Steven, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

One Test, Three Lessons

Steven | June 13, 2024June 13, 2024Ask

A long time ago, at an Agency far, far away, I was part of a team that tested two phrases against each other to see which one worked better in an organization’s fundraising.

Here are the two phrases:

Your gift will provide clean water to a person

Your gift will provide clean, disease-free water to a person

The phrase that included “disease-free” was the clear winner – more people gave money and more clean water was provided.

(Apologies to my fellow nerds out there, this was 20-something years ago and I don’t remember the exact results of the test. But I do remember it was statistically significant and we used the “disease-free” variant of the phrase moving forward.)

I took three lessons from this little test; they’ve been helpful to me and to others, and I hope they will be helpful to you.

Words Matter

Just a couple words here and there can make a material difference in how much money a piece of fundraising raises.

The Words that Matter Most are the Words that Describe What the Donor’s Gift Will Do

In my experience, the words you use to describe what a donor’s gift will do are the most important words in any piece of fundraising.

Put differently, changes to the words that describe what the donor’s gift will do are going to have the largest impact of any changes you make. Focus on these words first.

‘Embed the problem in the solution’

Adding the words “disease-free” to the original phrase reminds donors of the original negative situation that their gift will help solve.

When I saw this happen again and again, I created the phrase “embed the problem in the solution” as shorthand to remind myself to do this. It’s not always possible, but it results in phrases like:

“You can provide no-strings-attached financial aid to a student”

“Your gift will provide a Bible in a person’s own language for just $4”

“You can provide healthy, non-fast food meals to a person living in a food desert”

I think you can feel how that phrasing is more powerful. It’s more powerful because when donors are reminded of the current situation, they more clearly see and feel the whole impact of your programs and their giving.

To close, I encourage you to apply these lessons to your own fundraising. And when you make your writing decisions based on evidence-based lessons from head-to-head testing at scale, you’ll start to get a reputation as a donor whisperer.

Eight Principles for Effective ‘Design’

Steven | June 11, 2024June 10, 2024Repeat

While we’re talking about nonprofit Designers and design, let me share something that I found helpful.

Check out the following eight principles for effective design from product designer Taras Bakesevych.

What’s exciting to me is that these principles apply to more than just the “graphical layout and style” of a piece of fundraising – they apply to how you “design” your entire fundraising program.

Here’s the summary:

Empathy: Good design is rooted in an understanding of your audience.

Layout: Guide the eye effortlessly across the landscape.

Essentialism: Simplicity and purpose above everything else.

Guidance: Design should lead us somewhere.

Aesthetics: Communicate a feeling.

Novelty: “True art lies in balancing novelty with familiarity.”

Consistency: Don’t be confusing; build trust.

Engagement: Good design is like a good conversation.

Here are a few examples of applying these principles to how a nonprofit designs its fundraising program:

A fundraising program has empathy for donors by using language that donors understand, and design that resonates with donors.
A fundraising program focuses on the essentials by keeping it simple for donors, and doesn’t try to teach and tell donors everything about the organization and its approach.
A fundraising program is engaging by sending out surveys, and asking questions of major donors to discover their passions and interests.

You get the idea.

The whole post is interesting. Taras gives examples for each principle. It’s long, but I can guarantee you’ll quickly find something that could be applied to your fundraising program – whether graphically (#9 is “create a clear focal point”) or structurally (#17 is “craft engaging user onboarding”).

In my job, I get to “look under the hood” of a lot of different fundraising programs. The fundraising programs that are reliably growing tend to be built on all eight of these principles.

How to Succeed as a Designer at a Nonprofit

Steven | June 6, 2024June 6, 2024Repeat

Someone recently asked me what advice I’d give to Designers working at and for nonprofits.

I gave some “big picture” advice – which I’m told was helpful – so I’m sharing it here with you…

Know that different design contexts have different design requirements

One of the things that happens at nonprofits is that they come up with a design approach and they apply that approach regardless of context.

For instance, say one of the colors in your logo/brand is a beautiful light green. In an Annual Report, you can use that green as the color for a headline or a small block of text to make the page more visually interesting. But in direct mail you should never use a light color for text because it’s so hard to read for older donors, and in direct response fundraising readability is directly correlated with fundraising results.

As a Designer, you’ll be more helpful to your organization (and your beneficiaries or cause) if your design is effective for each particular context than if your design is perfectly consistent across all the contexts you have to design for.

You keep your organization’s design accessible for your donors

The person who wants you to fit a 550-word letter on one page does not know that the resulting “wall of text” won’t be read by anyone but their Mom. The young person who wants the reply card form to be super-tiny does not know that a 75-year-old donor with a touch of arthritis will never be able to write their credit card number in a space that small.

It is the Designer’s job to think about these things on behalf of your donors to make it easier for them to understand and support your organization.

And if you keep your organization’s work more accessible, your organization will raise more money.

Be a partner to the writer

The best design in the world cannot compensate for lousy copy. So if the letter you’re asked to design doesn’t have a good offer, or takes too long to get to the point, or sounds like a Ph.D. dissertation, say something.

Speaking as a copywriter, I’ve had hundreds of ideas that sounded great in my head but just didn’t work on the page. The most helpful Designers told me so, and helped me see why.

Note to anyone working with a Designer: if you don’t treat the Designer as a partner, and give their feedback real consideration, you won’t get to work with that Designer for long.

Design for donors, not yourself

The most effective Designers always keep in mind that the primary audience for their design work has different preferences and needs than the Designer does.

This is hard to do.

For instance, most Designers at nonprofits are at least 20 years younger than the core audience for their work: the average age of a donor in the U.S. is their late 60’s, and I’d guess that most Designers at nonprofits are younger than 40.

For a Designer, this means that your donors are more likely to emotionally resonate with a different design approach than you are. Real life example: most donors at most organizations are more likely to respond to a letter that looks like a telegram than they are to a letter that looks like the cool titles on a hot new Netflix show.

Design for your audience.

Be your own advocate & Ask questions

OK, this is two pieces of advice, but they are related.

The tough thing about working in the nonprofit world, especially at smaller nonprofits, is that there’s little training for Designers. So in most cases, you are responsible for your own growth.

The best thing you can do to help your mission and your career is to learn about the nuts and bolts of fundraising. You will have to ask for time and budget to buy books, to take classes, to go to a conference.

And you can ask questions that your organization likely hasn’t asked before, like “what kind of design will resonate best with our donors?” and “How should our look and copy vary from context to context?”

Ask an experienced nonprofit Designer or Creative Director to be a mentor, whether it’s just for one coffee or it’s monthly for years. This profession is full of generous people. Sitting here writing this, I can think of nine people who helped me over the years, and I don’t ever remember being turned down.

If you advocate for yourself, and you’re curious, you’ll cause your organization to raise more money. Designers who do this are worth their weight in gold.

What’s your job?

I’ll end with a picture from the cover of my favorite book on design, Type & Layout…

The designers who are communicating are gifts to their organization and beneficiaries, and will always have their plates full of interesting work.

How ‘Tactic Stacking’ Helps You Raise More Money

Steven | June 4, 2024May 31, 2024Ask

My last post was an introduction to the idea that donors often make decisions to give (or not to give) based on information that has nothing to do with the organization or its programs.

When an organization first makes this realization, a whole new world is opened up.

They see that, instead of just looking for new inspirational ways to describe their work, they start using the tactics and approaches that the “Fundraisers who came before us” discovered were effective.

Examples include:

Matching funds – “matching funds will double your impact!”
A deadline – “Please send your gift by June 30th”
Highlighting a need that’s happening soon – “The kids start arriving at camp in just a couple weeks!”
A limited time opportunity – “If we don’t buy this piece of property for our new building, it’ll go up for public sale.”

The magic really starts to happen (and the money really starts to roll in) when you do what’s called “tactic stacking” – using multiple tactics at the same time.

Take a look at this paragraph, which “stacks” all four of the tactics mentioned above:

The kids will be arriving at our summer camp at the end of the month! [NEED THAT’S HAPPENING SOON] And I’m thrilled to tell you that matching funds will double your gift – you can help send two children to camp instead of one! [MATCHING FUNDS] This is the only chance to send a kid to camp this year. [LIMITED TIME OPPORTUNITY] So please send your gift before June 30^th! [DEADLINE].

See how all those tactics work together to create a compelling argument for a donor to send in a gift today?

And that’s just the copy. Here are some of the Design tactics we could “stack on” to make this appeal even more compelling:

Use illustrations of kids doing fun camp activities
Have the reply device be designed to look like a “certificate” that’s “good for a day at camp for a child”
An insert that lists the daily schedule at camp, where a child has written in all the activities they are excited to do

Once you start to learn all the tactics, creating fundraising becomes an endlessly fun, creative endeavor. You’re no longer constrained to just talking about the programs and outcomes of your organization; you’re unleashed to use human psychology and behavior science to build compelling cases for your organization.

Today, your organization is somewhere on the continuum between “we just describe our work and ask for support” and “using all the tactics all the time.”

So I’ll just ask you a simple question: what tactic or tactics could you apply to your next piece of fundraising?

A Sentence that had Nothing to Do with the Organization

Steven | May 30, 2024May 30, 2024Ask

I was once part of a large-scale test where two versions of an appeal letter were sent to equal groups of donors:

One group was asked to sponsor a child
The other group was asked to sponsor a child whose birthday was the next month

The letters were exactly the same, apart from a sentence in the “birthday version” that said, “[Child Name]’s birthday is next month, and your sponsorship will be a life-changing gift.”

The “birthday version” was the clear winner of the test – significantly more donors responded to that version; it raised more money and resulted in more children being sponsored.

In fundraising, this type of thing happens all the time: donors are moved to action by content that has nothing to do with the organization, its programs, or the quality of its work.

Maybe better said, donors don’t give only because of what the organization does or the quality of their programs.

For instance, savvy fundraisers know that a donor is more likely to give if:

The beneficiary’s birthday is coming up (people like birthdays)
If matching funds will double their gift (people like to have more of an impact)
If donors know their gift is urgently needed (people feel great when they solve urgent problems)
If the donor knows a lot of people in their neighborhood are donating (people are more likely to donate if there’s “social proof” that people like them are donating)

I think of the bullet points above as things that a donor already likes to do. Donors like getting their money doubled, they like knowing that other people are giving, etc. They liked doing those things before they ever heard of your organization. And when a piece of fundraising gives them the chance to do those things, they are more likely to donate.

So, organizations that want to raise more and increase their impact will intentionally fill their letters / emails / events / in-person asks with reasons to give a gift that tap in to what donors already like to do.

As the “birthday version” showed, just one sentence that gives donors a reason to do what they already like to do can meaningfully increase how much money you raise.

The One Exception

Steven | May 28, 2024May 27, 2024Ask

Last week I wrote about “Ask Culture versus Guess Culture” in major gifts fundraising, and how Ask Culture results in raising more money and keeping more of your donors.

But after hitting publish I remembered something…

I know of one major gifts program that never asks donors to give but raises tons of money and has a high major donor retention rate.

Here’s how that program does it:

Every single conversation and communication contains a clear reminder of “the need” that the organization exists to serve.
- The only exception is when a donor is being Thanked for a gift they just made. Those calls / handwritten notes / receipt letters are full of thankfulness.
The organization absolutely “reports back” to donors on successes…
And they always mention what they think is needed next: from “serve the people who will need help next month” to “serve the people they haven’t reached yet” or “expand the successful program” or “start a new program.”

In a nutshell, the organization is so focused on “the situation” they exist to serve that they can’t help but mention that situation and the people they haven’t been able to help yet.

The consequence is the following three things are always being reinforced:

The need exists right now, today
What the organization would like to do about it next
That funding for “what’s next” is needed

(By the way, notice the contrast between that approach and the standard approach that focuses almost entirely on people they’ve already helped / things they’ve already done, and how they are helping today.)

To me, there’s something very pure about this organization’s approach to major donors. They do the “relational” parts of fundraising very well: they thank donors with real gratitude, they report back on progress made. They are personal and build strong relationships with donors…

But the organization always makes sure their donors are aware of the need for their work. They don’t make the foundational mistake of believing that making donors aware of their work will inspire significant giving.

This approach isn’t for everybody – in my experience it takes incredible emotional strength to be thinking about & sharing the need so constantly.

But this case shows that donors can handle it. And that you can succeed in major gifts fundraising without asking often or directly. But only if you have made the need abundantly clear and that funding is needed to meet it.

Ask Culture vs Guess Culture

Steven | May 23, 2024May 23, 2024Ask

Sometimes an idea or perspective from outside the world of Fundraising can help you see the work of Fundraising more clearly.

That’s what happened when I heard about “Ask Culture vs Guess Culture.”

Here’s a quote from when this idea first appeared online:

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.  

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer.

When an organization is operating in Guess Culture, here are three of the behaviors you see:

Over-stewarding of donors
Never asking, or Asks that aren’t direct or clear
- Perfect example: I did a “creative review” for an organization where I looked at twelve pieces of their fundraising. In all those pieces they never actually asked the donor to give a gift.
Under-communicating out of a fear of “donor fatigue”

You’re also seeing Guess Culture at work any time you hear a Major Gifts Officer say something like, “If you do a great job of stewarding a donor, you won’t even have to ask.”

Guess Culture and Fundraising

I think the unique demands of nonprofit fundraising cause people and organizations to operate in Guess Culture more than they normally would.

Asking for money is a vulnerable experience, and it’s hard to be vulnerable. Many times, for many reasons, it’s emotionally easier to shower donors with stewardship and give them the occasional “opportunity” to give… instead of boldly preparing a specific offer and asking the donor to make a gift.

And of course the Guess Culture approach works sometimes. Because donors are generous, any approach will work sometimes.

But looking at the performance of the nonprofits we’ve worked with over the years, an Ask Culture approach to major gifts fundraising (and to direct response fundraising) works better. It results in raising more money and keeping more donors year-over-year.

Ask Culture major gifts fundraising looks like:

When setting up a conversation or meeting, telling the donor in advance whether you’re going to ask for money or not
Being willing to ask major donors for more than one gift a year
Asking for a specific amount
Asking directly with phrases like, “…so I’m asking if you’ll give a gift of $10,000”
After the ask is made, being silent and letting the donor speak next

Of course there will be a few “no”s. Of course there will occasionally be an uncomfortable silence.

But you’ll get a lot more “yes”es and you’ll raise more money for your cause.

About Younger Donors…

Steven | May 21, 2024May 15, 2024Repeat

The next time a person at your nonprofit says, “We need to get younger donors!” have them read this:

Top 5 Mistakes: Chasing Younger Donors.

The post is from Bill Jacobs at Analytical Ones. Bill’s been analyzing nonprofit databases and fundraising effectiveness for 25 years, and he knows what he’s talking about.

He lays out the two main arguments for why nonprofits should not chase younger donors, and I’ll add three more:

The research I’ve seen indicates that older donors tend to give more than younger donors. So all things being equal, a 70-year-old donor is more valuable to an organization than a 35-year-old donor in the near-term.
Older donors give you a greater chance of receiving a legacy gift. Last I heard, the average legacy gift in the United States was North of $40,000. So a 70-year-old donor is more valuable to an organization than a 35-year-old donor in the long term, too.
On average, most donors don’t stay on a nonprofit’s donor file for more than 5 years. So even if you do manage to acquire a bunch of 35-year-old donors, the vast majority of them will have stopped giving 20 years before they’ve entered their prime giving years.

Read Bill’s post and have a couple of these numbers handy the next time someone brings up younger donors.

In fact, Bill’s whole “Top 5 Mistakes” series is great. Easy-to-read, short and data-driven, what’s not to like?

And I think we all know this, but I’ll say it to be safe: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with younger donors. Welcome them! But unless your cause is massively attractive to young people, trying to acquire younger instead of trying to acquire older donors is not a good financial decision.

Change the Recipe, Change the Results

Steven | May 16, 2024May 14, 2024Repeat

When a nonprofit is first founded, its fundraising letters / emails / personal asks tend to have high response rates and high average gifts.

But in my experience, the response rates and average gifts tend to go down as the organization grows.

Here’s my theory to explain this…

The recipe for fundraising right after an organization is founded is remarkably simple and goes like this:

The founder talks about whatever “the situation” is that caused him/her to start the organization
They describe what needs to be done to help, and how it will help
They ask the donor to give a gift to fund what needs to be done

Works like crazy.

But as a nonprofit ages and expands, it develops its own programs, approach, and expertise. It develops an organizational ego.

In a nutshell, this results in fundraising that talks more about the organization itself than it used to. The recipe changes to:

They talk about the work they are already doing
They describe how they do that work
They ask the donor to give a gift to fund their ongoing work

This fundraising recipe does not raise as much money. It lowers donors’ awareness about whatever “need” the organization exists to serve because “the situation” is rarely mentioned. And it lowers response rates and average gifts because the fundraising is mainly focused on work that has already been completed – most of the compelling reason to give a gift today has disappeared.

I don’t enjoy this truth, but it’s still true: fundraising to individual donors that talks about “powerful work that’s already done” will cause less money to come in than talking about “powerful work that needs to be done now that the donor can help make happen.”

Organizations that stick to the original recipe will grow faster.

Individual donors tend to give because there’s work that needs to be done. Not because the organization is already doing the work.