Future Fundraising Now

How John Cleese can make you a better fundraiser

Watch this video. It's only a bit over 10 minutes long. And it's John Cleese. You won't regret the time you spend on it. It's about creativity, something we all need to pay close attention to.

Or watch it here on YouTube.

Cleese has two powerful pieces of advice for boosting your creativity:

1. Recognize the power of working on your project while not working on it. Give yourself time and space away from the work, because your mind will keep working while do something else (even sleep). That subconscious work is often your best.
2. Create boundaries that allow you to focus without interruption. Email, phone calls, and people walking in on you can kill your creativity. Protect yourself with boundaries.

Is your website a big selfie?

In a park near my office, there's a "sculpture" hanging from the trees. Here it is:

I don't know the artist's intention, but every time I see just be your selfie, I like to think it means something like this:

Just live your life. See what you see. Remember what you remember. Stop making goofy faces and posing yourself for egocentric portraits. Just hang out with your friends. Live life in primary experience mode. Don't take selfies. Be your selfie.

In case you can't tell, I find selfies a little annoying.

So when I saw this headline at Forbes.com -- Is Your Website A Giant 'Selfie' For Your Brand? -- I jumped to conclusions.

I thought the article would rail against the self-obsessed websites that are so egocentric they're boring, confusing and annoying. I expected an amusing rant against three things that bug me: lame websites, look-at-me branding, and selfies.

I was exactly wrong. The article heartily approves of making your website a giant selfie for your brand. And the article is perfectly reasonable, with the thesis that your website should be personable, human, and likeable. So go read the article. You'll get a good idea or two.

But really, don't make your website a huge selfie. It's not cool at all. It's vapid and uninteresting. Worst of all, it's irrelevant for your donors and every other audience you want to reach. Instead, make your website relevant for others. Talk about other people. Be interesting and useful.

Not a selfie.

Recipe for your more effective fundraising landing page

How many would-be donors arrive at your landing page, but leave without making a donation?

Too many? I thought so.

Here's some help from the Daily Egg, at How to Build a Landing Page that Converts: 12 Must-Have Features:

1. Killer Headline
2. Persuasive Subheadline
3. Pictures
4. An Explanation
5. Value Proposition or Benefits
6. Logical Flow
7. Something about Pain
8. Something about Pleasure
9. Trustworthy Testimonials
10. Methods of Contact
11. A Guarantee
12. Powerful Call to Action

(Read the Daily Egg post: There are tons of examples.)

These are aimed at a commercial sales landing page -- but every one of these elements could be on a fundraising page. And they'd make the page stronger.

How to lead donors to your donate page

If nobody can find their way to your donation page, it's not worth much.

Your donation page should be like Rome: All roads go there.

Here are some great pointers from 4aGoodCause blog, at 10 places to put a link to your online donation page:

1. From a spotlight on your home page
2. Your website navigation
3. A "ways to give" page on your website
4. Your Facebook page
5. From Status Updates and Tweets
6. Your email newsletter
7. The email signature of every email your staff sends
8. Confirmation pages and thank you emails
9. From your direct mail letters
10. On the signage at your events

Tomorrow: Once you get someone to your landing page, make sure it's doing its job!

Podcast: 3 steps to effective storytelling in fundraising

Storytelling that persuades donors to action isn't magic. You just have to make sure your has these elements:

• It's about the donor (not about your awesome organization)
• It leads to the donor taking action -- entering the story
• It's unfinished -- you want to donor to create the satisfying end to the story.

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:

Interested in mastering the art of storytelling? You should attend the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference, November 6-7 in Seattle.

What you're really doing when you're fundraising

Fundraising is not arguing or persuading people into giving.

It's selling them the joy of giving.

Arguing doesn't work because it misses the point -- the donors' point.

Selling joy works because it speaks to donors where they are.

Are you earning your donors' love?

Why aren't very many people giving to your fundraising efforts?

Maybe, as Hands-On Fundraising, put is, You just haven't earned it yet, baby.

How do you earn it? For a start, do these things?

• Put your donor in the spotlight (stop talking about yourself!)
• Focus on what's in it for your donor ("we need money" is not a reason for the donor to give)
• Mind your manners and show some love (say "thank you" -- often, and with feeling)
• Don't ignore her (find ways to get her opinion -- and listen to it)

Fundraising is relationship-building. It really works better when you do it that way.

Better subject lines for email fundraising

Here's a handy list from the Constant Contact blog of Improve Your Open Rates with These 12 Subject Line Tweaks:

1. Cut it down. Shorter subject lines tend to get better open rates. (Test this, because there are many variable factor!)
2. Take out anything spammy (exclamation points, overtly promotional language like "Buy now" or "Free")
3. Ask a question
4. Include a deadline
5. Try a teaser
6. Give a command
7. Add a list ("X great ways to Y")
8. Make an announcement
9. Be unique
10. Tell a joke
11. Say something unexpected
12. Use multimedia

Test these things! What works in email can be very specific to your list -- and the landscape is constantly changing with new technology.

How to overcome the main source of bad fundraising writing

What causes most bad fundraising writing? Is it bad writers?

No, that's a distant third. (The second most common cause of bad writing is crummy brand guidelines that force abstraction and jargon.)

The main source is what author Steven Pinker calls the Curse of Knowledge.

He describes the Curse in a recent Wall Street Journal article, The Source of Bad Writing. his definition: "a difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know."

All writers suffer from the Curse of Knowledge. The better ones know how to counteract it. Here's Pinker's advice:

• Remember that readers know a lot less about your subject than you think, and unless you keep track of what you know that they don't, you are guaranteed to confuse them.
• Show a draft to some people who are similar to your intended audience and find out whether they can follow it.
• Show a draft to yourself, ideally after enough time has passed that the text is no longer familiar.
• Always try to lift yourself out of your parochial mind-set and find out how other people think and feel.

Storytelling Conference: Still time to register

Register for the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference. November 6-7 in Seattle.

Here's what Tom Ahern says about it:

This fundraisers' conference is about just one thing: helping you make FAR more money for your charity ... by changing the way you tell stories ... in your appeals, your newsletters, your website, your e-blasts, your annual reports, your social media ... and more.

Here are just three handy little things you'll learn.

• What is a story, really? (The answer may surprise you.)
• Who's the hero the stories that motivate donors? (Anyone who thinks the purpose of telling stories is to display the awesomeness of the nonprofit is missing the story-telling boat!)
• What are the most common story-killers? (They're things everyone does. Things your boss wants you to do.)

And a lot more. A lot more. From the top story-telling experts across the fundraising industry.

Don't miss.

Register now!

I hope to see you there!

Here's a secret preview slide: