Future Fundraising Now

4 rules for effective fundraising writing

Writing for fundraising isn't rocket science.

Do a few things right, and you're most of the way to great success.

Here are four quick and easy rules from the Heroic Fundraising blog, at Under the Hood: The Mechanics of Fundraising Copy:

1. Make it easy to consume. Readability is more important than aesthetics.
2. Write like you speak.
3. Make it clear what you want her to do, early and often.
4. Make your donor the hero of your appeal premise.

And here's a secret: If you really nail #3 (and it's something your donors are interested in doing), you are 80% of the way to greatness.

Why fundraisers need to forget most of what they learned in writing class

Have you heard of the Copy Optimizer? It's a program that looks at fundraising copy for things the correlate with successful fundraising. It does this at a very granular level.

It's described here at The Agitator: The World's Greatest Fundraising Letter, Made Better. They took a famous direct mail fundraising appeal that was a long-time control for Covenant House -- to see what it did well, and what it could have done better.

The thing that amazed me about the exercise was how poorly the Copy Optimizer would do in a standard college writing course. So many of the things it looks for are exactly things your English prof insisted that you do! (I know, because I used to teach those courses.)

Here are just a few things the Copy Optimizer approves of in fundraising. They would make your English teacher grab a red pen:

• Has fewer nouns. Your English teacher said, "Write with nouns and verbs."
• Has fewer big words. Your English teacher may not have exactly told you to choose big words, but she probably did encourage high-toned discourse. Which encourages you to choose big words a lot.
• Uses many amplifiers (like highly, very, totally). Your English teacher told you to get rid of those amplifiers. All of them!
• Uses "because" clauses. Your English teacher probably would have frowned on your paper if it used more than one or two of these.
• Uses plenty of contractions. Your English teacher quite likely advised you to stay away from contractions. (That's not a rule, but a common convention in academic writing.)
• Uses private verbs (like hoped, felt, thought, wanted). Your English teacher probably crossed these out in most genres of writing

The point is this: A lot of what you learned in writing courses in school can make you a terrible fundraising writer.

That's not saying your English teacher was giving you bad information. Just that what you learned in school was writing for a particular purpose -- academic writing -- and you can't bring those rules into fundraising.

Most of us learned how to write from teachers. If you want to write great fundraising, you need to move on from what they taught you.

Why being direct makes your fundraising work

Hi! How are you? What's up with this weather lately?

That's how a lot of normal conversations start. We do that because it's easy to talk about inconsequential things while we establish connection and gage the mood before we get to our real topics.

Effective direct mail or email fundraising isn't like this. It doesn't dally around, but gets suddenly to the topic at hand -- which is your money is needed. It tells donors exactly what it wants them to do.

This might make you uncomfortable, because it's unlike conversation. Maybe it feels bossy and aggressive. Or like you're treating donors as simpletons.

Get used to it. In fundraising, that greasing-the-skids stuff can cost you.

Direct mail, email, and other ways we reach people directly but not personally are interruptions. We don't have time to circle around for a while before getting to the point. A direct-mail envelope is in a recipient's hand for a few seconds before it's either kept or trashed. An email is under consideration for even less time.

If you make it past that stage, you still have just seconds to make your point.

So get to the point. Tell them why you're showing up unannounced in their mailbox or inbox.

Ask immediately. Then tell a story and ask again. Compliment your donor's vision and wonderfulness. Then ask again. Don't do anything that's not connected to your ask.

That's how powerful fundraising works.

(This post first appeared on February 10, 2016.)

How the curse of knowledge works and how to beat it

I was playing a game of "20 Questions." With a group of musicians. We were using composers.

What makes the game interesting is to make the subject not too easy, but not too hard. That is, don't choose Beethoven or Mozart; too easy. But don't choose someone nobody has ever heard of; that makes it too difficult, and not as much fun.

I had a composer in mind: Domenico Dragonetti. I was a little nervous it might be too easy.

It wasn't. It was way too hard. By the time they'd asked 20 questions, they weren't even close. I even gave a few hints, but they didn't get it.

What did I do wrong?

I had the curse of knowledge, and I didn't even know it.

So here's the background. Dragonetti (1763-1846), was a composer and famous bass player. He's known chiefly (well, only) for a number of solos he composed for the bass.

If you play the bass, of course you know about Domenico Dragonetti. He's a major player in the admittedly small world of bass repertoire.

You know where I'm going with this. I'm a bass player. Dragonetti is a presence in my life. Obvious. Top-of-mind.

But not so for everyone else in the world. Including virtually all educated, experienced classical musicians.

In my head, it was impossible not to know about Dragonetti.

In the entire rest of the world's heads -- nope.

The curse of knowledge is a problem. It messed with that game of 20 Questions. It will kill your fundraising.

And it's hard to know when you have it.

So double-check yourself. Ask non-insiders if they know what you're talking about.

(Or outsource fundraising writing to someone who's an expert at fundraising, but not at the inner workings your cause.)

The main thing: Be aware of the curse of knowledge. It's waiting to squish your fundraising at any time!

How to create great Holiday Season fundraising -- even during the summer

You probably are -- or will be soon -- working on your Holiday Season fundraising.

It's a kind of weird: It's the dog days of summer. You're either just back from or about to leave for your vacation. You're outdoors a lot, drinking cold drinks, focusing on relaxation and enjoying yourself.

It's about as un-Christmasy a time as there can be.

The Holidays are more than anything else a set of feelings. A mood. An experience of the heart. It's hard to re-create that when your surroundings don't support it.

Here's a tip: While you prepare for and work on Holiday Season campaigns, listen to Christmas music. The most soupy, nostalgic, and emotional stuff you can find.

If you're in North America, there's a good chance that's Bing Crosby's Merry Christmas. Those familiar tunes, that super-smooth voice -- it'll have you in the mood in minutes.

Music has the power to transport us. Take advantage of that, and don't let the fact that you're working in the wrong season cause you to miss the emotional heart of your Holiday fundraising.

Go for it:

• The Bing Crosby album on YouTube
• A Pandora "traditional" Christmas station

(This post first appeared on August 6, 2014.)

The most difficult word in fundraising

When you use the "search and replace" feature in Word, it goes like this:

After you type in the search term and the replace term and hit the "replace all" button, it works for a second or two, then shows you this:

Every time I see this, a small red flag goes up in my head. (Okay, a very small red flag.)

That "we" nettles me for two reasons:

1. I'm a writer, so I think about words quite a lot more than normal people do.
2. I don't know who the heck the "we" is that's talking to me!

Since I'm the one who just did the search and replace operation, it should give me the credit and say, "You made 4 replacements."

But we?

My theory: the person (or committee) who wrote that little dialog was thinking of the large team of folks at Microsoft who work on "Word." It's a large group of smart, important, very busy people. Their magnum opus is the current version of "Word," and by gum, they deserve some credit!

So this group that's not visible to me, that I don't care about (if I think about them at all), walks into my life and introduces itself for no reason that matters to me. They do it because from their point of view, they are an important group that plays an important part in my documents.

I'm sorry, but the document is mine. These people -- excellent people, I'm sure -- have merely created a tool that I use.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

We is a difficult word. Especially in fundraising.

Fundraisers often use that same "we" when communicating with their donors. The "we" is a group of people who aren't visible to donors.

The good deed being contemplated is the donor's good deed.

The organization is the donor's tool for making the good deed happen.

It's the same way "Word" is a tool for making my document happen. There are other tools available; the "Word" people should just be thankful that I'm still paying them for the tool they make.

Same with fundraisers.

Don't introduce an irrelevant and unimportant "we" into your discussion with donors. Put a good deed in front of the donor. Ask her to do that good deed. When she does it, give her credit for doing it.

The fact that she needs your organization to accomplish that good deed is beside the point. You are still just a tool. (And chances are, there are other tools available to her.)

Be the best possible tool. Be proud that you are the best possible tool. Reward and recognize team members who make it happen.

But don't intrude on the donor's work.

Will an errant "royal we" sneaking into your fundraising now and then kill response? Probably not.

I think the real threat to your fundraising is your own psychology about who's important in the relationship. If you're pushing that "we" at the donor, chances are the entire way you think about fundraising is off kilter. It's essentially saying, "Give us some money so we can do something great with it.

Real fundraising says, "Do something great by giving."

"We" butt out of the conversation.

As it should in my search and replace dialog.

5 ways to tell better stories for fundraising

Fundraising depends on stories. Not just any old story, but one that connects with the reader and impels them to action.

Here are some common errors fundraising writers make that let make their stories ineffective, from the Stelter Insights Blog, at 5 storytelling mistakes (and how to avoid them):

1. No real barriers. A story is about change. If your story doesn't have a problem or a challenge, or something broken that needs to be fixed, it's not really a story.
2. Lack of details. Details, especially those that connect to the senses, make stories much more immediate and real.
3. Too many details. But leave out things that don't carry the story forward and make it feel real.
4. No real hook. What makes the story memorable? Find that thing that's startling, unusual, or amazing.
5. No person. Your story is not going anywhere if it's not about a person. One person.

And remember this: No matter what story you tell, the real story must be about the donor.

Leave the donor with the ability to enter the story by donating, and changing its ending to a happy one.

How the pandemic is making your writing worse

Is social distancing making your writing weaker?

It might be, as observed in this post at Marketing Profs: Social Distancing Is Changing the Way We Write. That's a Problem.

The author oversees the work of copywriters for a marketing firm. He noticed that his writers' work over the last few months became increasingly less "personal" -- especially in pronoun use: third person pronouns (he, she, it, they) started to predominate over second person (you).

His observation on that:

The writers (like the rest of us) are living in a state of isolation, and we're bombarded with messages about the importance of maintaining that separation. Our thoughts, our behaviors, even our fashion choices are governed by the need for distance. Over time, that need is finding its way into our writing.

It might be happening to you, and it's insidious because its not conscious.

As you know, effective fundraising is highly personal. And it uses the word you a lot.

What should you do?

• Be aware. That's half the battle.
• Count pronouns. You may find a shortage of you in it.
• Read it out loud. If your writing has become formal and official sounding, it will be more evident if you read it out loud.

Writing is mostly about effective revising. It's okay to have a lousy first draft with no personality in it -- as long as you fix it in subsequent drafts.

Bad news: The Fundraisingology Lab will be closed to new members until 2021. That's a long wait for the best fundraising training, resources, and community anywhere.

But here's some inside information for you: Next week, everyone on the waiting list will get one final chance to join. You can sneak in by joining the waiting list now!

It's your last chance until 2021. Check out The Fundraisingology Lab here!

3 one-minute revisions that will improve your fundraising

Here's a quick way to make your fundraising message a lot more effective" Three EASY Copy Changes, from the Better Fundraising blog:

1. Take Your Organization Out. Don't ask the donor to give so you can do something wonderful. Ask them to do something wonderful by giving. Remove the middleman! Fundraising is about what the donor can do. Not what your organization can do when the donor gives.
2. Lead with What the Donor Values Most. The donor wants something good to happen. They're far less interested in making sure your organization and programs are funded. Lead with the action that the donor wants.
3. Make It Singular. The bigger the problem you describe the more difficult it is for the donor to say yes. Ask the donor to help one person. Show them a problem they can clearly envision solving, not a big problem that tells them to give up.

These edits will not break your back.

But they will improve your results.

Checklist: Does your fundraising writing suck?

Maybe your fundraising doesn't work like it should because it sucks.

Here's a quick checklist of common sucky qualities in fundraising. Does your fundraising have these things?

• Pretentious, over-formal language that doesn't connect with your donor.
• Empty superlatives like "cutting-edge" and "innovative."
• Lack of a clear "what's in it for me" for your donors; it's based on "educating" your poor, ignorant donors, as if charitable giving were entirely am intellectual proposition.
• Reliance on jargon and insider talk.
• Shortage of the word "you." It's "we, we, we," all the way home.
• Big numbers.
• Call to action ("give") is hidden, indirect, passive, or non-existent.
• Long words, long sentences, long paragraphs.

Don't let your copy suck. It's a waste of time, doesn't work, and it's rude to donors.