Future Fundraising Now

Fundraising Is Beautiful 101: the basics of great fundraising [PODCAST]

Before you know anything else about fundraising, there are three basic assumptions you should know about it:

1. Fundraising is all about specificity. It’s the specific change you’re asking the donor to help make with their gift. Abstractions and generalities fail to move donors to action.
   
2. Fundraising is about building relationships. Don’t think of donors as ATMs that dispense money from time to time. Think of them as friends who do cool things with you. It’s a two-way relationship. Both sides give and both sides receive.
   
3. Fundraising transforms donors. When you know they amazing things that happen in their lives when they give to you, you’ll enjoy fundraising a lot more. And you’ll do a better job.
   

Working with these basic truths is the key to success.

From the archives of the now-defunct podcast Fundraising Is Beautiful. This episode first aired on February 4, 2015. Listen here:

(If you don't see the audio player below, click here to listen.)

How to tell a fundraising story when there's no story to tell [MacGyver Fundraising]

MacGyver Fundraising: A series about getting it done in the real world

MacGyver was an US action TV show in the 80s (with a more recent reboot) featuring a brilliant professional problem-solver who could get himself out of any jam with whatever random materials were at hand. He always solved the most difficult situations. Fundraisers are a lot like MacGyver, constantly succeeding even when they don't have the resources they need.

Everyone tells you: Effective fundraising has to tell story.

There's an entire conference called the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference!

But let's face it -- stories don't grow on trees.

There are a lot of reasons stories are so hard to find:

• Maybe you don't have access to them because your work happens far away.
  
• Maybe the people at the org who are close to the story simply don't have time to gather stories. It doesn't happen by itself!
  
• Maybe the people close to the stories consistently get you the wrong stories. Their talents and training are probably not in this area!
  
• Maybe the nature of your work makes privacy so important you simply can't share stories.
  

Join the club. Getting the right stories is no small thing. For some, it's nearly impossible.

Here are two powerful "McGyver" workarounds when you hit the story wall:

1. Use a word picture

A word picture is a quasi-story. Instead of specific people in a specific time and place doing specific actions, a word picture helps people see what things are like in a place or situation. If a story is a video, a word picture is a photograph. And you can do a lot with a photograph.

Here are the characteristics of a word picture:

• The set-up is different. You must make it clear that this isn’t a specific account. Use introductory phrases like “Imagine” ... “Here's what it's like” ... “If you were there, you’d see.”
  
• No plot. No "this happened, then this..." It's just the situation.
  
• Tell it in present tense. That helps to signal the ongoing nature of the scene. Past tense signals that you’re describing a specific event that happened in the past.
  
• It’s short. Seldom more than five or six sentences.
  
• It doesn't name names. When you give someone a name, you signal that this is a specific person.
  

Make sure that your word picture is true -- that the things you include really are things that are happening.

2. Flip the script

Sometimes the story to tell is about the donor. Not a donor -- but the donor you're addressing a the moment. The "you" of the story. This takes copywriting finesse, because donors give to make something outside of themselves happen. They just do it for interior reasons of their own.

A donor story is about:

• The donor's values.
  
• The donor's human characteristics. Not just what they do, but who they are.
  
• The opportunity to make a difference.
  
• The impact they can have.
  

It goes something like this (with a lot more details):

You are aware of a situation. You are the kind of person who understands and cares about this situation. The good news is, you can have a real impact and help make things so much better in this situation...

These alternatives to the standard story can work wonders, because they can do the same job a "real" story should do.

MacGyver Fundraising

5 rookie mistakes fundraisers sometimes make

1. Plural audience. When you sit down to write, you might be thinking about that mailing list of 35,000 people, and come up with a sentence like this: Some of you might be wondering how we're going to complete this project. Oops. Rookie mindset. The professional visualizes one person and writes to that one individual.
   
2. Plural writer. Just as you write to one person, you are also one person writing. The Rookie mindset gets muddled by the fact that several people are involved in the writing of the message, so they use an editorial we that depersonalizes the message: We know you might be wondering how we're going to complete this project.
   
3. Neglecting to show need. Donors act when they see a wrong they can right. Showing them the problem already solved blocks the motivation to give.
   
4. Whining. Yes, fundraising is hard work. Not enough people respond to your best work. It's okay to complain about that with your colleagues. Don't make whining part of your fundraising. It's incredibly unmotivating.
   
5. Doh! I forgot to ask! This is the mother of fundraising rookie mistakes, and it gets made by a lot of non-rookies too. When you want people to give, you've got to actually ask. As in, Please send a gift. Hinting at it doesn't do it. Ask more than once, and you shall receive.
   

(This post first appeared on May 24, 2017.)

4 steps to dealing with donor complaints

You are going to make mistakes.

Something that's going to upset one or more of your donors. Possibly a large number of them.

It's almost inevitable.

Being careful and vigilant helps a lot, but there is no fail-safe way to avoid mistakes.

Here's what to do when it happens, from the Bloomerang Blog, at How To Handle A Disgruntled Donor:

1. Apologize. As quickly as possible once you find out about it.
   
2. Take responsibility. Don't make excuses. Tell then how it happened, and what you're doing to make sure it won't happen again.
   
3. Be vulnerable. It helps them see you as human and often defuses anger.
   
4. Show your gratitude. Remind them that they are important to you.
   

Sometimes donors get upset about something you've done that isn't a mistake. They just disliked something you did or the way you did it.

Your job in those cases:

• Listen. This is the main thing they need. It's very common that a complainer who is listened to becomes a better donor than ever. Because they made a connection.
  
• Tell them the truth about why you did it the way you did. Be human about it: "I know it's surprising, but when we do it this way, more people donate. And that means we can help more abandoned pets!" Very few donors will argue with that.
  
• Don't promise to change your strategy -- unless you know your strategy was a failure. Don't give a few complainers the power to undermine your fundraising!
  

Mistakes are mortifying. So are complaints. But if you follow these approaches, you can turn these things toward good.

The 2 times your direct mail envelope should give it all away

Yesterday we looked at the power of "boring" envelopes in direct mail fundraising.

Boring is often the way to go. But here are two exceptions where you can beat boring almost every time:

Emergencies

When fundraising about an emergency that your donors already know about, a very literal and content-revealing teaser is usually the best approach.

Right now, a fundraising direct mail that's about relief for the Ukrainian people will likely do well with a teaser something like, Rush emergency supplies to displaced Ukrainians. Or even HELP UKRAINE!

When the story you're telling is known by everyone (or at least your target audience), your job is to enter the story they already know about and give them a chance to make a difference.

Leverage offers

When you have a match offer or one of those "every $1 ships $9 worth of stuff" offers, it's a good idea to trumpet the good deal on the envelope.

Or you can combine the power of mystery with the proclamation of the deal, something like this:

Why fundraisers love boring envelopes

When you create direct mail fundraising, the most important element is the carrier envelope. If it doesn't get opened, it really doesn't matter how brilliant everything inside might be. It's game over.

You should put a lot of creative energy into your envelopes.

But that might not mean what you think it means...

Because sometimes the most successful envelopes don't look all that "creative." The best envelopes are often quite boring and give very little information.

Example from the mailbox:

I can picture someone critiquing this envelope as gibberish. Fair enough. It really doesn't communicate anything -- it's not even clear whether it's meant to be the POSTMASTER who's saying this or someone is saying it to the POSTMASTER. What is an "FST Processing No."? Why is this here?

The answer to logical questions like that are not important.

This envelope is about curiosity.

I don't know if it has been successful, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has been.

Curiosity is one of the best ways to improve direct mail response rates.

A strange envelope like this that tells people nothing about its contents almost always does better than one that gives it all away, like a newspaper headline:

You have an amazing opportunity to rescue abandoned puppies!

That would be logical, but usually would not work very well. Because there is no mystery. The only people likely to open that are those who as they look at their mail are already thinking something like "I wonder what I could do right now to rescue abandoned puppies?"

That's not a lot of people, even when you're writing to people who really care for puppies.

This is why envelopes with no content on them at all do better than those with teasers most of the time.

Envelopes that don't signal their contents should be a go-to approach.

Don't feel bad about being "uncreative" or "illogical." Those things aren't the job for direct mail envelopes. Getting people to open them so they get the chance to interact with all that material inside you worked so hard to create.

There are some significant exceptions to this principle. We'll look at some of them tomorrow.

Sign the enclosed placenta: The weird power of errors in fundraising

Don't you hate making errors? They make you look and feel stupid.

But errors are funny things. It's impossible to predict what damage they'll do. Surprisingly often, they hurt your pride a lot more than they hurt anything else.

Since I know you like to gloat about other people's errors (well, I like to gloat, so I think you might also), here are some examples of painful errors I've been part of through the years:

• Two embarrassing typos: We meant to say, "Sign and return the enclosed placemat." What we got was, "Sign and return the enclosed placenta." Second: a "Fill the Pantry" campaign somehow became "Fill the Panty" (I've heard from quite a few people who have suffered this exact error!)
  
  Result: No discernible difference in response from normal. A couple of donors sent back the errors (with their donation) pointing out the typos.
  
• The unreadable newsletter: We produced a multi-page newsletter, and the printer failed to trim the paper correctly before mailing it. The tops of some of the pages were connected so the only way to read the inner pages was to tear them apart.
  
  Result: The newsletter performed quite a bit better than projections.
  
• Mixed up letter: To lower costs, we produced two direct mail pieces for two different clients using the same specifications. The printer got confused so that Client A's letter had Client B's page 2. And vice versa. Meaning everyone got letters that dramatically changed topic mid-sentence.
  
  Result: The initial appeal for both clients performed as we'd originally projected. And a handful of donors called or wrote to complain about the error. Response to the apology letter was strong, better than the initial appeal. Meaning we more than doubled revenue to the project because of the error. (It was the printer's fault so the apology letter was at no cost to us.)
  

So errors don't necessarily damage you.

But I don't want to give the impression that you can be cavalier and sloppy and just let the errors happen.

There's a class of error that really does materially hurt. That's when something happens that makes it difficult or confusing for donors to respond. Like inserting the wrong return envelope. Or a dead link to the landing page. Or an incorrect phone number.

Those errors will get you, big time.

Takeaways:

• Not all errors are the end of the world.
  
• Some, though, kind of are.
  
• It's worthwhile to apologize for errors.
  
• Some errors are hilarious, even though they're upsetting.
  

(This post first appeared on May 11, 2017.)

9 important fundraising advantages of direct mail

Direct mail is dead?

Not even close. If you're raising funds, you should consider direct mail, because it is a potent force for connecting with donors.

Here are some of the advantages of direct mail, from the GivingMail blog, at What Makes Direct Mail So Efficient?:

1. Direct mail has higher response rates. It's somewhere around 10 times the response rate of email.
   
2. Direct mail lifts other channels. Because it's good at getting attention, it drives other types of giving. In fact, it is in many cases the top driver of online giving.
   
3. Direct mail is measurable.
   
4. Direct mail allows for testing. If you have large enough mail quantities (See Smart testing for nonmathematical fundraisers) you can learn a lot about what works and doesn't work for your donors.
   
5. Direct mail is personal. You really can't beat the tactile humanity of paper. It really feels like something coming from someone.
   
6. Direct mail is memorable. Studies find that brand recall is 70% higher when customers are exposed to direct mail compared to digital.
   
7. Direct mail faces less competition. There's more email in inboxes all the time. And less mail in the mailbox. US postal mail peaked in 2006 at 213 billion pieces. In 2020, it was down to 129 billion.
   
8. Direct mail gets read. Most email is deleted without a second thought. Mail is far more likely to be read.
   
9. Donors like direct mail. According to the US Postal Service, 55% of people said they “look forward” to seeing what’s in their mailbox.
   

Top 5 blog posts of the month

Here are the 5 most-read Future Fundraising Now blog posts from the (strangely long) month of February:

1. Your 6-word guide to powerful donor newsletters [PODCAST]
   
2. What Wordle can teach us about fundraising
   
3. When a great offer meets weak copy
   
4. 5 fundraising trends to watch right now
   
5. Repetitious fundraising -- boring for you, necessary for success
   

Fundraising in a time of war: what should you do?

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine dominates the headlines, you might be wondering how it will affect your fundraising -- especially if you have nothing to do with the conflict or its impacts.

If you are in the large majority of organizations that have no connection to the war, here's what you should not do: Don't decide for donors that they don't care about your cause, and thus cancel fundraising.

It's a self-fulfilling prediction. Stop fundraising and donors stop responding. It might look prescient -- until someone asks the obvious question: "Did they stop giving because we stopped asking?"

Major events like wars and other disasters often suppress unrelated fundraising. They grab donors' attention and push other causes to the back burner. Response rates to fundraising unrelated to the disaster go down. They don't go down to zero, but they drop.

The slow-down in giving is usually not huge, and it doesn't last long.

In fact, if you do direct mail this time of year, you may have already mailed the piece that will be hit hardest by that loss of attention.

Your war-distracted donors will be back. Yes, there's a war going on, but everything else in their lives is also happening.

When things are uncertain, we all have to keep our eyes wide open.

In all my years in fundraising, I have never seen pre-emptive cancelling of fundraising turn out well. It only accomplishes two things: Cancelling fundraising wipes out revenue, and it speeds up donor attrition.