" so websites can smell good.

Truth is, being kind feels good. Some people know that and benefit from it all the time. Others haven't yet figured it out. A pleasant smell might put some fence-sitters in an altruistic mood.

But be careful how seriously you take these oddball studies that claim to give us deep insight into human nature.

The false path to fundraising innovation and success

Here's a real-life cautionary tale from the Passionate Giving blog: How To Love "The Same Old Thing" in Major Gifts.

I hope you'll go read the post for the details, but here's the outline: Richard made a big mistake. He hired some super-cool consultants to do a fundraising project. The super-cool consultants didn't know anything about fundraising, but they were confident, and they promised the moon and stars. More important, they promised that this project would not be the same old same-old. Unlike all the other fundraising projects, this one would be cool and exciting. Breakthrough. Different.

Of course, as always happens in cases like this, it didn't work. The super-cool consultants didn't know what they were doing, and their ignorance proved disastrous. They ducked out, leaving Richard and his organization holding the bag.

Richard thought a lot about this painful incident, and eventually came to some insight about it:

I later discovered ... that my core motivation in making the decision was to lift myself up vs. actually getting anything accomplished. I used the organization's money and goodwill to shore up a very damaged self-image. And in the process I caused harm to the organization and myself.

How often do we make decisions like that? To use our budgets and missions to make ourselves look and feel good?

Failure often comes from our need for glory that we perceive will come when we do something different and exciting.

The glory that matters -- doing your job right -- isn't so exciting. As Richard put it:

There is no silver bullet. None. Nowhere. Stop looking for one. There is no grand strategy, innovative scheme, wonderful approach or something yet undiscovered that will make you successful. You will NOT discover it because it isn't there.

Success in fundraising comes from diligently pursuing the stuff that works. Watching the numbers. Not making errors. Caring about donors.

When you do that, not only do you raise more money and waste less time, but exciting innovations actually do happen. They aren't pulse-pounding flashes of excitement like you want, but you realize one day that what you're doing now is light-years beyond what you were doing a few years ago.

And you've been raising more money all along the way. I'd rather tell me grandkids about that than that I made lots of ego-driven mistakes that hurt my cause. Wouldn't you?

December Fundraising: don't panic!

Good fundraisers persuade; weak ones try to convince

Here's a distinction from Seth Godin's blog that could help you do better at fundraising: Persuade vs. convince.

Marketers don't convince. Engineers convince. Marketers persuade. Persuasion appeals to the emotions and to fear and to the imagination. Convincing requires a spreadsheet or some other rational device.

If you're spending a lot of your time trying to convince people, it's no wonder it's not working.

Same for fundraisers. We should be persuaders, not convincers. Make people believe and act by touching their hearts. Because you can't argue your way into their lives.

How not to go over your own fiscal cliff

With donor acquisition getting more difficult, we're all forced to fine-tune our fundraising programs. Here's some help at Katya's Nonprofit Marketing Blog: 4 ways to do a better job keeping your donors.

The secret is to think of your program structurally, not as a series of tactics. Know how many donors you're getting, how many you're keeping, and what's the long-term value of each donor. That will keep you from spinning your wheels on activities that get you nowhere, but instead spend your time an money in smart, impactful ways:

1. Focus on donor retention more than donor acquisition.
2. Focus on donor lifetime value, not one-off campaigns.
3. Focus on results, not effort.
4. Identify and invest in your most passionate supporters.
   

These things will keep you from making costly mistakes -- or heedlessly driving your fundraising program over a "fiscal cliff."