Power your fundraising with pleasure, pain, and one magic word

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23 February 2015

Power your fundraising with pleasure, pain, and one magic word

The importance of getting people to click links online has thrown the science of headline writing into high gear, and this has given us some important clues about the words that motivate people to action.

A post in the KISSmetrics blog gives us three important things to think about: Hate this Headline? You'll Probably Share the Story.

It's about headlines and links, but it can apply to any fundraising we write. There are three things to keep in mind:

Make it about pleasure with words that invoke happiness, fun, belonging, awe, love, positivity, strength, empowerment
Make it about pain with words that invoke fear, anger, discomfort, confusion, helplessness, indifference, sadness
Use the most powerful word of all: You

Posted by Jeff Brooks on 23 February 2015 at 07:52 | Permalink

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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.

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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.

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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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Raise funds with your eyes open. Skip the guesswork. Show your boss what really works. This book takes you on a fact-filled and memorable journey through writing, design, strategy, and the mental game of effective fundraising.

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