Steven Screen, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

What your next print newsletter should be like

Steven Screen | July 12, 2022June 16, 2022Report

It’s time to get tactical.

We gave you a couple big ideas for how to think about your print newsletter. (If you want to delight your donors and raise more money, that is.)

Now as we move into the details, here’s a summary for the elements of your newsletter:

Send it in a #10 or larger envelope (not a self mailer)
- Teaser should be “Your newsletter enclosed”
4 pages long (1 tabloid-sized sheet, folded in half to make 4 pages)
- The first three pages should be Stories of Success; between 2 and 4 stories, each about an individual beneficiary, each sharing the “before” and the “after” for that beneficiary, and each giving credit to the donor for making the transformation happen
- The back page should be a Story of Need with an offer: this is a story that describes a current need being faced by beneficiaries, and a description of how the donor’s gift of a certain size will perfectly meet the need for one person
A separate reply card, with bonus points for pre-printing the donor’s info and customizing the gift ask amounts based on the donor’s previous gift
A separate reply envelope that the donor can use to send back their gift

Of course there are other newsletter formats that work.

But if you’re looking to improve your newsletter, this particular way has been battle-tested by thousands of nonprofits.

It’s worked so many times for so many types of organizations that it’s our “default setting.” In other words, if a nonprofit asks Better Fundraising to create a newsletter – and we’re going to be retained or fired based on the results – this is the model we follow. It’s the model we recommend to all of our clients, the model we speak about at conferences, etc.

Why So Specific?

My goal is to show you exactly what to do to raise money and delight your donors, and to take the mystery out of successful nonprofit newsletters.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you. I heard from a client earlier today who said, “The reduction in anxiety from having a proven model to follow is priceless.”

That’s what we’re offering here. And next, we’ll tackle how to write your stories, how to design your newsletter, who to send it to, even the best way to write headlines and picture captions. Stay tuned!

This post was originally published on February 27, 2020. Get a free downloadable “e-book” of this whole series here.

“Why are you writing about the organization?”

Steven Screen | July 7, 2022July 19, 2022Report

This is the second post in our series on donor-centered print newsletters. The kind of newsletters that delight donors and raise more money for your nonprofit.

The first post was about the purpose of your newsletter. This post is the second and final Big Idea you need to succeed.

And after this – I promise – the posts will get tactical.

But if you don’t know this one idea, all the tactics in the world won’t help very much.

A Powerful, Unexpected Question

It’s 1994. I’m less than a year out of college working at a fundraising agency that specializes in helping large nonprofits raise money. And I’m writing my first newsletter.

I handed my draft to my boss – an accomplished, brilliant fundraiser.

He read the first story, scanned the rest of the stories, and handed the stack of paper back to me.

Then he asked me a powerful but unexpected question:

“Why Are You Writing About the Organization?”

I didn’t know it at the moment, but that was one of the most powerful lessons I ever learned about effective fundraising.

At the time all I could do was say, “What do you mean? It’s … the organization’s newsletter.”

“Sure.” My boss said, “but most donors aren’t reading a newsletter to find out anything about the organization. They are reading it to find out if their gift made a difference.

“The most effective newsletters are written to show donors what their gift accomplished. And the best way to do that is through stories about beneficiaries.

“So stop writing about the organization and its programs. Start writing about the donor and telling her stories about lives that have been changed because of her kindness. Then she’ll think it was a great idea to give to the organization, and be more likely to give again.”

So … I went back to my office to do a complete rewrite.

But I was a far more effective fundraiser from that moment forward.

Your Newsletter

As you create your newsletter, you will be tempted to “write about your organization.”

People in your organization will even push you to write about your organization.

They’ll say things like, “But we have to tell people about everything we do and tell them that we’re good at it!”

No. You don’t. In fact, when you do, fewer donors will read your newsletter. Because hearing about your organization is not why they are reading. They are reading because they are hoping to hear about themselves. Whether and how their gift made a difference. Whether they are a valuable part of your organization.

Keep this idea in mind as you read this series. Then all the tactics – the writing style, the headlines, the picture captions – will make sense.

You’ll start keeping your donors for longer. And your newsletter will become a major revenue source!

This post was originally published on February 25, 2020. Get a free downloadable “e-book” of this whole series here.

What the purpose of your newsletter SHOULD be

Steven Screen | July 5, 2022July 5, 2022Report

This is the first in a series of posts that will show you how to create donor-delighting, money-raising print newsletters.

The kind that your donors love to open, the kind that increases the chance they will keep giving to your organization year after year, and the kind that raise way more money than they cost to send out.

What Is Your Newsletter’s Purpose?

Here’s our approach, and it’s been successful for every type of organization in every sector we’ve tried:

Your newsletter exists to show your donor how her gift made a difference, and to show her what her gift today will do.

There’s a lot in that one sentence, which we’ll unpack during this series.

But it’s just as helpful to understand what your newsletter should not be:

It should not be a newspaper, full of all kinds of stories
It should not be about your organization, your programs, your staff, your volunteers, your sponsors, or your partners
It should not be about how much money you’ve raised
It should not be a “playbill” about the upcoming events and ways a donor can get involved
It should not “hide the good news” by only mentioning the donor at the very end of stories

And yet, those are the things that most nonprofits use their newsletters for.

That’s why most newsletters don’t get read.

That’s why they don’t measurably help organizations keep their donors.

And it’s why most newsletters don’t raise much (if any) money.

It’s absolutely OK if a print newsletter features one of those things, every once in a while, but here’s the Big Idea:

Your donor is more interested in reading about herself – about what she and her gift did – than she is reading about any of those other things.

So if you want her to read your newsletter, write to her and write about her.

You Need a To-do list and a Not-To-Do List

Newsletters don’t raise a lot of money by accident.

The content is curated and the offer decided. Then it’s written and designed with the intent to raise money.

Everything included in it is done with a purpose. Which means a bunch of things are excluded with a purpose.

For smaller organizations, this is hard. Because it means telling some staff that their program will never be featured in the newsletter. It means getting more stories and photos of beneficiaries. It means the ‘save the date’ for your next event needs to be an additional mailing, not in your newsletter.

It’s hard, but it’s worth it. This approach works measurably better than any other approach I’ve ever seen in my 27 years of fundraising.

If you’d like to know more, stay tuned (and subscribe to our blog if you haven’t already)!

This post was originally published on February 20, 2020. Get a free downloadable “e-book” of this whole series here.

Better Fundraising in Today’s Economy

Steven Screen | June 30, 2022June 28, 2022Ask

The economy in the United States is under stress. Inflation is driving prices up, and the stock market is down.

Thankfully, smart fundraisers have been through situations like this before. Here’s what to do…

Stay The Course

Do not cancel any fundraising.

You need to be sold out to your mission and your beneficiaries. Your job is to advocate for them and to let donors make decisions for whether to give or not.

Make Your Case Stronger Than Ever

The media will be focusing your donor’s attention on a very narrow swath of issues. Your organization will need to “break through” that noise to get your donors’ attention.

Additionally, some of your donors may choose to give to a couple fewer charities than normal. You want to make your case so strongly that your organization is not one of the organizations a donor cuts from their giving.

Many Donors Will Not Be Affected

The last couple of years have been incredible for some donors – and many of them will become more generous during a recession… if you give them the chance to be.

The Fundraising Outlook Is Brighter Than Most People Think

Two reasons:

Economic situations like this one disproportionately affect younger people, but donors tend to be older. Fewer of an organization’s donors will be affected by this than most people assume.
Awareness of Need is high. When people’s awareness of a Need is high, they are more likely to give.

The economic situation may change your donors’ circumstances, but it will not change their priorities. And they still care about your beneficiaries and cause.

Do not take the decision to give out of your donors’ hands. Give them the chance to be the generous people they wish to be.

Donor Acquisition: Think Medium-Term

Steven Screen | June 28, 2022June 23, 2022Repeat

If you’re thinking about doing paid donor acquisition, you need to learn to think in the medium-term.

Here’s the story…

Two organizations we’re honored to serve spent significant sums on donor acquisition right before the pandemic. One spent about $500,000, the other spent a little less than $1,000,000.

Both efforts lost money that year. The campaign that cost $500,000 raised about $390,000. The campaign also acquired new donors, to be sure. But loud voices in the organizations disparaged the campaign.

And it’s easy to see why the campaign was disliked IF you’re thinking in the short term.

However, we recently looked back at all the donors that were acquired in that campaign. The organization discovered that those donors had given over $4,100,000 since being acquired.

Getting a return of $4,100,000 on an investment of $500,000 is a pretty good deal. What looked like a “loss” of $110,000 in the short term was a gain of $3,600,000 (and counting!) in the medium-term.

(Of course there have been costs to cultivate those donors in the intervening years, but they are super minimal.)

What’s more, the organization would have been in real trouble during the pandemic if they hadn’t had those donors helping out.

If your organization is thinking about moving into paid donor acquisition, I hope this story serves as encouragement. Moving to paid donor acquisition is a big step forward in an organization’s growth. And you can read this post too, which will help you think critically about how to “make the leap” for your organization in particular.

In short-term thinking, investing in donor acquisition a losing proposition. In medium-term thinking (and beyond), investing in donor acquisition is investing in the growth and stability of your organization.

Authenticity Isn’t Always Useful

Steven Screen | June 23, 2022June 22, 2022Ask

In the nonprofit world we tend to embrace authenticity.

It’s assumed that if we’re authentic, and the fundraising we create is authentic, that we’ll attract more people to our cause. More money will be raised, and we’ll do more good.

But there are clear limits to this line of thinking.

Say you’re at an organization that has eighteen different programs. But your fundraising is most successful when it focuses on one particular program. Furthermore, that program has a holistic, whole-person approach to caring for people of all ages. But the fundraising clearly works best when it asks donors to “feed one child.”

In that scenario, any fundraising you create that focuses on “feeding a child” will feel wildly inauthentic to program staff and anyone who understands the depth and breadth of your work.

However, the fundraising you create that focuses on “feeding a child” serves your mission by helping donors understand a powerful part of your organization’s complex approach.

Think of a college professor. Can you imagine how an accomplished astrophysicist – tenured and with a long track record of publishing cutting-edge research – feels when teaching “Astronomy 101” to a bunch of college freshmen (some of whom are hung over)?

Do we think she feels “authentic” giving those lectures when she could be discussing the latest findings with her peers?

Probably not. She does it because it’s part of the job, and because it’s likely there are some future astrophysicists in her class. How will they get excited about the subject if she doesn’t show up in an engaging way? Furthermore, she can’t show up in class and talk to the freshmen like she talks to her peers. She makes the generous choice to speak to them in language they’ll understand.

Fundraising is the same. There are some donor communications we need to make – even if we don’t prefer them – because it’s part of the job.

And how will the future volunteers / donors / advocates get excited about our work if we don’t show up – speaking to them at their level – in an engaging way?

There’s nothing wrong with communicating authentically. The trap is when “communicating authentically” comes to mean “we talk about our work in one particular way that feels authentic to us.”

Nonprofits should make the generous choice to talk to different audiences in different ways: we should communicate about our work differently to institutional funders who are experts in our fields differently than we communicate to mass donors.

Our primary focus should not be on being authentic to ourselves, it should be on being relevant to the particular audience being communicated to.

It’s a Trap!

Steven Screen | June 21, 2022June 15, 2022Repeat

Please please please, do not get stuck in the classic nonprofit trap of thinking, “We want to raise more money but we have to sound like us.”

First, let’s take just a moment to acknowledge the strategic absurdity of expecting to raise meaningfully more money this year but “say the same things we always say in the way we always say them.”

What I want to focus on is this: I know of no nonprofit with a thriving fundraising operation that “sounds like” they sounded when they started. Instead, they experimented with and tailored their message over time, in order to raise more and do the most good.

“Sound like us” or “sound like me” are good values, but should not be the primary values.

An organization’s primary value for their fundraising communications should be something like, “we will continuously evolve our fundraising messaging so we can fund more and more of our mission work.”

(I’m assuming we’re telling the truth, etcetera etcetera.)

What’s more, an organization should “sound” different when communicating with different audiences. You should sound different when talking to an experienced professional at a Foundation partner than you sound in an email asking non-donors to make their first gift.

The primary goal for an organization’s fundraising communications should not be to “sound like us.” The primary goal should be to evolve and improve “what you sound like” over time in order to raise the most money and keep as many donors as possible each year.

Three Reasons You Should Occasionally Let Your Fundraiser Try Something New

Steven Screen | June 16, 2022June 14, 2022Repeat

If you have some control or influence over fundraising at your organization – please take a minute to read this.

Maybe you’re the Executive Director, or a Board member, or the Head of Programs. But you have some “say” over your fundraising strategy, content and language.

Here’s what I want you to do:

Let your Fundraiser try something new every once in a while. Even something you don’t like.

There are three main reasons you want to do this…

No one piece of fundraising is going to make or break your year. So it’s fine if you try something new every once in a while, even if you’re a small organization. Most nonprofits overestimate the importance of any one particular piece of fundraising.
If a smart Fundraiser doesn’t get to try new things every once in a while, they will likely leave. One of the reasons nonprofit fundraising has a massive turnover problem is that Fundraisers are told they will be responsible for the fundraising – and usually told they need to raise more money than last year – but also must take all of the advice from non-Fundraisers. Would you thrive in that environment?
For your organization to raise a different amount of money, you must communicate differently than you have in the past. Put another way, your current communication plan and messaging are perfectly designed to raise the amount of money that you raised last year. If you want to raise meaningfully more, you need to make meaningful changes.

If you don’t accept a little risk by giving your Fundraisers the freedom and leeway they need to make changes, you haven’t given them the freedom and leeway they need to achieve the fundraising goals.

The Pandemic Fundraising Lesson That’s Applicable Tomorrow

Steven Screen | June 14, 2022June 14, 2022Repeat

Isn’t it odd that, during the pandemic, many organizations whose work had nothing to do with the pandemic raised record amounts of money?

What should that strange fact teach Fundraisers who are paying attention? Because on the surface of things it sure doesn’t make sense.

I think there are a bunch of reasons, and here’s my attempt at a summary…

People give charitable gifts to exert a little control over the world.

All of us like feeling that we have control in their lives. The pandemic took away that control. Jobs were lost, jobs changed, we couldn’t leave the house, etc.

Yet people still had a deep need for control.

One of the things they did was give to charities. They gave, according to their priorities, to exert a little control over the world. To remake a little bit of the world into the world they wish it was.

Those people – your donors – determined their priorities long ago. They had their priorities before they started giving to your organization, and will most likely have those priorities after they have finished giving to your organization.

The pandemic changed their circumstances, but did not change their priorities.

And For Today…

The principle we’re discussing is good to remember if North America slides into a recession.

If (when?) that happens, the voices at nonprofits will start sharing their reasons that “we shouldn’t be asking donors for gifts right now.”

But remember: the recession might change donors’ circumstances, but it won’t change their priorities.

That’s exactly when you need to remember to be sold out for your cause. Give your donors a chance to “exert a little control over the world” through your organization to help your cause or beneficiaries.

Everyone (and by that I mean your beneficiaries, your donors, and your organization) will be glad you did.

(H/t to Andrew who recently reminded me of this in a meeting.)