Future Fundraising Now

How to fail at going viral (and everything else)

Have you ever tried to create a "viral video"? Did it go like this?

See Marketoonist:

Sometimes our marketing instincts get in the way of what's most likely to be shared. When putting together a creative brief, marketers often take a tick box or laundry list approach. We throw in everything including the kitchen sink. We're then surprised when it doesn't land with our audience.

Everyone wants to create the next Ice Bucket Challenge.

Almost everyone is doing it exactly the wrong way.

When you try to say all the things you want to say, the chance of capturing people's imaginations drops to near zero.

Your message won't go viral that way. You won't even do well at normal fundraising.

The secret to motivating people to act (donate) is to make it about them, not you.

Successful fundraising is easier than you think

Here's everything you need to know to get great fundraising results, from Stephen George's Blog, at 10 saviours of the fundraising sector:

1. Put the donor first
2. Put the donor first
3. Put the donor first
4. Put the donor first
5. Put the donor first
6. Put the donor first
7. Put the donor first
8. Put the donor first
9. Put the donor first
10. Lead everyone and everything so they put the donor first

Your donors are trashing your emails; here's what you can do

Email is the mean streets of fundraising. Your messages are born cheap, live hard, and die fast.

Here are some things you can do to improve your emails' chances, from the Constant Contact blog, at 7 Design Mistakes That Make Readers Trash Your Emails:

1. Forgetting to say hello
2. Hard-to-read fonts (too small, not enough contrast, too many different fonts)
3. Color catastrophes (too bright, too many)
4. Muddled information (make it clear what's important)
5. Awful images (clip art: just say no)
6. No base to stand on (make sure you include all your contact information)
7. Too frequent makeovers

The main thing you can do to save your emails from quick death: Be relevant. Make them about donors, not your awesome organization.

5 ways to win your donors' hearts with super headlines

Headlines are the most important things you write. That includes email subject lines and direct mail teasers. If your headlines are strong, more donors will pay attention to everything else you do.

That's why you'll want to pay attention to this post at MarketingExperiments Blog: See immediate lifts by applying these 5 principles to your headlines. Remember these things about headlines:

1. Effective headlines focus first on what the customer gets
2. Effective headlines align with the customer's current motivation
3. Effective headlines make the strongest point first
4. Effective headlines are clear, not clever
5. Give your headlines weight (make them big enough to be visible)

Really, you should spend about as much time working on great headlines as you do on all the other copy you write. It's that important.

Are you ready for the best year-end fundraising of your life?

Here's more help for upping your year-end fundraising game, from Philantopic, at 7 Ways to Make Your Year-End Fundraising Really Count:

1. Do you have a written plan so you know what success will look like?
2. Does your plan include multi-channel promotion?
3. Does your plan include repetition?
4. Are your fundraising and marketing staffs working as a team?
5. Have you made it easy to give to you?
6. Are your appeals and donation pages mobile friendly?
7. Have you enlisted ambassadors to help, peer to peer?

There's still time (barely) to plan and execute your best year-end campaign ever!

Fundraising is a "choose your own adventure" story

Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? They are kid-fiction adventures told in the second person so it has an immediate feel to the reader

Every few pages, you come to a choice. It goes something like this:

• If you decide to explore the dark, ill-smelling cave, turn to page 52.
• If you decide to run away as fast as you can, turn to page 65.

Then you choose. Your choice leads to a different outcomes of the story. That's what makes them cool.

Fundraising should be a lot like that.

But way better, because it's real.

A fundraising message goes something like this:

Something is wrong in the world. It's wrong in a way that breaks your heart. It's very clearly wrong, and it urgently needs to be fixed, and the way to fix it is to send a donation.

• If you decide to send a donation, turn to page 52.
• If you decide not to send a donation, turn to page 65.

What happens if they give and turn to page 52? They get a warm glow as their brain confirms to them that helping others is the right thing to do. They quickly get a thank you message that specifically tells them what their money is on its way to do. Not much later, they get some indication that their gift really did make a difference!

What happens if they don't give and turn to page 65? Pretty much nothing. Story over. Of course, every donor always has the right to say no and to end the story right there.

But giving is about action, change, progress, and relationship.

Does your fundraising create clear choices like Choose Your Own Adventure books?

Don't waste your lunch break -- 18 ways to get the best from your time

Are you getting the most out of lunch? If you always work through lunch, you're doing it wrong.

A recent post at thr Hubspot Marketing blog gives 14 Things You Could Be Doing During Your Lunch Break:

1. Work on a side project.
2. Organize a "Lunch and Learn." (gather with co-workers to teach each other interesting new things)
3. Find the most interesting person in your company and invite him or her to eat lunch with you.
4. Get the heck outside.
5. Establish a Finer Things Club.
6. Establish a club that mercilessly mocks the Finer Things Club.
7. Learn a new language.
8. Figure out how a new company might try to steal your company's business.
9. Find a new job.
10. Two words: Office. Fort. (Imagine how much cooler your cubicle could be.)
11. Three more words: Helicopter. Obstacle. Course.
12. Meditate.
13. Call your parents, grandparents, or other loved ones you haven't talked to in a while.
14. Challenge your neighboring office to a contest.

Here are a few more lunch-time winners I like:

• Get a couple of your smartest co-workers, start happy hour early, and talk about ways you could do everything better.
• Go farther away for lunch than you really should.
• Eat quickly at your desk, then take a long walk.
• Hide somewhere and read.

Win the year-end fundraising game

We're in it: The last quarter of the year. For most of us, this is when the real fundraising action happens. Have a good last quarter, and you have a good year.

Here are some tips on making your year-end fundraising strong, from npEngage: The 5 Rules for Supercharged Year-End Fundraising...

1. Make Sure Your Message is Consistent
2. Be Mission-Focused, Not Gimmicky
3. Make Multichannel Asks
4. Cultivate Year Round in Each of those Channels
5. Run Year-End Giving Like a Campaign

The end of the year comes just once a year! Good luck!

12 cool ways to make sure your donors know you love them

How often have you seen a nonprofit thanking its donors by strutting about like a body-builder at the beach, basically saying, Look how awesome I am! rather than, You're awesome! Thank you!

That's why I love this list from Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog: 12 Phrases that Give Your Donors Credit for Helping.

Because that's what fundraising is about: Giving donors the credit.

Check these out:

1. You did it! Today we reached our $1.7 million goal for water projects in Rwanda. We couldn't have done it without you. (charity: water)
2. We can do so much more because of you. Every gift matters, especially yours, as we work every day to ensure a brighter future for our community. Thank you. Together, we're able to do so much more. (YMCA of Greater Charlotte)
3. We're inspired each day by this amazing community of wildlife supporters. Enjoy this look back at major accomplishments this past year – we couldn't do it without you. (National Wildlife Federation)
4. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to helping animals in crisis — we couldn't have done it without you! (ASPCA)
5. Wow! You made 2014 an incredible year for human rights. As a little thank you, here are 24 of your biggest moments ... (Amnesty International)
6. Thank you to everyone who made an investment in the future of the Appalachian Trail. (Appalachian Trail Conservancy)
7. 4,760: the number of meals we served over Easter weekend. Thank you to every donor, volunteer, and prayer warrior who played a part in making this happen. (Nashville Rescue Mission)
8. You've taken a stand for millions of suffering animals. To them, and to us, you are a hero. (Humane Society of the United States)
9. We hope you know that YOU are our hero! The effort you put into reaching children is amazing! (Kids Hope USA)
10. Thanks to you and other steadfast wildlife lovers, we have some important victories to celebrate from the past year. (Defenders of Wildlife)
11. Our work would not be possible without your help. Because of you ... (fill in accomplishment). Thanks to you ... (fill in accomplishment). With your support ... (fill in accomplishment). (The Nature Conservancy)
12. We are here FOR YOU and BECAUSE of YOU. THANK YOU for making our work possible. (Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation)

See? You can thank donors like this! And that's how you'll keep and upgrade donors for the long-haul.

Podcast: The Evil Cousin of Fundraising

Listen to an excerpt from the new book, How to Turn Your Words into Money: The Master Fundraiser's Guide to Persuasive Writing by Jeff Brooks, reading the chapter titled "The Evil Cousin of Fundraising."

Learn about the all-too-common practice of fundcrushing -- using large numbers and overwhelming facts as the means for coaxing donors into giving. The truth is, it rarely works.

Find out what to do instead of fundcrushing that will motivate donors to give. (It's not that difficult!)

How to Turn Your Words into Money: The Master Fundraiser's Guide to Persuasive Writing, is available at:

• Amazon
• The publisher (best bet if you're ordering in bulk)

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: