Steven Screen, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

Focus Donor Attention on the Near Future

Steven Screen | September 16, 2025September 16, 2025Ask

The graphic above has been sitting in a folder on my computer for months because I’m not quite happy with it.

But I’m following my own advice and “sending it out even if it isn’t perfect.” I think it can help you raise more money this fall, and a lot of organizations need all the help they can get right now.

Here’s the Big Idea; focus your appeals on the near future, not on the past.

To use the language I used in the graphic; you will raise more money if you focus your appeals on “work that needs to be done soon.” You will raise less money if you focus your appeals on “work your organization has already done.”

Weirdly, nonprofits tend to relentlessly focus their fundraising on the past. They share stories of people they have already helped. They share statistics and lots of numbers from their past work. They talk about the approach they’ve used.

I believe this comes from a good place – it’s an attempt to prove to donors that the organization knows what it’s doing and is effective.

But what I’ve seen from looking at fundraising results for 30 years is that individual donors send in more money when the focus of the appeal is on the near future, not on the past.

When you ask your individual donors to fund meaningful work that needs to be done soon, I think three things are happening:

Donors are thinking about something they can affect (the near future), versus something they cannot affect (the past).
Donors are thinking about the negative situation your beneficiaries are facing today, instead of a positive story of a person who has already been helped and no longer needs help.
Donors realize that their choice in this moment has consequences in the near term.

But really, even just those three bullet points overcomplicate things.

It’s as simple as this little story … put yourselves in the shoes of a busy individual donor. She’s at home, has a couple minutes, and is going through her mail or email. She feels like making a gift. Which appeal do you think she will give to:

“We’ve done work that’s important to you in the past, will you support us?”
“Work that’s important to you needs to happen two weeks from now, will you give a gift to help?”

Individual donors making quick decisions seem to be wired to support work that they care about that needs to be done soon.

So focus your appeals on the near future – usually between the day you send it and about 8 weeks from then. Focus on meaningful work/service/help your organization plans/hopes to do in the next month or so. Ask your donors to send in a gift to help fund that work.

Save the focus on the past for when you are reporting back to donors. Or when you are making a case to a Foundation for why they should give you a grant.

If our experience is any indication, you’ll be so pleased at how much money your appeals raise that you’ll never go back to focusing your appeals on the past.

‘But We Don’t Actually Do the Work’

Steven Screen | September 11, 2025September 9, 2025Ask

Earlier this week I wrote about focusing your fundraising to individual donors on what their gift will make possible, not on how your organization does its work.

This advice immediately causes consternation for some organizations, particularly community foundations and what we might call “middleman organizations” that raise funds primarily to help other organizations.

For instance, I recently emailed with a woman who works for a local nonprofit that a) raises money to pay for the admin costs and staffing of a national program that runs in her state, and b) that national program engages the local community to c) utilize support provided by other nonprofits.

Local foundations and organizations like the one above will say things like, “Well, we can’t tell donors that their gift will do anything specific because we don’t do the work. We just make it possible for other nonprofits to provide their services.”

However, I believe community foundations and middleman organizations can absolutely tell donors that their gift will make specific services happen.

I think what happens is that these nonprofits get too caught up in the difference between “what we do” and “what we make possible.”

As I wrote last week, individual donors are much more interested in what your organization makes happen than they are in exactly how your organization makes it happen.

There are lots of instances of this being true and completely above board. For instance, international relief & development organizations usually have local/indigenous partners who “do the work” of feeding children, providing education, digging wells, etc.

Medical research charities often outsource significant portions of their work, from bloodwork to testing to actually working with patients.

My recommendation: don’t artificially limit what you say in your fundraising based on a belief that donors only fund your activities (how you do your work). In our experience, donors tend to be more motivated by the outcomes your organization creates – what your work makes possible.

Your organization can absolutely make clear asks around providing specific services, even if those services are provided by another nonprofit/entity, as long as the donor’s gift provides funding that makes those services possible.

What, Not How

Steven Screen | September 9, 2025September 5, 2025Ask

Here’s a principle I live by when creating fundraising:

“Ask individual donors to fund what your organization makes happen, not how your organization makes it happen.”

Most nonprofits tend to focus their fundraising on “how their organization makes things happen.” This means their fundraising tends to be full of three things:

Their Programs. You see this in sentences like, “Our program Uplifting Kids takes children from 3-5 and….”
Their Approach. “We have a holistic approach that preserves the dignity…”
Their Analogy. “What we really do is provide hope at the end of the road.”

That’s how the organization does its work. It’s how the organization makes the change it makes.

It’s 100% true that institutional funders are very interested in how organizations do their work. Institutional funders are often experts in the field, so when you tell them your programs & approach, the Grantmaking Officer has the knowledge & context to immediately understand why your programs & approach are valuable and worth supporting.

In fact, a grants officer might have proposals from five similar organizations on their desk on any given day. In that context, how the organization does its work is vitally important.

On the other hand, individual donors are usually not experts in the field. They don’t have the knowledge or context that helps them understand why your programs and approach are valuable. And these non-experts tend to value different things about your work than institutional funders value.

So the question, “What do individual donors value about our work?” is one that every nonprofit should be asking itself.

And for what it’s worth, in our experience individual donors are more interested in funding what you make happen. They are interested in the results of your approach. They want to fund the change you make.

For example, a nonprofit that provides preschool to underserved families should say, “Will you give a gift to send one child to preschool” instead of saying “Will you support Uplifting Kids, our program that takes children from 3-5 and…”

Share results like “13 underprivileged women graduated from college because of you” and “the fall theatre season was a smashing success thanks to you.”

Share specifics like, “You can help a child in outer Mongolia get the medical care they need” instead of “You can give a child hope at the end of the road.”

You get it.

Is there room to mention your programs, approach, and analogies in your fundraising? Sure. They are a small part of what makes up your brand.

But your fundraising to individual donors will immediately start working much better if you start to focus on what your donor’s gift will do instead of how your organization will do it.

Three Core Functions

Steven Screen | September 4, 2025September 1, 2025Repeat

The following is from my friend Richard Perry, and it’s too good not to share:

There are three core functions of a nonprofit:

Deliver programs to solve a societal problem.
Inspire and retain supporters to fund it.
Build internal systems that support both.

That is so clear, and so true.

What I like about what Richard says, and why I want to see it spread, is that this thinking convincingly makes the case that Fundraising (“inspiring and retaining supporters”) is equally important to Program. And it specifically calls nonprofits to “build internal systems that support both.”

But if your experience is anything like mine, you feel that most nonprofits do not treat Fundraising equally to Program.

That happens for lots of legitimate reasons: most Founders are program-oriented and naturally focus their time & effort in that area, plus fundraising is by nature uncomfortable to most people. Additionally, fundraising education has not kept up with the explosion of nonprofits in the U.S.

Fine.

But the shift to “treating Fundraising equally to Program” is one that immediately helps the organization. The “flywheel effect” is obvious: the fundraising becomes more effective, the organization is better at retaining fundraising talent, the organization retains more donors each year, and the organization raises more money.

The mature, national organizations I served at the beginning of my career had all made this shift. I think that tells you something.

If you’re a leader of an organization that hasn’t made this shift, it’s worth exploring what’s stopping you.

If you’re working at an organization that hasn’t made this shift, it’s worth sharing this thinking and having a conversation.

The Amount of the Match

Steven Screen | September 2, 2025August 27, 2025Ask

Here’s a super tactical, deep-cut of a post for you. Save or bookmark this for the next time you have a matching grant to use in email or the mail.

Specifically, this post is about how to communicate the amount of matching funds you have.

Most pieces of fundraising always mention “there is a match” and the “amount of the match” in the same breath throughout the letter. You don’t want to do that.

The fact that you have a match, and the amount of the match, are two distinct pieces of information. And one of them is far more important than the other.

Here are the rules of thumb that we try to live by…

Guiding Principles

It’s the match itself that makes people respond, not the amount of the match. Therefore, the amount of the match is not a piece of information we want to over-communicate or over-emphasize.
The amount of the matching funds only needs to be mentioned once in the email or letter. Sharing the amount honors the provider of the match, and lets donors know that the funds are limited.
Include the amount of the match on the landing page and/or the reply card. Do this so that donors who don’t have the letter or email will still see that the funds are limited. But remember that other copy points like “the donor’s gift doubles” and “what the gift will do/fund” and “the deadline” are more important for creating a response than the amount itself.

Specific Guidelines

Even though you should mention the match itself early and often, mention the amount of the match just once in the email or letter.
Specifically, mention the amount of the match the second time the match is mentioned in the body of the email or letter.
- For example, in the context of a letter I will highlight that there is a match on the outer envelope, in the upper right corner/johnson box, and in the first three or four paragraphs of the letter. Then, the second time the match is mentioned in the letter, I include the amount of the match. (This usually happens 1/2 or 3/4 the way down the first page of the letter.)
If you want to mention the amount again on the second page, fine. But do it at least three paragraphs before the end of the letter. Don’t mention the amount in the PS.

Edge Cases

If the amount of the match is so large that it’s almost a news item of its own, mention the amount of the match more often. For instance, say you’re a small organization and you’re given $500,000 in matching funds. By all means, mention it more than once.
- But remember – for the donors reading your letter or email, it’s still usually more important that “their gift will be doubled” than “how big your match is.”
When using email or social to promote a match, mention the amount more often when the matching funds are almost gone. As in, “There are only $570 in matching funds left, give now to have your gift doubled!”
Sometimes the amount of the match is very important to the person / Foundation / Organization that has given it. If you need to mention that amount more often for them, no problem.

I hope these rules of thumb help you raise even more money the next time you have a matching grant!

Who Is Shining?

Steven Screen | August 28, 2025August 27, 2025Ask

You know games like Monopoly or Uno or Exploding Kittens? Well, of the Top 5 best-selling games in the world right now, three of them were created by one guy.

His name is Elan Lee. He is one of the top “game designers” of our generation.

And here’s what Elan said recently when talking about creating games:

“We do not make games that are entertaining. We make games that make the players entertaining.”

Read that quote again. Seriously. I had to read it three times before I really understood that second sentence.

He wants players to have the feeling of, “I was fun to be with, and the people I played with were fun” – not “that game is so fun.” He knows that if the players feel great about themselves when playing the game, they will want to play again.

Put another way, he wants the people playing the game to shine, not the game itself.

This idea perfectly maps over to fundraising.

Think about your organization’s fundraising to individual donors for a second. And think about your donors as “the people playing your game.” Does your fundraising make the people playing your game shine, or does your fundraising make your organization shine?

For instance, is your fundraising to individual donors mostly about your organization, mostly about the great things you’ve already done, and then asks your donors to support your work? If so, you’re making your organization shine.

But fundraising to individual donors is a lot like human relationships: if you can make someone feel good about themselves, they are likely to feel good about you.

Helping a person feel and be great is a surer path to relationship than telling them that you are great.

There are millions of people playing Elan Lee’s games because he designed the games to make the players shine. If you’d like to have more people donating to your organization, design your fundraising to help your donors shine.

10 Years of Above Average Growth

Steven Screen | August 26, 2025August 20, 2025Repeat

There’s a nonprofit that Better Fundraising has been serving for about 10 years. And during those years, the nonprofit has experienced above-average growth.

I was asked to summarize why this organization’s fundraising to individual donors has experienced this uninterrupted run of success. And I’d like to share that summary with you in case it helps you raise more money.

We have the following beliefs about the world and about individual donors:

We’re in a world where there are almost twice as many nonprofits the U.S. than there were 25 years ago.
We live in a world where people receive, on average, between 6,000 and 10,000 marketing messages per day
We believe that individual donors are materially different than staff, board members, or volunteers. We believe that individual donors are not subject matter experts like we are, and they care about and value different things than staff do.
We know that the average donor in the United States is 68 years old.
In the context of direct response fundraising (direct mail, email, phone, radio), we know that Individual donors tend to make the “give-or-not-give” decisions in mere seconds.
We believe that many donors would love to give more than once per year, but that’s only likely to happen if we ask them to.
We believe that donors appreciate knowing reasons and stories that show the organization’s work (and the donors’ support) is needed today.
We believe that communicating often enough to donors so that the organization is a regular, relevant presence in their lives will lead to more donations than occasional or sporadic communications.

These beliefs lead us to create direct response fundraising and major donor programs with the following goals:

Communicate with donors more often than internal audiences might think is necessary.
Create communications that are dramatic and urgent, in order to break through the noise and earn donors’ attention.
Write and design our communications to touch donors’ values and emotions more than trying to appeal to what the organization values.

These beliefs and goals have led to 10 years of above-average growth.

There’s more than just beliefs and goals, of course. You have to maintain your database. You have to learn what does (and what doesn’t) go on an effective landing page. You have to learn how to structure a major donor development system.

But all of those are tactics that can be learned by anyone.

If your fundraising isn’t regularly and consistently growing, look at the beliefs and goals that drive your fundraising program. And if you need a new belief or goal, the ones above are a great place to start because they are proven to guide you to make tactical choices that will help you build deeper relationships with your donors and raise more money.

Embrace the ‘In Between’

Steven Screen | August 21, 2025August 18, 2025Ask

The time in between when you make a fundraising ask, and when you start to receive gifts, is tough.

You’ve completed your work. You’ve thought it through. There’s nothing you can do to make it better and then of course you start to worry. What if there’s a typo? What if the link goes to the wrong page? What if, as the people at your event pick up their giving forms, they aren’t inspired?

But also, it’s a time of excitement and expectation. You can’t wait to have people react to it, to hear what questions they have, to see the money start to come in.

And you never know whether it’s going to work. (Well, when it’s the 15^th time you’ve done a Back To School campaign and they all work great, you are pretty sure. But you still don’t know.)

And after the “in between” tension of waiting, there’s the first gift that comes in 3 minutes after you send the e-appeal. There’s the long-lapsed major donor who calls after receiving your letter. And sometimes it’s middling results and a realization of what you could have done better. Every once in a great while it’s just mostly silence.

Always exciting. Sometimes a little stressful.

This tension and expectation “in between” will always be a part of trying to grow your impact. Because if you want to grow, you need to talk to more people than you can talk to one-to-one. Which means that for the life of your organization you’re always going to be making asks of groups, and sending out letters & emails, and then experiencing the “in between.”

Embrace it.

How to Make Sure a Low-Priced Offer Does NOT Produce Small Gifts

Steven Screen | August 19, 2025July 17, 2025Ask

Here’s a question I get every time an organization is thinking about using a good fundraising offer with a low price point:

“OK, so our offer is $7. Are we going to get a ton of $7 gifts? Aren’t we going to raise less money this way because our donors are going to give less?”

The short answer is:

Not if your Ask Amounts for each donor are at or above what that donor gave last time.

Let me explain…

Offer Amount vs. Ask Amount

There’s a difference between your Offer Amount and your Ask Amounts.

Your Offer Amount is the cost of your offer – the cost to do the thing you promise will happen if a donor gives a gift. (We’ve talked about how those amounts should usually be less than $50.)

Your Ask Amounts are the amounts you list for your donor to give on your reply card. They often look something like this:

[ ] $50
[ ] $100
[ ] $150
[ ] $_______

Those are your Ask Amounts. (This is also often called “gift ask string” or “gift ask array” but we’re going to refer to them as Ask Amounts for clarity’s sake.)

Think of it this way:

Your Offer Amount is how much it costs for the donor to do one meaningful thing.
Your Ask Amounts are how much you’d like the donor to give today.

Make sense? Still with me?

How Smart Organizations Raise More Money

This is simple to explain, but it takes a bit of work to do. But here’s what the smart organizations do:

They customize the Ask Amounts for each and every donor.
The customized Ask Amounts for each donor are in increments of the Offer Amount.

Here’s what that looks like. Say I had recently given a donation of $100 to an organization. And they were writing me with an offer of “$35 will train one volunteer to advocate for our cause.” My Ask Amounts would look something like:

[ ] $105 to train 3 advocates
[ ] $140 to train 4 advocates
[ ] $210 to train 6 advocates
[ ] $______ to train as many advocates as possible

There’s a lot going on in that example that’s helpful.

First, the Ask Amounts are all in $35 increments – increments of the Offer Amount. Because remember, your whole letter (or email, or newsletter, or event) should be about the Offer. So it will make more sense to your donor if your reply card has amounts that are based on the offer you are writing them about.

Second, the beginning Ask Amount is at or above how much I gave last time. This is key to helping donors give how much they gave last time… or more!

Third, the description text (“…to train 3 advocates”) describes how many of the outcomes my gift will fund. This helps donors know exactly how much good their gift will do. It’s a proven tactic.

To do this, most smaller organizations use Excel to calculate the Ask Amounts and Outcome Amounts (“3 advocates”) for each donor. Then they merge in those amounts onto the reply card.

This takes real work. It’s worth it.

The Benefits to You

When your Offer Amount is low, and your Ask Amounts are at or above how much your donor gave last time, two positive things happen:

More people respond because your barrier of entry is so low. In other words, more people respond because it costs so little for them to make a meaningful difference.
You’ll raise more money because donor’s gifts will usually be at or above what they gave last time.

Increasing the number of people who respond + keeping their gifts at the same size or larger = more money for your cause!

This post was originally published on May 7, 2019 as part of a series on creating successful offers. Click here to download the e-book we created from these posts.