‘Papa, we HAVE to get you an eyebrow pencil!’

Last year, a few days before I was travelling to speak at a conference, my kids asked me what it was it was going to be like when I gave my speech. 

I told them there would be several hundred people in the room, I’d be on a stage, that my face would be on a couple big video screens to that people in the back could see me, and that I was thankful that I don’t really get nervous for these things any more.

My (amazing) 15-year-old daughter’s immediate reply was as follows:

“Ohmygosh, Papa, we have to get you an eyebrow pencil!”

She said this because, as my hair has gone grey, my eyebrows have more or less disappeared.  They’re there, just super faint.

So I’m sitting at our dinner table getting fervent advice – from a person who genuinely cares about me and wants me to succeed – that boils down to “for your speech to be successful, people need to be able to see your eyebrows.”

And you probably already know this, but similar situations happen in fundraising all the time…

Fundraisers who have taken the time to write an effective piece of fundraising get feedback from a caring stakeholder who wants the fundraising to succeed.  But the person giving the feedback doesn’t know the discipline of direct response fundraising, or the behavioral science at play, or the difference between institutional and individual donors.

So the feedback is usually based on personal preference, rooted in a general nervousness about fundraising, and presented with logic.

And through no fault of their own, the feedback is about as helpful as me hearing that I “have to” get an eyebrow pencil:

“You know, we have to mention the name of the program.”

“This doesn’t have any stats in it, we have to include some stats so people know how effective we are.”

“We have to phrase it like this because that’s the term experts use.”

“Well, we have to make it shorter because nobody reads long letters.”

Yet each of these “have-tos” make the letter or email raise less money, not more. 

Of course, you and I pay attention to feedback because we want to be team players.  The feedback is coming from bosses and key stakeholders, and it’s vital to remember that they are all trying to make the fundraising work better.

So what’s a Fundraiser to do?  Socialize the idea that there’s a science and profession of direct response fundraising.  Share drops of knowledge from this blog and other data-driven experts (Jeff Brooks, Julie and Brett Cooper, Lisa Sargent, John Lepp, Kristin Steele & Samantha Swaim, Tom Ahern, Clay Buck, Erica Waasdorp).  Slowly, but surely, we’ll spread the knowledge and science around.

In the meantime, be kind.  Educate your team on the actual, proven “have-tos” for success in the mail and email.

And by the way, I gave my keynote at the conference without using an eyebrow pencil.  The presentation was still a success.  🙂