Future Fundraising Now

The 2 (only 2!) things your donors need to know about you

Adapted from How to Turn Your Words into Money: The Master Fundraiser's Guide to Persuasive Writing.

Remember the song about the lady who swallowed a fly — then a spider, then some other creatures until she died from ingesting a horse? (If you don’t believe me about this, see the video below.)

Suppose you worked for a group dedicated to preventing accidents like hers. It might be called the Hippophagy Foundation.

What would your fundraising message be?

Some organizations would describe the problem as it is in the song:

Will you do your part to help prevent the often fatal tragedy of fly, spider, bird, cat, dog, goat, cow, and horse ingestion?

Getting donors to respond to this message would be an uphill struggle. The complexity of the problem is mind-boggling. The solution is not exactly obvious.

A better approach would be to talk about the most dramatic part of the problem ... in this case, the fatal horse:

In the next few days, someone—perhaps someone you know—will have a serious accident and end up swallowing a living horse. You can imagine the trauma and pain as the horse kicks and thrashes on its way down.

She’ll die, of course. ... Unless you help rush the emergency care she needs.

That’s fundraising: asking the donor to help do something she understands.

Some people, experts in hippophagy, might believe the horse-only description is incomplete.

“To give donors the full picture,” they’d say, “we should describe all the steps of the tragedy, not just the horse.”

But that’s not fundraising. That’s med school.

Your donors don’t need training to be good donors. They need to know only two things:

1. There’s a problem.
   
2. They can be part of the solution.
   

If your message obscures that simple equation with a lot of details, you lose donors. You lose their attention. That’s why simplicity gets the job done.

How to Turn Your Words into Money is back in print and available for order from the publisher and other places you can order books.

Here’s Burl Ives singing the old (scary) version of “I Know an Old Lady.” Enjoy. Maybe don’t share with young children. This song may be one of the reasons people of my generation are so messed up.

11 reasons your organization struggles to innovate

1. The only time you make an effort to seek new ideas is when you’re facing some kind of problem.
   
2. You decide whether an idea is good or not based who proposed it.
   
3. You think every idea is incomplete or bad until it has your input.
   
4. You ridicule new ideas when you think they’re bad.
   
5. Brainstorming is mainly about weeding out bad ideas, not generating lots of ideas.
   
6. You insist that all new ideas be proven.
   
7. You only want really big ideas. You pooh-pooh small improvements.
   
8. You don’t have a system for generating, collecting, fostering, or reviewing ideas.
   
9. Your only source of ideas is what others are doing.
   
10. Only outside consultants ever give you new ideas.
    
11. You never implement new ideas.
    

You might have noticed that these are largely aimed at bosses and leaders. That’s because they are typically the source of lack of innovation. But everyone can play a part in killing or fostering new ideas.

New invention could save your fundraising from your boss

I'm working on an invention that will dramatically improve fundraising. It's called the Better Feedback Translator.

Here's what it does: When your boss or a board member makes certain comments about your fundraising, the Better Feedback Translator changes what you hear into what they would have said if they understood fundraising.

That way, you don't end up making costly and damaging changes to your fundraising messages. Think of the increased revenue!

Here are some of the phrases the Better Feedback Translator will change for you:

WHEN THEY SAY	YOU'LL HEAR
That's incredibly corny.	That's great! It's really going to work!
Not sophisticated enough.	You nailed the tone.
This doesn't sound like me.	This sounds so human. Nice job!
We said the same thing in the last three messages. Boring!	Good job not confusing our donors!
Repetitive!	Good clarity!
This letter is too long. Nobody will read it!	Thanks for paying attention to what really works, even though it seems counterintuitive.
I'd never respond to this.	Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Violates our brand guidelines.	Relevant to donors!
I hate it!	We have a winner on our hands.
I love it!	Uh-oh. Back to the drawing board.

This project is under development. If you'd like to back it, please send me money.

(This post first appeared on August 11, 2015.)

They won't know it when they see it

As a fundraiser, you may have been told by someone who has authority over your work to try again; it's not right: I'll know it when I see it.

Maybe you've even said it.

You need to know: someone who thinks they'll know what they're looking for when they see it won't. Neither will you. Creativity and innovation don't work that way.

I'll know it when I see it is a cop-out -- a way to kick the can down the road -- used when someone isn't able to give specific or useful direction.

But more than that, it's an illusion created by the fact that we see finished, proven projects all the time; we know what they look like -- so we think we know good when we see it, right?

Wrong. All you know is what other work looks like. That's the wrong yardstick for as-to-be-created work.

The best you can do to improve something new is apply the wisdom, principles, and experience you have -- brought together by your own creative spark.

The one thing I can guarantee you about your next big success -- it won't look just like something you've seen before.

Here are the ingredients for the real successes -- the ones you haven't seen before, the ones that break through:

• High expectations.
  
• Crystal-clear goals.
  
• Lots of experience.
  
• Passion and commitment.
  
• Willingness to take risks.
  
• Top-notch skills.
  
• A little bit of magic.
  

These things aren't foolproof. Anything, no matter how brilliant, can fail. But if you go deeper than I'll know it when I see it, you'll have access to real innovation and spectacular successes.

5 fundraising temptations that will cost you big

A lot of what it takes to effectively raise funds seems strange. Or like more work than necessary. Here are some common temptations that trip up fundraisers, from the Hands-On Fundraising Blog, at Get behind me, Satan!

1. Keep it short to save money. It's completely counterintuitive, but longer fundraising messages work better than shorter ones. This is true in email, and even more overwhelmingly true in direct mail. Don't write one-page letters! It's a bad move that will cost you revenue!
   
2. The kitchen sink. You can fit a lot of things into an envelope (especially if you're using Nonprofit Bulk Rate, which allows 3.3 ounces). But you can only effectively fit one action per envelope. As long as you're going to the trouble to mail something, you might think you can include the newsletter, a flyer about the upcoming gala, and more. That will smash response. If you intend to raise funds, only include things that are about raising funds.
   
3. Your almighty brand standards. Many nonprofit guidelines ban effective fundraising. Not on purpose, but they do so mainly with design guidelines that favor modern, faddish fonts, colors, and approaches. Fundraising has its own set of needs, and they are quite different from what many designers think things should look like. Don't subject fundraising to those limitations.
   
4. Happy talk! Fundraising is about action that makes change; usually solving a problem. That means you need to show donors a problem. You need to let them know the truth, and that means telling them bad news. When asking is basically "we do great work, you can be part of it," you'll raise a lot less money. There is a time for good news, and that's when you thank donors and report back on the impact of their giving.
   
5. Skip the appeal. Direct mail is an intimidating amount of work. And the best time to do it is when you're most busy already. But canceling an appeal creates an unrecoverable loss -- not only of the net revenue you don't get, but in accelerated donor attrition the happens when you don't hold up your end of the relationship.
   

An easy way to raise more money: give your donors choices

Why do reply devices almost always have choices like this?

It's because giving donors choices is good, as noted on the Passionate Giving blog, at Provide Options in Your Ask:

... a good salesperson will often provide two or three options, including the one she is really wanting the customer to buy. It can sound like this: "Mrs. Jones, as we have talked over the last few weeks about what would really work for you in this situation, I have come to believe that Item B (the preferred option) might be the best choice for you. However, you also might be interested in Item A (2nd option which may be a higher price point) or Item C (3rd option with a lower price point than the preferred option)."

Direct mail aimed at general donors typically gives three choices for giving amounts (plus a fourth that's a choose-your-own). I've seen some testing lately that indicates more choices brings in higher response.

So don't limit yourself to three! Five, seven, even ten can raise more for you!

But remember that offering a choice of donation amounts is usually the best thing to do!

(This post first appeared on January 29, 2018.)

11 amazing fundraising truths discovered by new writers [PODCAST]

We asked two new (and very successful) fundraising writers who have been doing some very great work what they know about fundraising that’s making them succeed.

Here’s what they told us:

1. Write as one person connecting with one person.
   
2. Avoid the word “we” — unless it very clearly means you the reader and I the writer.
   
3. Start your first draft with this phrase: I’m writing to you today because ...
   
4. Use the word you a lot.
   
5. Articulate the fundraising offer early and often.
   
6. Tell a story of need, not success.
   
7. Ask clearly for money. (Don’t hint around!)
   
8. Write at a 6th grade reading level.
   
9. Include a P.S. and restate whatever is the most important thing in your message.
   
10. Have a deadline, and mention it often.
    
11. Keep the organization out of the way — make it about what the donor can do.
    

If you’re new to the work, or feel intimidated by it, this list can push you way up your learning curve, and fast!

From the archives of the now-defunct podcast Fundraising Is Beautiful. This episode first aired on May 2, 2018. Listen here:

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

Your donor welcome series might be unwelcoming

With the retention of first-time donors hovering around 20%, we clearly have a problem keeping donors: 80% of those we manage to motivate to give once -- never give again.

If you can improve your first-time donor retention rate, you can transform your long term viability. You can go from running in a hamster wheel to zooming along an open highway.

One of the ways many people think of to improve first-time donor retention is to welcome new donors in a special way, often in the form a "Welcome Pack" that gives them a wealth of information about your organization, with the goal that it tightens the relationship and improves the chances of subsequent giving. They typically contain things like:

• A booklet the extols the organization's many exciting programs: "You donated to support A -- you'll be thrilled to know about B through Z.
  
• A map showing where things are happening.
  
• Lots and lots of great photos.
  
• Branded swag.
  
• Information on how to follow on social media and otherwise get involved.
  

The budget's the limit.

I've been involved in creating several of these.

They don't work.

"Work" defined as "measurably improve first-time donor retention."

The things that do increase that important number:

• A thank-you phone call.
  
• Prompt and relevant postal thank-you message.
  
• Report-back vehicles (like newsletters) that share stories of the donation put to work.
  

And something that might surprise you:

• A fundraising piece with the same offer and similar messaging to the one that brought them on board in the first place.
  

That's right: Send them another appeal just like the first one. That really does the job. It may not feel satisfying, but it works.

Here's a test done by NextAfter that shows the numbers of this idea: How an offer-focused welcome series impacts donor conversion rate.

It's a different situation than connecting with first-time donors, but similar: They had collected emails by offering a downloadable PDF, and wanted to convert those prospects into donors. They tested a welcome series that "told the story" of the organization, against one that was focused content offers like the one they had downloaded.

The test found that an offer-focused welcome series improved the donor conversion rate by +920%.

A principle that's at work here is this: While repeated giving may lead people to more "engagement" -- the reverse has not been shown to be true. You cannot "educate" people into giving (or giving again) -- even when you do a great job of educating.

Donors donate. Our job is to let them do so.

What happens to donors when you leave them alone

We're in that time of the year when most of us do a lot of fundraising. And that's smart, because it's the time of year when donors are likely to donate.

Then January rolls around.

Many organizations think that means it's time to shut the heck up! To give your donors a "rest" from all that communication.

So they go incommunicado for a month. Or two. Or three. Or more.

You might feel you're doing a service by not bugging them.

What you're really doing is telling them nothing is happening and they aren't needed. Your silence isn't appreciated. It isn't even noticed. You and the good work you do just fade off their radar.

As The Better Fundraising Blog, says, Never Go Dark on your valued donors.

It's a quick path to worse donor attrition.

Like a good friend, when you show up in your donors’ lives, talk about your donors and not about your organization. Show up and tell donors what’s happening with the ... cause that they care about. Show up and “report back” to donors the amazing things their gift has made possible through your organization.

Testing by many organizations makes it clear: Going dark on donors does one thing: it increases donor attrition.

You don't get brownie points for not communicating. No more than you do in your real human relationships.

2 beautiful truths that will make you an amazing fundraiser

Does asking for a gift hurt donors?

To hear some fundraisers and consultants talk, you might think it does. In fact, some folks in our industry seem to equate a direct mail fundraising appeal with a slap in the face by a very ripe kipper: rude, painful, odoriferous, and just plain uncalled-for.

This is a faulty and insidious assumption.

Worse yet, it's self-fulfilling. Because if you believe fundraising hurts donors, I can almost guarantee you're doing fundraising in a sloppy, disrespectful way.

The belief that donors just barely tolerate your communications and give in spite of them is wildly inaccurate. Think about it -- your communications with donors are (for most of them) their entire experience of your organization. To say they love you but hate your communications would be like saying they love Netflix, but hate watching movies and TV online.

A more realistic approach is to believe in a couple of beautiful truths:

1. Communicating with donors is good.
   
2. Donors love to hear from you.
   

You'll have a much more satisfying life if you believe these things rather than the pessimistic, self-destructive assumption that fundraising is bad, but we have to do it anyway.

Every touch you send to donors can and should be a positive, relationship-building experience -- even when it doesn't generate a gift.

Of course you don't want to send irrelevant, money-wasting mail to people who aren't interested and unlikely to give. That's what smart segmentation is about. But in your heart, you need to believe that asking is good. Otherwise, you are on a path to anti-donor communications and fundraising failure. And one heck of a miserable career in fundraising.

If you struggle with that dark sense that asking is shameful, wrong, or hurts donors, here's a little catechism that can improve things for you:

• Donors donate.
  
• Donors love to donate.
  
• Giving feels good.
  
• Giving is good.
  
• Creating opportunities for giving is a great service to humanity.
  

Repeat this daily. When you feel these truths in your heart, you are a fundraiser.

(This post first appeared on January 25, 2018.)