Author: Jim Shapiro

Take a good, hard look at what you and your organization think your donors are thinking when they make a gift.

Do you think they are supporting your organization, or do you think they are trying to help one of your beneficiaries?

Most organizations misinterpret a donation to mean that they have a “supporter.” But most donors think of their gift as ‘helping someone’ much more than they think of it as ‘supporting’ your organization.

Here’s where the rubber meets – or doesn’t meet – the road. If you think you have a “supporter” then your donor communications will probably tell the person more about the organization they are supporting. However, your donor is FAR more likely to be interested in knowing how a beneficiary’s life is better today because they made a gift.

You will raise more money – and keep your donors for longer – if you think of your donors as people who are helping your beneficiaries. This means that your donor communications should be all about your donors and your beneficiaries, and very little about your organization.

Work at most nonprofits slows down a bit during the summer. Here’s how to use your time to Thank and Report to Major Donors, as well as work in advance on your fall fundraising impacts, so that you can raise the most money this fall.

Each time you sit down to communicate with your donors ask yourself this question:

“What is the 1 Thing I want to have happen when they read/hear/see this?”

Pick your 1 Thing. Then do only that Thing.

We talk all the time about the three building blocks of successful fundraising: Asking, Thanking and Reporting. Our suggestion is to pick which one of the three you’re doing and then focus relentlessly on that for whatever communication piece you’re working on.

If you’re Reporting back to donors on the impact of their gift, don’t also spend a bunch of time/space asking them to give again. Doing that is what makes donors complain that nonprofits are always asking for money.

If you’re Asking, just make a great case and Ask. Don’t spend 1/3 of your letter Thanking them, 1/3 telling them what you’ve been busy doing, and then tack on a request to send in a gift hidden at the end of your letter for the 20% of donors who read that far to find. Ask them to give a gift, make a great case for why they should, and then Ask them again!

Your donors are wonderful, compassionate, busy people. Make each communication about 1 thing. The clearer your message, the more people will understand and appreciate it.

Don’t let your nonprofit be “that guy” at a party – the one who just talks about himself. Most nonprofits don’t talk to their donors often enough. And when they do, they tend to talk more about themselves than talking about the donor or the beneficiaries. Here’s what you need to do if you really want to build better relationships with your donors:

1. Communicate frequently. Most donors read half or less of the communications you send.
2. Talk to your donors about things they care about. Your donor tends to care more about the beneficiaries and what her gift will do to help them than she cares about your organization and your methods.
3. Be sure to show your donors how their gifts made a difference. Don’t tell them that your program was successful, or how many people you helped, show them one person and tell them how their gift helped that person.

Do these three things and not only will you have better relationships with your donors, you’ll also have higher retention rates and you’ll raise more money.

Follow these three words and you’re on your way to raising a LOT of money.

We’ve talked before about keeping your fundraising simple so that it’s easy for donors to understand. You will raise more money, and you will be more valuable in the donor’s life, if you can translate your work into words and concepts they understand.

Next, be very specific about what a donor’s gift will do. Stay away from generic bromides like “hope” and “transformation” – show the donor how their gift will provide one meal, or push one piece of legislation forward, or help one person get an education. Be specific.

Note: you can and should talk briefly about all the other things the donor’s gift does. But that should be 10% of your appeal. The other 90% should be about the specific Need and the specific way the donor’s gift will meet that need.

Then, show the donor how their impact is multiplied. Donors are humans just like you and me, and donors love deals. So use a matching grant to double their impact. Factor in volunteer hours or donated supplies. Then get specific: ‘because of donated supplies and volunteer hours your gift of $1 helps provide $4 worth of dental care.’

Simplify your problem and your solution. Be specific about what the donor’s gift will do. Then show the donor how their impact is multiplied by your methods. But keep the focus on their impact being multiplied, not on how your methods do it.

Most organizations make their fundraising too complex, and too much about their organization itself. That’s because they know so much and they know the value of their organization.

But remember that your fundraising is not meant to convince you to give a gift!

The vast majority of your donors don’t know as much as you do. So your fundraising needs to meet the donor where she is at – and talk about what she understands – using words she understands. This isn’t selling her short, by the way. She doesn’t think about your cause 40+ hours a week like you do.

It’s a really hard thing, but if your fundraising materials are great you most likely won’t like them. Great fundraising for your organization will seem overly simple to you. It might even feel “misleading” because you know your organization does so much more.

But it will meet the donor right where she is. And it will compel her to action.

Think about it this way: if you write to engage your executive director, your program staff, and your board members then your fundraising potential is pretty small. But if you write to engage anyone who cares about your cause or the people you serve, your fundraising potential is much, much, much larger.

Fundraising is Beautiful podcast is up and ready for you!

Steven and Jeff talk about the easiest, cheapest way to quickly find out what works and doesn’t work in fundraising.  They also talk about how board members and executive directors often don’t want their fundraising to look and feel like other fundraising — and how that’s a big mistake.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

We created the graphic in our previous post to illustrate a point: the simpler you can make your fundraising the more money you’ll raise.

Now, it’s going to be hard to keep it simple because you are a smartypants. You know all about your cause and your organization. Each level of detail means something important to you.

But you are not the audience for your fundraising. It’s not for you! It’s for people who know far, far less about your cause and your methods than you do. To engage the majority of your donors you need to talk to them at their level of understanding.

Note: If you think you’re going to educate donors into understanding and giving, think again. If you do, your donors are going to go find another organization that makes it simple for them to understand and help.

So keep it simple. And the results back this up; we’ve analyzed hundreds of appeals from hundreds of organizations. The most successful Asks simplify the Problem to something the donor can understand at a glance, and then ask the donor to help in a simple, tangible way.