Steven Screen, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

From Higher Ground to Common Ground

Steven Screen | April 3, 2025April 21, 2025Ask

Most nonprofits have a “higher ground” understanding of their work and their cause.

And they should! They are experts. They understand the cause they are working on, and they understand the complexities of what needs to be done. They’ve built programs that are effective. Their expertise makes them good at what they do.

But when organizations create fundraising that invites individual donors to join the organization on its higher ground – instead of creating fundraising that meets donors on shared common ground – they put barriers between their donors and giving.

They make their fundraising exclusive.

The hallmarks of higher ground fundraising are things like:

Spending more time explaining the process the organization uses (your programs, or a particular approach) instead of the change in the world that the process makes possible…
Focusing more on the organization itself, and less on the cause or beneficiaries…
Sharing statistics to illustrate the size of the need or the scope of the organization’s work…
Educating the donor about everything that the organization does, rather than focusing on what donors tend to be most interested in…
All while using the organization or sector’s jargon to sound professional.

It’s like higher ground fundraising requires the donor to know about the organization in order for them to help the beneficiaries.

Two Problems

Higher Ground fundraising causes two problems.

First, it raises less money. Every one of the bullets above, in our experience, causes individual donors to give less. Individual donors tend to be more interested in what’s happening with the cause or beneficiaries today, and the change that the donor’s gift will make (or has made). Individual donors tend to be less interested in the organization itself.

The bulleted points above are highly relevant to staff, organizational partners, grant-funding organizations, etc. But they aren’t as relevant to individual donors. Hence the old phrase, “Individual donors give through organizations, not to organizations.”

Second, the “higher ground” approach results in exclusive fundraising. It creates a filter where the people likely to donate are the people who are willing to put in the time, the people who are willing to learn about the organization’s approach, and the people who are willing to speak the way the organization speaks.

Each of these is a barrier that some people will not cross.

From Higher Ground to Common Ground

Do the hard work to make your fundraising simple and inclusive. Have a good offer. Create fundraising for individual donors that any person who cares about your beneficiaries, at any level of understanding, at any reading level, will find relevant.

This means consciously deciding to leave the high ground. It means you’ll have to defend your fundraising from internal audiences who love the high ground and want everyone to join them there.

Here’s why: there are a LOT of people out there who care about your beneficiaries and would like to give a gift to help. There are far fewer people out there who are willing to wade through an education in your work before they can give a gift.

So if your communication and fundraising are always on the higher ground – and inviting donors to join you there – you will remain smaller than you could be. You will remain doing less than you could be.

If your communication and fundraising are aimed at the common ground you share with donors, you will raise more money and have a larger impact.

In fundraising, the high ground is lonely.

This post was originally published on March 2, 2023.

Start on Common Ground

Steven Screen | April 1, 2025April 22, 2025Ask

If you would like your letters and emails to raise more money, they should begin by talking about something the donor already understands, as opposed to asking the donor to learn something new.

Here’s a made-up example of an appeal that starts by asking the donor to learn new things.

Did you know that 19% of the families in our community have no exposure to the Arts? We call them L.E.A.H.s (Lacking Arts Exposure Households) and a LEAH might be arts-curious, but never had an enjoyable introduction to the Arts that was relevant to their life.

Look at all the work the reader has to do:

Understand a statistic
Learn a new acronym
Learn a new phrase (“arts-curious”)

All that and they haven’t reached the second paragraph!

A Neuroscientist would say, “That paragraph puts a large cognitive load on the reader.” So do you think the reader is more likely to keep reading, or less likely to keep reading, after a paragraph like that?

Now, here’s an alternative approach to the first paragraph, one that begins with what the donor already knows…

A lot of families in our community don’t have the same relationship with the Arts that you and I do. And I know you’d love for everyone to experience the same fulfillment and joy that you feel. But too many people were never introduced to the Arts in a way that was relevant to their life.

In addition to sounding more personal and less like a teacher, that paragraph opens by talking about things the donor already understands and cares about.

A paragraph that speaks to the common ground the organization shares with the donor will create connection with the donor.

The donor is now more likely to keep reading. Which means the donor is now more likely to donate.

Is there ever time for a statistic or bit of education? Sure. But most likely at an event or in some other context (lunch with a major donor, blog post) where both you and the donor have more time.

In a context like the mail or email where donors are moving fast (when was the last time you read a fundraising email top to bottom on your phone?) start with something the donor already knows. Not an education barrier.

This post was originally published on August 8, 2023.

Your Brand

Steven Screen | March 27, 2025April 22, 2025Repeat

For your individual donors, your nonprofit’s brand is far more than your visual identity and voice.

Your brand is also:

Whether your fundraising is accessible, or takes thought and education to understand
Whether it’s easy to give you a gift online, or not
Whether you “report back” to donors that their gift made a difference, or you brag about how big a difference your organization makes (“We helped 4,317 people last year!”)
Whether you thank donors promptly, or not

For individual donors, your brand is the total experience a donor has while donating to your nonprofit.

For most small nonprofits, the “next step” to strengthening your brand with individual donors has nothing to do with your visual identity, and everything to do with your donors’ experience.

News Speed vs Nonprofit Speed

Steven Screen | March 25, 2025April 22, 2025Ask

There’s a lot of unease in fundraising right now. It kind of feels like anything could happen this year.

So yesterday, while helping an organization review their plan for the rest of the year, I reminded them of the following principle:

If something happens in the world that causes your organization or beneficiaries to be in the news, create and send fundraising fast.

You want to have the first e-appeal in your donors’ inboxes, not the seventh.

This is when it’s good to remember that your individual donors operate at the “speed of news,” while most organizations operate at the “speed of nonprofit.”

“News speed” is fast. Things change every 24 hours. The news points your donors’ attention in different directions almost every day.

“Nonprofit speed” can often be sloooow. Need to get an appeal out? It could take 4 weeks…

The reason it’s important to move fast when your nonprofit or beneficiaries are in the news is that the news provides awareness for your situation, and your fundraising will always raise more money when there is more awareness.

So when something happens in the world that you should be fundraising about, move fast. Stop, “do not pass go,” write & send that email today.

And if my Monopoly reference hasn’t done it already, let me further date myself: back in the ‘90’s and early 2000’s I served multiple national organizations that had “emergency appeals” pre-printed and sitting in storage. When an emergency happened, all we had to do was quickly write a few lines of copy about the disaster. The copy was lasered on the front page of the letter. The letters would be in the mail 24 hours later.

The nonprofits went to the expense of pre-printing letters because we knew that losing even a day would mean raising less and helping less. This is hard for smaller organizations with less time and money to spend on fundraising.

But everyone can write and send an e-appeal.

The news moves fast. If the news focuses attention on your organization or beneficiaries, you should move fast, too.

It Can Be Hard to Change Your Ideas about Fundraising

Steven Screen | March 20, 2025April 22, 2025Repeat

I wrote a couple days ago about how smaller nonprofits must often create fundraising messages that they don’t prefer for their fundraising to be more successful.

Today, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that changing your ideas about fundraising can be emotionally difficult.

For a Founder, or for someone who is passionate about their fundraising, it can be a very real struggle to try a fundraising message or strategy that doesn’t personally resonate.

Let me share my own experience with this, in hopes that it’s helpful.

Here’s the thing to know about me: I strongly prefer not to make mistakes. In fact, I hate mistakes. I fear being wrong. I fear being judged.

My fear around avoidable mistakes has positive consequences – for instance, it made me a fantastic student.

But it also has negative consequences. For instance, I’m occasionally a pain in the neck to work with.

So it was challenging for me when I learned that the easiest way for smaller nonprofits to raise more money is to send out more fundraising.

Wait, I thought, wouldn’t the best way be to make each piece of fundraising more perfect? We’ll eliminate all the mistakes, get everything up to best-practices… wouldn’t that bring all the money in?

Nope. I saw again and again that the nonprofits that grew their individual donor fundraising the fastest were seeing that “showing up regularly in donors’ lives” is more important than “showing up perfectly in donors’ lives.”

It didn’t seem possible that “sending more fundraising” could work. It didn’t seem possible that the occasional typo or “wrong thing showing through the envelope window” could work.

But if I’m honest, the real conflict was with my personal preferences and fears. I was thinking, If we have to move faster we’re going to make mistakes. I don’t want to focus on the total number of pieces, I want each piece to be an un-critique-able jewel box of fundraising brilliance. <<pounds podium>> I’m a copywriter and a storyteller, dammit, not some cheap content machine!

I’m poking fun at myself here, but my feelings of discomfort were real.

And you’ll smile at why my thinking on this issue eventually changed; I saw the strategy of “showing up regularly is more important than showing up perfectly” succeed so many times for so many organizations that eventually I realized I would be making a mistake if I didn’t change my thinking. And you know I don’t like to make mistakes. Sheesh.

Anyway. I still don’t prefer the “showing up regularly is more important than showing up perfectly” approach to mass donor fundraising. But I embrace it because it so obviously helps small nonprofits raise more money and increase donor retention rates. And because making the world a better place is more important than my own personal preferences and fears.

So… acknowledging that we all have preferences and fears… and acknowledging that doing things in a non-preferred way can be difficult… is there anything about your organization’s fundraising that should be changed in order to raise more money and fund more work, even if you don’t prefer the change?

Kudos for the Wrong Thing

Steven Screen | March 18, 2025April 22, 2025Ask

Every nonprofit has its own preferences.

The preferences are things like “we use this particular phrasing to describe our work” or “we talk about the people we serve in this particular way” or “we believe donors should support us because of X and Y.”

All good things.

But one of the hard parts about creating effective fundraising at smaller nonprofits is that the fundraising is evaluated according to the preferences of the nonprofit.

For instance…

When you create an appeal that uses the particular phrasing that the staff likes, you get kudos from the staff. The piece of fundraising gets approved & sent.

When you create a newsletter that thoroughly describes a program, the program staff give you kudos. The newsletter gets approved & sent.

When you write something that gets your ED’s “voice” exactly right, the ED gives you kudos, and the piece of fundraising is approved & sent.

The problem here is obvious to anyone who has been reading this blog for a while:

Fundraising that makes staff feel good is probably going to raise less money – when a donor is looking at an email on her phone, how she feels about the message is more important than how staff feel about it.
Thoroughly describing a program is probably going to raise less money – when a donor is looking at a newsletter, how it makes the donor feel about her previous giving matters more than how thoroughly the program is described.
Getting your ED’s “voice” right is a total crapshoot – when a donor is reading an appeal, how quickly he knows it’s relevant to his life & values matters so much more than how faithful the writing is to the ED’s “voice.”

Here’s the result of a nonprofit evaluating its fundraising based on its own preferences: more kudos are given to pieces of fundraising that raise less.

One of the lessons that nonprofits learn as they grow larger & better at fundraising is that the preferences of the staff are most likely different than the preferences of donors.

Once organizations realize that, they begin to give kudos not for “matching internal preferences,” but for results like “percent response” and “net revenue” and “average gift size.” They pay less attention to staff preferences, and more attention to donor preferences (as gleaned from fundraising results).

Top Heavy

Steven Screen | February 13, 2025April 22, 2025Major Donor Fundraising

The following graphic is from a fundraising analysis on a nonprofit we serve. Look at how much of their revenue from individual donors comes from their major donors:

This kind of revenue distribution is normal; a large percentage of a nonprofit’s revenue from individual donors comes from a small group.

In fact, the revenue distribution for this organization is not particularly top heavy. About 65% of their revenue is coming from their $5,000+ donors. We regularly see organizations where 80% or 90% of revenue is coming in from $5,000+ donors.

This is why – even for small organizations – we put such emphasis on managing your major donors well.

It’s why “having a proven major donor management system” is one of the “core four” strategies we teach in this free eBook. It’s the reason Major Gifts Engine exists (and is on sale right now, btw). We can wish the funding were more equitably distributed.

We can even work to make it so. But right now, intentionally managing today’s major donors is the best way to meet tomorrow’s revenue needs.

5 reasons the Myth of “Donor Fatigue” Persists

Steven Screen | February 11, 2025April 22, 2025Ask

“Donor Fatigue” – that mythical beast that haunts the futures of Fundraisers everywhere – doesn’t exist. I’m neck-deep in donor data and fundraising performance all the time. And I can tell you that this creature simply doesn’t exist for 99.9% of nonprofits.

But it still affects the behavior of too many fundraisers. And without question, the fear of “donor fatigue” causes organizations to raise less money and do less good.

This is such a brutal fact that I’m going to repeat it: the fear of something that doesn’t exist – “donor fatigue” – causes hundreds of thousands of nonprofits to raise less money and do less good.

For the vast majority of nonprofits, letting “donor fatigue” affect your behavior is like not going outside because you might get hit by lightning.

I’ve identified 5 reasons that “donor fatigue” continues to haunt our sector and lower revenue. If you know of others, please share them with us. Here are my five:

The complaints of a donor or three, occasionally a Board member, that your organization is asking for money too often.
The fear that comes from thinking those complainers might speak for all your donors.
The awkwardness some people feel about asking for money in the first place.
The lack of understanding that nonprofits can be communicating to their donors far more often than they think.
“Donor fatigue” is sometimes used as a scapegoat for bad fundraising. If an appeal or newsletter or campaign doesn’t work well, that elusive “donor fatigue” is blamed. Then no one has to feel bad, take responsibility, or learn from the mistake.

The first four items above are all real things. They matter.

But complaints and fears should not matter as much as the hundreds and thousands of additional gifts that will come in when you communicate with your donors more often about things they care about.

Look, if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know we believe in Asking more – because all our data shows that it works like crazy, with almost zero negative consequences.

One of the reasons Better Fundraising has been so successful is that we show our clients how organizations their size are communicating to their donors more often and raising a lot more money doing it. (And of course there are other things an organization has to do well, but Asking more is a one of the biggest levers you can pull.)

So next time someone brings up “donor fatigue,” tell them that “donor fatigue” isn’t the problem. And don’t let “donor fatigue” be used as a reason or excuse in your organization.

Acknowledge the fear that caused “donor fatigue” to rear its hideous head, then move forward.

You owe it to your beneficiaries.

Your donors will thank you for it with increased engagement and giving.

You’ll love raising more money and getting to do more good.

This post was originally published on January 22, 2019.

The Habit

Steven Screen | February 6, 2025April 22, 2025Repeat

There’s a habit your organization can develop that will result in raising more money and keeping more of your donors each year.

It’s the habit of regularly using the mail and email to stay in relationship with your donors.

Here’s why the habit of regularly sending mail and email to your donors is so powerful…

The habit of regularly Asking your donors to do meaningful, powerful things with a gift through your organization results in more gifts. Donors in motion tend to stay in motion. Donors at rest tend to stay at rest.

The habit of regularly Reporting to your donors shows and tells them that their gifts make a difference. Donors who know their previous gift made a meaningful difference are more likely to give to you again than donors who don’t.

The habit of regularly contacting your donors always works better than “going dark” for weeks or months at a time.

The habit of regularly contacting your donors via letters and emails is more effective than Social.

The habit of regularly contacting your donors always works better than sending nothing.

Getting in the habit of regularly sending out mail and email, paying attention to the results, always works better than any other approach.

It’s a habit you must develop

First, you must get past the idea that mailing your donors more than a couple times a year will somehow result in the mythical “donor fatigue.” If you need help with that, look here. Or here.

Then you have to realize that each piece you send out is not precious. Each piece you send out is an overwhelmingly positive incident that raises money, keeps you in touch with your donors, and is a learning opportunity.

Then you just have to practice. You need repetition. Sending out mail and email is like any other skill; you get better with practice.

Show me an organization that has developed a habit of regularly mailing and emailing its donors and I’ll show you an organization that has deeper relationships with its donors and keeps more of its donors every year.

This post was originally published on January 7, 2021.