Steven Screen

Steven Screen is Co-Founder of The Better Fundraising Company and lead author of its blog. With over 30 years' fundraising experience, he gets energized by helping organizations understand how they can raise more money. He’s a second-generation fundraiser, a past winner of the Direct Mail Package of the Year, and data-driven.

Feedback Loops

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
experiment

Every time you send out of piece of fundraising, you’ve sent out a little experiment into the world.

Is your organization reviewing the results of your experiments?

For instance, your organization has done a lot of experimenting with email subject lines (whether you’ve thought about it that way or not). Have you looked at your open rates to see what types of subject lines generate the highest open rates? After all, the more people who open your email, the more people who read your email, the more people who are likely to give to your email.

Bigger picture – every time your organization completes a year’s worth of fundraising, that’s like sending out a slightly larger experiment into the world.

Are you measuring your “overall donor retention rate”? How about your “major donor retention rate”? Or – I love this one – your “major donor revenue retention rate”? (That one tells you whether your major donor management system is keeping and lifting your current major donors, or if you’re reliant on new major donors to hit your goal each year. Big difference.)

So… you’ve done a lot of experiments.

Is your organization looking at the results of your experiments? Is your organization learning from them? Is your organization getting better with each email, each letter, and each year?

Ready for Download: Free eBook on Donor Complaints

Steven Screen  |  Thank

Are complaints – or the fear of complaints – stopping your organization from connecting with more donors and raising more money?

Read the free eBook that will help your organization make “the leap” to the next level of fundraising by:

  • Showing the different types of complaints (and what they mean)
  • Giving you a script for how to respond to a Complainer
  • Giving you a simple system for handling all complaints (even internal complaints)

It’s called, “The Sanity-Saving Magic of Understanding Donor Complaints” and you can get it free right here.

Don’t let the fear of complaints hold you back! This eBook demystifies complaints, shows how complaints can hold an organization’s fundraising hostage, and gives your organization the tools to develop a healthy understanding and relationship with complaints.

Just released today – download it now!

Your Organization’s Habits – Are They Good?

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
habit

Every nonprofit’s fundraising plan is a bundle of habits.

  • Some organizations habitually send out 4 appeals, 1 per quarter.
  • Some organizations habitually call all new donors.
  • Some organizations habitually send out a Christmas card to all donors. 

Think for a second about your organization’s habits. 

The big question is whether an organization has data to tell them whether their habits are helpful… or not.

Quick example.  I once served an organization that habitually sent Christmas cards to all their donors.  They were certain the cards helped with their year-end fundraising, but they had no data to back that up.  And they’d done it for so many years that no one around the table remembered a time when they didn’t send the cards.

So we divided their donors into two random-but-equal groups.  One group received the Christmas cards and the year-end campaign.  The other group did not receive cards, and only received the year-end campaign. 

In January we looked at the results.  The response rate, average gift size, and net revenue from each group was essentially the same. 

They discovered that their habit of sending Christmas cards did not increase how much money they raised.  But it did increase expenses. 

So the following year they dropped the habit. 

Please take a quick look at your organization’s habits.  Make a list of habits that have been directed by data.  By that I mean you’ve tried at least one alternative and the alternative was measurably worse. 

Then make a list of the habits where your organization has little to no information about how an alternate approach might work.  These are the habits that are likely to be personal preferences, or passion projects of an important stakeholder, or traditions that have been handed down from the past. 

The longer the list of habits without information, the more fundraising opportunity you have.

Writing Tip: Put the Most Important Information First

Steven Screen  |  Ask
important

There’s a writing principle you should live by:

Put the most important information first

Here’s what I mean.  Here’s a sentence from an e-appeal I edited recently:

Industrial, resource-heavy growth threatens Maryland’s fragile wetlands.

This sentence does what we were taught to do in school: explain and provide context, then make the point. 

Let’s look at it again, this time with a simple sentence diagram (apologies if you get flashbacks to middle school):

Industrial, resource-heavy growth
<           explains the context            > 

threatens Maryland’s fragile wetlands.
  <  idea that matters most to the donor  >

The problem is that in the mail and email, the end of a long sentence is less likely to be read than the beginning of a sentence.  (Look at a heat map and you’ll see how little most people read when they first look at your fundraising.)

So you want to put the most important information first, and then explain.

So how should you write the sentence above if you assume that many readers are only going to read the beginning of a sentence?  You’d write something like this:

Maryland’s fragile wetlands are threatened
  <  idea that matters most to the donor  >

by industrial, resource-heavy growth.
<           explains the context            > 

Writing in this way is one of the reasons that effective fundraising in email and the mail feels different from what your English teacher taught you. 

Additionally, this approach occasionally results in using the passive voice. This bothers people sometimes because the rule they live by is to ’never use the passive voice.’ The rule *I* live by is that, on behalf of beneficiaries, I’ll break any grammar rule I need to in order to create more effective communication.

Because beginning with the idea that matters most to the donor will make a few more people “get the message” your fundraising is sending.  That causes a few more people to give, which causes your organization to do more good.

It’s a great, free way to get a little more out of each appeal and e-appeal!

Easy Money: Ask Your Monthly Donors to Give a Little More Each Month

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Ask for more.

Have you ever asked your monthly donors to upgrade, to give you a few more dollars each month?

You should. Here’s why…

Your monthly donors are usually 3 things:

  • Your true fans. They are the folks who are really bought-in to your organization or your cause. They cared enough to make the commitment to be a monthly donor.
  • Able to give more. Most (but of course not all) monthly donors have the capacity to give more. You already know that they respond great when you send them appeals, and often send in 13th and 14th gifts during each year.
  • Pleased to give more. They are true fans. They love getting to help your cause, and they love getting to help a bit more than they normally do.

Put all that together and you can see that it’s a no-brainer to ask monthly donors to “give a little more each month.”

Here’s a quick summary of how we do it:

  • Once a year, run a mini-campaign to monthly donors that asks them to increase their monthly gift by a few dollars.
  • A direct mail letter tends to be the anchor of the campaign. Include email if you can. The best-performing campaigns always include telemarketing, but you don’t need it to succeed.
  • The campaign’s messaging thanks the donor for the good they are faithfully doing every month, tells the donor how either/both costs and the need are increasing, and asks the donor if they, “could give an extra $4, $7 or even $11 more each month to help” (or something like that).

Oh, and we usually run the campaign in one of two general timeslots: January 15 through February 15, or September after Labor Day.

You’ll be thrilled at how many of your monthly donors say “yes” and start giving more each month. And I’ve never seen the increase in their monthly giving affect their response to other fundraising efforts throughout the year.

The things you might fear will happen, won’t happen. You won’t have mass cancellations. You won’t get complaints.

I helped an organization with a thriving monthly donor program do this for the first time several years ago. They began raising an additional $60,000 every single month. Now they run the “monthly donor upgrade” campaign once a year, and they send it to every returning monthly donor who didn’t upgrade the previous year.

Now, that’s a big organization. But right now, many of your monthly donors could be giving your organization a little more money each month and would be happy to do it.

My recommendation? Prepare a “monthly donor upgrade” campaign and run it this September or at the beginning of next year. You’ll be thrilled you did.

The Need Never Ends

Steven Screen  |  Ask
problem

There’s an idea I recommend removing from your fundraising (if you use it):

Telling people that “the need never ends.”

I’m sharing this because last week I saw a text-driven billboard from an organization I support. The billboard said:

THE NEED
NEVER ENDS

I have no testing data on this particular idea or phrase. But even though the idea is 100% true, I suggest that it’s not a good idea to highlight to donors.

A core motivator for individual donors is to make a change happen. By saying that the need never ends, this organization is also guiding people’s attention on the fact that their contributions will never solve the problem – that the situation will never change.

Not exactly motivating, eh? Anyone want to make T-shirts with “Donors are Sysiphus”?!?

By focusing their donors’ attention on something that donors cannot change, the organization removes a core motivation to give.

Some gifts will come in, of course. All it takes for some people to donate is to be made aware of what’s happening. But more gifts tend to come in when fundraising gives donors reasons to give today – and “the need never ends” is not a reason to give today.

It’s important to note that there are people who are motivated by the need never ending. For instance, “subject matter experts” who think at the level of the cause yet also know that something still needs to be done today. Executive Directors and Directors of Development who know that they need to raise money every single year.

But 99% of the people driving by the billboard (or on your mailing list) don’t think like that.

So Instead…

For individual donors, use your fundraising to focus their attention onto something they can help change.

Share a need that’s happening right now, or 4 weeks from now.

This usually means narrowing the focus of the fundraising from the Cause or the Big Picture to the personal and relatable. Share a story of a person or thing that needs a little help right now. Or talk about the help that is needed over the next month.

The next time you find your fundraising talking about how big a problem is, I advise you to narrow the focus.

Donors don’t give because a problem is big; they give because a problem is solvable.

Real Connection Goes Both Ways

Steven Screen  |  Ask
connection

When you’re at a nonprofit, there’s a joyous connection that happens when you feel like donors really “get” your organization and what you’re doing.

You feel seen.  You feel affirmed.

And here’s the thing: there’s also a joyous connection for a donor when they feel like an organization really “gets” them.

Does your organization’s fundraising make your donors feel like you really “get” them?

***

When you’re in a personal relationship with a donor, it’s not that hard to make a donor feel like you really “get” them.  You can ask them questions about their story and about why they donate.  You can create a fundraising ask or offer just for them that shows them you understand what they care about and why they give.

It’s harder to do in a piece of direct mail that goes to all donors who have given a gift in the last 18 months.  It’s harder still in an email that goes to everyone.

But it’s possible. 

Here’s How

In prominent locations in your fundraising, include sentences that attribute to the reader what you know about people who are likely to donate. 

Here are some examples:

  • In an appeal – “I know you care about classical music.”
  • In an automated Thank You email – “You just saw a situation that touched your heart and you did something about it.  Thank you!”
  • In a newsletter – “You know that someone in Gary’s situation is in real danger, and that’s why I’m so excited to tell you what your generosity helped make possible for him.”

You get the idea.

And you also see that this isn’t just the “window dressing” of including the word “you” a lot.  It’s actively thinking about what donors care about.  It’s thinking through a donor’s personal experience with your cause and/or beneficiaries.  It’s thinking through the emotions a donor experiences as they give a gift.  And then, on behalf of your beneficiaries, mirroring those thoughts and experiences back to donors.

It’s not a magic bullet.  And there are tons of other things you have to do well to succeed. 

But when your fundraising consistently includes these little hints that you understand your reader, you create a two-way connection.

That’s more powerful than the one-way connection donors are used to.  It’s similar to moving from “like” to “love.”

So put yourself in the following situation: it’s right before dinner.  Your donor is quickly processing their mail.  They have two envelopes in front of them, but only have time to open one.  Your donor must make a quick, subconscious decision.

Which letter do you think the donor is more likely to open?  The one from “one of those organizations that I like” … or the letter from “that one organization that gets me”?

Awareness of the Problem > Awareness of the Work

Steven Screen  |  Report
awareness

The previous post showed how fundraisers can harness awareness and tension to raise more money.

There’s a key thing to note, and it’s worth taking a whole post to say it well…

You want awareness of the problem your organization exists to solve more than awareness of your organization’s work to solve the problem.

When a nonprofit’s fundraising creates awareness of the problem they are working on, recipients of the fundraising experience tension and are compelled to action.

Note: if causing your donors to experience tension doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, remember that tension is the source of almost all actions taken by humans:

  • If I’m having health problems because of what I eat, I experience tension with what I eat, and I take an action to eat healthier.
  • If I’m wanting a new TV, I experience tension with my current TV, and I take an action to buy a new TV.
  • If I see a family who is losing their apartment because they are caring for a daughter who is in the hospital for several months, I experience tension with that situation, and I send in a gift to help them keep their apartment.

It’s all the same thing.  This type of tension is your friend in fundraising.

So, when a nonprofit creates awareness of the problem that the organization works on, donors experience tension with that situation, and send in a gift to help solve the problem through the nonprofit.

But when a nonprofit creates awareness of the work the organization is already doing on the problem… where’s the tension?

Why would people feel tension?  It sounds like the organization has everything taken care of.  They are helping so many people!  That’s so great!

In your fundraising, make sure you’re raising the right kind of awareness.  If a nonprofit is always and only telling stories about people who have already been helped… you’re raising the less helpful kind of awareness, so you’re raising less money than you could be.

In our experience, the organizations that raise the most money and retain more of their donors have about a 2:1 ratio – they “raise awareness of the problem their organization is working on” about twice as often as they “raise awareness about the work their organization is doing.”

How to Change the World

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tension

In a post called “How to change the world,” Seth Godin recently said,

All successful cultural change (books, movies, public health), has a super-simple two-step loop:

AWARENESS
TENSION
–>Loop<–

It’s easy to focus on awareness. Get the word out. Hype. Promo.

I think that’s a mistake.

Because awareness without tension is useless.

The tension is like pulling back a rubber band.

WHY would someone who becomes aware take action?

Here’s how that works in nonprofit fundraising:

  • Awareness – the nonprofit creates this.  Nonprofits make donors aware of the problem that needs to be solved, of the need that needs to be met. 
  • Tension – the donor feels this.  They feel the tension between the way the world is today and how they wish the world would be. 

Seth asks, “WHY would someone who becomes aware take action?” 

Here’s our answer for fundraising: a donor will take action when the internal tension they feel is strong enough, and when the nonprofit makes it easy for the donor to see that their gift will make a meaningful difference.

This is the successful recipe for an appeal: show the donor what’s happening in the world, and show the donor what their gift will do to solve the problem.

The nonprofit provides the awareness of the problem.  The donor provides the tension.  The result is a gift.  And the partnership between the nonprofit and the donor changes the world.

There are other pieces of communication necessary, of course.  Nonprofits should Thank their donors, and Report back to them on what their gifts accomplished.

But – importantly – do any of your fundraising pieces create awareness of the need, let the donor experience tension, and then make it easy for the donor to see the change in the world that their gift will make?