Future Fundraising Now

Easy ways to improve your landing pages

I bet you'd like it more of the people who end up on your landing page actually filled it out.

Here's some help from the online commercial world, at the Daily Egg: Quick Copywriting Tweaks Proven to Lift Conversions 30% or More. Try these things on your landing pages:

• Talk More about Benefits, Less About Your Solutions. (Tell them what's in it for them; not how awesome your programs are.)
• Use Pictures or Video to Tell the Story.
• Tweak Your Copy to Remove All Buyer Hesitations. (What doubts might donors have to block their generosity?
• Watch Your Language. (Be clear, direct, and emotive.)

These are easy things that don't cost a penny more than doing it poorly. Give it a shot.

Trash the blah-blah in your fundraising -- transform it into zing

Your fundraising isn't going as well as it should. You and your colleagues are trying to figure out why.

Consensus emerges: Our donors don't realize how effective our programs are. They don't grasp that we're unique in our sector. That we lead in our sector. That our people are teaching the people at other nonprofits how to do it.

So you turn up the volume on how awesome your organization is.

And your results get even worse.

That's because You're having the wrong conversation.

Your donors don't give because you're great. They give to put their values to work and make the world a better place.

When your fundraising is about how great your organization is, you're just being irrelevant.

As the Ask Thank Report Repeat blog says, Raise more money -- Talk about the Need, not yourself:

Raise more money by telling donors what they want to hear. Your donors don't care how special your organization is, and telling your donors your organization is unique doesn't help you raise money. That's because most donors care more about 1) who needs help, and 2) the improvement in the beneficiary's life if the donor gives a gift.

Talk about the change in the world your donors can make. That's why they give. Bragging about yourself is just a bunch of blah-blah-blah. Showing the donor what she can do? Pure zing.

Why every fundraiser should at least consider address-label mailings

I frequently hear from fundraisers who believe premium-based fundraising (address labels and other things sent unasked for) is a force for evil that they must never, ever do.

There's no evidence to support that -- nothing that I or any other informed fundraising professional I know has ever encountered. A look at the numbers shows not only gooses the short-term numbers, but can also improve long-term fundraising metrics.

That's why Sean Triner, writing at 101fundraising, says I ❤ Premium Direct Mail!

He should love it, because it raises an astounding amount of money and motivates millions of donors to support great causes.

(Point of clarification: many fundraisers call this freemium fundraising, because premium fundraising means to many offering something the donor will receive after she gives, not something that's in the envelope to begin with.)

Here's the topline story on freemium-based fundraising:

It boosts response rate. Sometimes by quite a lot. But it depresses average gift. And it depresses subsequent donor retention. But -- and this is the important part -- the higher volume of donors that results from the higher response rate often adds up to more high-value donors and greater long-term value than the non-freemium fundraising. As Sean says:

So, in every measure of predicted lifetime value, premiums win over non premiums. Actually, over ten years the ROI on a premium direct mail program if the charity is good at mid value and bequest follow up beats many other types of donor acquisition.

If you're doing well without freemiums, you may not need to look into them.

But if your program is struggling, as many are, freemiums may be the way to turn it around.

"Warm glow" fundraising reaches donors where they are

One of the main reasons your donors give has nothing at all to do with you and your cause. They give because it feels good to give -- the warm glow of altruism.

And reminding them of that is often very good fundraising.

Here's an interesting test reported at MarketSmart: It's all about the "warm glow".

The test was an email that went to Alaska residents, asking them to donate to a state charitable fund. There were two versions:

1. Make Alaska Better, that is, give because it's a worth cause.
2. Warm your heart -- give because it'll feel good.

Those who got the Warm your heart message responded more (30% more), and gave a 55% higher average gift.

That's a pretty convincing difference.

Not everyone likes to raise funds with a message like that. They feel it undermines the importance of their brand or their cause.

But it can work because it's based on a psychological reality that probably matters more to the donor than everything you hold important. And successful fundraising comes from connecting with donors and their lives -- not by showing them how important your cause is or how wonderful your organization is.

Good fundraising is always about the donor.

Things no donor said, ever

• "This modern, edgy design really makes me think positively about this charity!"
• "I don't feel educated enough about this cause to donate to it. Please give me more facts."
• "Your logo isn't big enough!"
• "Tell me again about how visionary your founder is."
• "Please give me information about what it is you don't do."
• "This message is not consistent with the charity's brand guidelines. No way am I going to donate!"
• "Puns! Wordplay! Finally! Now I'm on board with this cause!"
• "Would you please tell me more about your wonderful wealthy donors who give far more than I ever could?"
• "That reading level is too low! You insult my intelligence! I will never donate again! I spit on your mother's grave!"
• "Please -- more acronyms. I hate it when you spell things out."
• "I get a warm feeling when you complain about how hard it is to raise funds."
• "Noted."
• "Wow! That's like my third impression from your campaign this month! Bravo!"
• "Every time I see another photo of your well-heeled donors and board members all dressed up and drinking champagne at parties, I feel more disposed to donate."
• "Your jargon really impresses me."

Donors respond when they know they matter

Do you need your donors?

Then tell them so!

I know that sounds like relationship advice from a talk-show psychologist, but it needs to be said. So many fundraisers instead practice We Have It All Together fundraising: They believe that fundraising consists of showing donors how effective and successful they are, and invite donors to jump aboard the We Have It All Together Bandwagon.

No wonder so many donors think they aren't important to the organizations they support. We Have It All Together Fundraising inadvertently tells them things are fine without them.

Unless you have a funding structure that makes donors unnecessary, tell them you need them. If you need them urgently, if you need them to keep the doors open, if programs would be cut without them -- don't hide it. Be honest, open, and urgent. Practice "You Matter a Lot" Fundraising.

It makes some in nonprofits uncomfortable to admit their dependence on donors. They think it reflects poorly on their management. But donors want to be wanted.

Years of experience, including head-to-head message testing, tells me this: An appeal that says, We may have to cut programs unless people like you give outperforms an optimistic things are great, please join us message by dramatic margins.

So put We Have It All Together Fundraising to rest and go out there with some You Matter a Lot Fundraising that tells your donors you really need them!

Is your donor focus just empty talk?

You can read a lot on the blogs, including this one, about how to write "donor-focused" fundraising. You can learn how to do it, and you'll raise more money.

But writing donor-focused fundraising doesn't mean your organization is donor focused.

That's the important point from The Agitator, at Donor Relations ... A One Way Street?

... when you assign a junior assistant intern to answering the donor service lines at lunch or have your donors listening to a recording that endlessly assures them -- "Your call is important to us" -- you need to be rethinking your priorities. Without putting donor relations at the top of your list, all that good copy and creative is simply going down the drain.

If you're a donor-focused fundraiser working at an organization where donors are considered a pain, or an afterthought, or not considered at all -- you may indeed be wasting your efforts. You should consider moving along and leaving the organization to its self-destructive ways.

Unless you believe you can spread pro-donor thinking and transform your organization. (You can get some help from my book, The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand, which is as much about building a pro-donor organization as it is about pro-donor messaging.)

How to raise funds with holidays and awareness days

July is National Wheelchair Beautification Month. It's also Cord Blood Awareness Month.

I'm not telling you this because I think either of those issues is silly or frivolous. There are no doubt quality nonprofit organizations that need to raise funds for needed programs related to those two issues.

But if they use those awareness months as reasons for donors to give, they will almost surely fail.

That fact that it's a "holiday" (or awareness day, week, or month), is rarely a reason people give.

This painful reality is noted by the M+R Labs blog at Raising lots of money on Father's Day? Ugh, as if!

If you already have a strong case for giving and a Hallmark Holiday gives you some added urgency, great! However, if you have no other reason to send an appeal other than someone at your organization asked what you're doing for Mother's Day, you might want to keep reading.

That's right, most holidays do not prompt donors to give. Even widely known and observed ones like Mother's Day and Father's Day.

You can't simply say, "World Hunger Day is coming up, so you should give to something about hunger." The awareness day is not a motivation for giving. It doesn't work. Trust me, I've tried!

Most holidays and pretty much all awareness days have no emotion connected to them.

The holidays that promote people to give are those that have deep emotional associations. In the US, that's two -- maybe three:

1. Thanksgiving.
2. Christmas.
3. Easter (for some Christians).

There are other holidays that have that kind of resonance for specific groups. For people connected to the US Marines, the Marine Corps Birthday on November 10 is a huge deal, dripping with emotional resonance. If your donors are Marines, you can raise a lot of money connected to that holiday.

There are others like that.

But if you think just telling people it's a holiday or awareness day and that's why they should give, you are going to fail.

Fundraising is about connecting with people by the heart and giving them a way to take meaningful action. That's true every day of the year.

Including National Lollipop Day, which is today.

Podcast: Good News Fundraising or Bad News Fundraising?

What story does your fundraising tell? Is it Bad News -- the problem and brokenness that you want your donors to help you change? Or is it Good News -- the promise of what can happen when your donor steps up and gives.

Or maybe there's a third, more perfect, way.

We'll show you that way, the approach to fundraising that avoids the revenue killing errors of either good news or bad news fundraising.

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:

Stop blaming the economy -- maybe it's just YOU

By now you've seen the Giving USA report on US charitable giving in 2014: It was up 7.1% to $358.38 billion. That's higher than the pre-recession level. In fact, the highest in the 60-year history of the report.

The recession is over.

But not to hear some fundraisers talk. They're still blaming their poor results on the economy.

They might as well blame it on the dinosaurs.

The economy is not what's keeping donors from responding. If you're still suffering from poor fundraising results, it's probably your fundraising practices that's to blame.

And you can change that.

Here are the most common ways organizations are creating their own recessions:

• Not spending enough. Your fundraising program will shrink if you're not getting enough new donors to replace those you lose through attrition. Too many organizations have slashed their new donor acquisition programs. That often feels good at first for the bean-counters, because chopping high-cost and revenue-negative acquisition immediately helps the bottom line. But it assures an extended and accelerating downward spiral for years to come.
• Not letting donors in on the action. Going to donors with a general and open-ended propositions of support ("support us") is increasingly the path to bad results. Success requires specific, interesting, motivating calls to action that give donors a clear sense of what their giving accomplishes.
• Bragging instead of fundraising. Fundraising that's all about how awesome your organization is in order to wow donors into giving is another fading approach. Instead, show them how what you do aids their awesomeness.
• Fundcrushing instead of fundraising. Donors don't give because the your cause is Big and/or Important. In fact, they're less likely to give when you try to impress them with big numbers. They give because they see the opportunity to make a difference.
• Not showing donors they matter. Once donors give, you must show them how effective their giving was. They need to see that they made a good decision, and that the promise you made when you asked is fulfilled. The way to do that is send them a regular newsletter that's not full of bragging and news about your organization, but of stories of success and transformation clearly tied to your donors' generosity. Organizations that fail to do that suffer higher donor attrition than those that do.