Steven Screen, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

Attention Leaks

Steven Screen | June 19, 2025June 10, 2025Ask

It is hard to get a donor’s attention.

So when you are sending a donor something with an explicit purpose – for instance you’re Asking for a gift or Reporting back on what their previous gifts made possible – don’t include anything that can cause your donor’s attention to “leak” away from your main message.

Here are three examples of accidental attention leaks:

Your social media handles on the envelope for your appeal. At the moment a donor picks up your envelope, would you like them to open the envelope and have a 4% chance of them sending you a gift… or go to your Instagram page and have a .25% chance of giving you a gift?
Promoting your upcoming event right before the ask to give a gift. It’s well known that the more options you give a donor, the smaller the overall response. I’ve seen many a great fundraising email or letter torpedoed by someone who says, “Hey, please add a paragraph about our event” or “Be sure to also mention that we need volunteers and include the link.”
A list of your Board members down the left side of your appeal letter. I ran a test once where we sent a letter to half a nonprofit’s donors on letterhead that had the list of Board members down the left, and the same exact letter to the other half of the organization’s donor except the list of Board members had been removed. The letter without the list of Board members raised more money.

In my opinion, here’s what happens when you list the Board members down the side. Some donors are reading the letter, picking up what you are laying down, starting to think about giving a gift… and they see a name on the left that takes their attention away from the carefully crafted letter. Maybe the name reminds them of a friend from college. They wonder what that person is up to. And pretty soon your donor is on Facebook instead of reading and responding to your letter.

Your organization spends so much time, money and effort to get a donor to read your fundraising. Don’t allow anything in your fundraising other than content and design that will drive them towards taking the action you want them to take.

There is one place this advice doesn’t apply – your e-newsletter. You can stick everything in there because you don’t expect anyone to respond.

But if you want people to respond, here’s what I’ve learned over years and years of looking at fundraising results: pieces of fundraising that “keep the main thing the main thing” will cause the most action and help your organization the most.

Three Editing Examples

Steven Screen | June 3, 2025May 13, 2025Ask

We recently helped a nonprofit create a series of emails to raise money to help them recover from flooding at their facilities.

The emails raised twice as much as any email campaign they’d ever done.

Because people always like our posts that feature “before and after” examples of fundraising copy, here are three simple edits I made to these emails, along with brief explanations for why…

Before #1:
“I couldn’t sleep last night worrying how the staff at the sanctuary will weather this storm, literally.”

After:
“I couldn’t sleep last night because I was worrying about the staff, the babies, and the equipment.”

Reasoning:
In direct response fundraising, specificity is your friend. The initial copy was conceptual – about how the staff will “weather the storm.” But the concept was hiding specifics that were meaningful and valuable! Share the specifics because they are easier for a reader to understand quickly – and usually more meaningful, too.

Before #2:
“Potable water is especially important right now.”

After:
“Water that’s safe to drink is especially important right now.”

Reasoning:
Not everyone knows what the word “potable” means. And even for readers who are familiar with it, many will have to think about it for a second to recall what it means. In direct response fundraising, any time you use words that some readers don’t understand and other readers have to think about, you’ve almost certainly reduced how much money you are going to raise.

Before #3:
“Will you please make a generous gift today?”

After:
“As we scramble, would you please make a gift today to help?”

Reasoning:
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with “Will you please make a generous gift today” – in fact it’s very good copy. But I have found that in an emergency situation, an email that sounds like a “breathless dispatch from the field” will raise far more money than email that sounds like every other email the organization sends.

So I made sure the email sounded like it was written by a human (not an organization) who was being clear, but was clearly in a crazy situation.

One of the ways you communicate to donors that the situation is not normal is by using language that is not normal.

Finally, as a bonus, here’s a subject line I worked on:

Subject line Before:
It’s time for immediate action

Subject line After:
Flooding – please help

Reasoning:
The initial subject line could be written by any nonprofit, anywhere, at any time. The updated version referenced the flooding – something dramatic, concrete, and unique to this organization at this time.

I hope these example edits – and the reasoning behind them – help you with your next email or letter!

An Idea to Help Your Donor Acquisition

Steven Screen | May 15, 2025June 10, 2025Ask

When you’re talking or writing to people who are not donors, and you’re thinking about what to say, here’s a truth to remember:

None of them care about your organization, but some of them care about your cause or beneficiaries.

So, don’t start off your speech or letter by talking about your organization. Attempting to start a relationship by talking about something you know the other person doesn’t care about is not a successful tactic.

On the other hand, if you start off talking about your cause or beneficiaries, then the people who care are immediately interested in what you have to say.

Now you’re ahead of the game.

Now, the people who are most likely to donate are the people who are paying attention. And they already know that you care about what they care about.

In the very first moment, you’ve established common ground with the people who are most likely to donate.

And I have to add, the “holy grail” is talking about your cause or beneficiaries and tying it to a value to everyone believes in. Think opening lines like:

“No one should have to suffer from a disease when the cure costs $100. And now that you know you can massively improve a person’s life for less than the cost a nice dinner out, let me tell you how you can do it and why it’s important.”

Now everyone is paying attention.

Or you could start by telling everyone what year your organization was founded.

Maintain Wonder While Being Skeptical

Steven Screen | April 29, 2025April 21, 2025Repeat

There’s a great quote from Carl Sagan that, while not ostensibly about fundraising, is absolutely about fundraising:

“At the heart of science is a balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes – an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”

I post that quote today for multiple fun reasons…

I laughed when I read it because there’s a lot of “deep nonsense” in the fundraising world.

The phrase “deep nonsense” is exceptional writing. It’s catchy, contradictory, and true all at the same time.

I’ve always admired Carl Sagan. He and Neil DeGrasse Tyson are mentors of a sort to me.

And speaking of mentors, the next few blog posts are going to be from some of my “fundraising mentors.”

There will be some names you recognize, and hopefully some names that you don’t. Each post coming your way is great (I’ve vetted every single one). Hopefully you’ll be introduced to some new people who will become part of your tribe of fundraising mentors.

As a reader of this blog, I’m betting you have some of that “wonder” at this amazing thing called Fundraising that we get to do. And you have some of the skepticism that “winnows the deep truths from the deep nonsense.”

I hope the next posts will help you identify some new ideas and mentors to help you do even more good than you’re already doing!

Could Your Fundraising Be More Accessible?

Steven Screen | April 24, 2025May 12, 2025Ask

Here’s a goal for your fundraising in 2025 – make it more accessible.

The ethical reasons are clear: we should not make unnecessary design and language choices that make it harder for people to see, read and understand.

Additionally, the financial reasons are clear:

When more people can easily read your fundraising, more of your fundraising will be consumed, and you’ll raise more money.
When more people can quickly understand your fundraising, more people will keep reading, and you’ll raise more money.

Our next three blog posts will be full of tips for how you can make your fundraising more accessible. All of the tactics we’ll share, as well as the overall idea, are part of the Universal Design movement. (But we just call it smart fundraising 🙂 )

In the meantime, take a look at your fundraising and ask yourself:

Is the text easy for an older person to read?
Is the design easy for a “scanner” to quickly know what’s most important?
Is the copy written so that the reader needs a college education to understand it, or is it accessible to people with less education?

It’s emotionally stretching for an organization to make their fundraising more accessible. But you’ll be doing the right thing. And in my experience, you’ll also raise more money.

This post was originally published on March 19, 2024.

The Lesson

Steven Screen | April 22, 2025April 21, 2025Ask

Years ago I served an organization that was raising about $350,000 per year from their individual donors.

They had a belief that they needed to share all of their programs, and show how those programs worked together to “solve the whole problem,” in order for donors to give gifts. Their belief resulted in fundraising that spent significant time describing their programs and how their programs worked together.

I advised them that they needed to keep things simpler. I suggested that they focus an e-appeal on one specific program.

They pushed back:

“We’re not a simple organization like one of those big national organizations you work with. What we do is complex.”

I explained to them the lesson I had learned over the years: that the big national organizations have sophisticated approaches and programs, but that they purposefully keep their fundraising simple and emotional in order to make their organization more accessible to more people.

Those big organizations want everybody to be able to donate, not just the people who are interested enough to learn about their programs.

The organization I was working with had assumed that because the fundraising to individual donors was simple, the organization and its programs must be simple.

But the lesson is that those big organizations appear simple because of a conscious messaging choice. In their fundraising to individual donors, they choose to focus on single programs or simple outcomes because doing so is proven to help them attract more new donors and raise more money from current donors.

Sophisticated fundraising looks simple on purpose.

This post was originally published on November 26, 2024.

You Must Earn Your Donors’ Attention (they don’t read the whole thing)

Steven Screen | April 17, 2025April 21, 2025Ask

Most nonprofits, without realizing it, make a big assumption when they write their fundraising.

They assume their donors will read the whole thing. The whole email. The whole letter.

That’s a really unhelpful assumption.

Here’s a heatmap of a 1-page direct mail letter. It shows what a donor’s eyes tend to look at, and in what order it happens:

We could spend a lot of time talking about what this means for your fundraising writing and design. But there’s one main lesson I want you to take away…

You Have to Earn and Keep a Donor’s Attention

You cannot assume your donor will read the whole thing.

Well, you can. But you’ll raise a lot less money.

So first you have to earn your donor’s attention. That’s having a great teaser on your envelope. Or a catchy subject line for your email. You need to get good at those things.

For your mass donor fundraising to excel, you need to be better at earning attention than you need to be at describing your organization or your programs.

That might feel like a “sad truth.” But it’s a really helpful truth if you want to raise more money and do more good.

How to Earn Donor Attention

There are three main ways to earn donor attention. You need to make your fundraising:

Interesting to donors. This almost always means talking about your beneficiaries and your cause more than your organization and your programs. Remember: your donor first got involved because
of your beneficiaries or cause, not because of your programs.
Emotional. Emotions are what keep us reading. You want to constantly be using the emotional triggers: Anger, Exclusivity, Fear, Flattery, Greed, Guilt, Salvation.
Dramatic. You want your fundraising to be full of drama and conflict.

Here’s an example. You already know that your first sentence of any fundraising appeal is super important. Take a look at these two:

“[NAME] Theatre is dedicated to producing high-quality, daring productions that take on challenging topics.”

vs.

“I’m writing you today about something you care about – and it’s in danger.”

I can basically guarantee you that more people are going to keep reading the second example. It’s written directly to the donor, it’s about something she cares about; it’s emotional, and it’s dramatic.

The first example – from a real letter from my files – is a classic example of telling the donor something the donor probably already knows and doesn’t really care about.

Note: Arts organizations often say that their fundraising can’t be emotional or dramatic because they don’t have babies or puppies to raise money for. I think the first example above shows that Arts organizations can absolutely be dramatic and emotional in their fundraising – they just need to think about it differently. After all, if a Theatre can’t get dramatic, it’s probably not that great a Theatre!

The Big Lesson

Your donors are moving fast. They don’t read the whole thing, watch the whole thing, or listen to the whole thing.

You need to get great at getting and keeping their attention. Study it. Know what your donors care about and then borrow tactics from advertising and social media to get your donor’s attention. And remember; we have 70 years of best-practices for earning and keeping donor attention. Smart fundraisers have learned a LOT over the years. Tap into it!

Because if you can earn your donors’ attention, they are more likely to keep reading.

And if you can keep your donors’ attention, they are more likely to give you a gift.

This post was originally published on March 12, 2019.

Creating Tension or Revealing Tension?

Steven Screen | April 15, 2025April 16, 2025Ask

I was speaking with a founder of a nonprofit recently, and she said something that was so good I knew I had to share it with you…

We were talking about sharing the needs of beneficiaries in appeals and e-appeals. I shared that we believed in sharing those needs, even though sometimes doing so made donors uncomfortable. Her reply was fantastic:

She knew those stories sometime caused tension in donors, she said.

Then she continued…

“When we nonprofits tell a story that shares the needs of a beneficiary, we don’t create the tension that the donor feels. The story just reveals the internal tension the donor holds between how the world is and how they believe the world should be.”

I love that! It jives with how I’ve always felt: great-performing appeals remind a donor that “something’s not right in the world, but it could be if you help.”

And it hints at why sharing the need is so effective in appeals and e-appeals: it taps into something the donor already knows and feels.

No education is needed. No programs or processes need to be discussed.

It’s like a shortcut to the donor’s heart. To what she cares about most.

Your donors want to make the world a better place. So share “stories of need” in your appeals and newsletters. (Save your “stories of triumph” for your newsletters and other Reporting tactics.)

Use a story to remind your busy donors that the problem your organization is addressing is affecting people right now, today. And that their gift will make a meaningful difference.

When you do, more donors will exercise their values by giving a gift through your organization.

And later – in separate communications – be sure to remind your donors of the good that their gift and your organization has done. Because if you’re going to reveal the tension, you should also reveal the triumph.

Organizations that only do one or the other aren’t raising as much money and doing as much good as they could be.

This post was originally published on October 5, 2021.

The Gap and The Gift

Steven Screen | April 10, 2025April 21, 2025Ask

There’s a gap between your organization and your donors.

Savvy fundraising organizations know that donors don’t know as much about your beneficiaries or cause as your organization does.

That donors often don’t care quite as much as you care.

That donors often use different words and phrases than you would.

Savvy fundraising organizations know that the people on the other side of the gap are not likely to close the gap themselves. Donors are quite happy as they are, thank you very much. They don’t have a felt need to be educated, learn new jargon, or grow to an expert’s level of understanding.

So savvy fundraisers make the generous act of crossing the gap and meeting donors where the donors are.

That means writing to donors at donors’ level of understanding. It means no jargon. It means being specific, not conceptual.

It means figuring out what motivates donors to give and crafting your fundraising around those motivators – even if those motivators are not what motivates the organization’s staff.

And when you’ve done the generous thing – crossed the gap to meet the donor where they are – then you can ask them to take a first step towards involvement and greater understanding.

That first step? It’s usually a financial gift. A check in the mail or a donation online.

And that gift happens because you gave them a gift, first. You crossed the gap. You went to them.

This post was originally published on November 17, 2020.