Reminding vs. Informing

Steven | August 26, 2021August 25, 2021Ask

The most effective fundraising spends more time reminding donors of what they already know than it does sharing new information.

Let’s say you’re fundraising in the education space, and you’re creating a fundraising message.

You’ll be tempted to say things like:

“Over half of our students received some form of financial assistance last semester”

“Our nursing program is one of the most effective in the country at producing graduates who are ready to work the day after graduation”

“The need for well-trained construction workers is higher right now than any time in the last 70 years”

Notice that all of those are new information to the reader.

There’s nothing wrong with any of them. Any one of them could be part of a successful fundraising message.

But don’t give your reader too much new information – that increases the amount of work she has to do to understand your fundraising message. And the more work she has to do, the less likely she is to finish reading your message.

So savvy fundraisers decrease the reader’s cognitive load by filling their fundraising with statements that the donor already knows and believes, like:

“You know how important a child’s education is for their future success.”

“Some members of our community need help to attend, and you can give a student who needs financial help the same wonderful experience that you had.”

“You’ve seen all the construction around here – you know the Trades are having trouble finding trained workers.”

Notice how the donor already knows and believes all of those things?

Reminding a donor what she already knows is a surer path to success than giving your donor new information to convince her to make a gift. It lowers the cognitive load for her to process your fundraising message. It emphasizes that your organization “gets” her.

The Exceptions that Prove the Rule

There are some exceptions. I’d absolutely give donors new information that:

The organization has a shortfall
There’s been a disaster of some kind
There’s a particularly tough or interesting story

Notice how these three examples are things the donor cares about.

She cares that there’s been a disaster, or that the organization has a shortfall because those things affect what she already knows and cares about.

Contrast that type of new information to something like, “our program has experienced 140% growth over the last four years.”

Any time you find yourself writing a sentence has new information for a donor, ask yourself two questions:

Are most donors going to care about this piece of information?
Instead of including this sentence, would it be more powerful to remind the donor of something I know she cares about?

The result of asking yourself those two questions will be fundraising that resonates more with your donors and brings in more gifts.

What Numbers Should Be In Your Appeal?

Steven | August 24, 2021August 26, 2021Ask

I often help organizations raise more money by helping them see that they have too many numbers in their appeals and e-appeals.

Take a look at this example where I’ve emphasized the numbers in red…

The Membership For Everyone program provides low-income families with a health club membership at a substantially reduced rate of $25. This program supports income-qualified families in vulnerable situations to come exercise, play and learn just as anybody else would with the same benefits as any other membership we offer, like the one you had.

Our goal is to serve 3,000 families through the Membership For Everyone program. We are currently over 1,500 with a 140% growth over the last four years.

This Program is supported by individuals and organizations in our community to help offset the costs of the membership(s). Donations toward this program range from $1,000 to $5,000.

That’s eight numbers in three paragraphs.

Making it even more complex is that they are different types of numbers all mixed together. We’ve got dollar amounts, we’ve got percentages. We’ve got numerals, we’ve got words. We’ve got a goal, we’ve got actuals. We’ve got membership rates, we’ve got gift ranges.

And let’s not miss something: the organization wrote this believing that by including those numbers, the donor would understand the situation more fully and be more likely to give a gift. The organization’s heart was in the right place.

But here’s the thing: it’s a lot of work for a donor to read each number, put it in the correct context, and remember it in case they need to know it later in the letter.

The more work you require a reader to do, the less likely they are to finish reading the letter. The less likely they are to finish reading the letter, they less likely you are to get a gift.

Which is why successful direct response appeals and e-appeals generally have very few numbers.

My general rule of thumb is to have no more than one number.

**But There Are Helpful Numbers**

There are absolutely GOOD numbers to have in appeals. For instance:

The cost to help one person
The number of people a donor can help
Gift ask amounts
Multipliers (like a matching grant)

Notice something? All of those numbers are about the donor. Take a look at that list again with a bit of editorial added:

The cost to help one person (“How much will it cost me to help?”)
The number of people a donor can help (“How many people will I help with my gift?”)
Gift ask amounts (“How much should I give today?”)
Multipliers (“How big an impact will I have?”)

That’s why bulleted lists like this one – even though it has so many numbers – are seen all the time in successful appeals:

Your gift of $25 will be doubled to $50 to help 10 people
Your gift of $50 will be doubled to $100 to help 20 people
Your gift of $100 will be doubled to $200 to help 40 people

What (or Who) Are Your Numbers About?

Hopefully it’s obvious that I do not want you to leave this post thinking, “numbers in appeals are bad.”

But do pay attention to what or who the numbers are about. If they directly apply to your reader/donor, they are probably helpful numbers.

If they are statistics, percentages or large numbers… think twice. They’re probably about the situation you are describing, and should be drastically reduced or replaced with a story about one example.

The One Exception

I can only think of one exception to this truth: Disaster Emergency Appeals.

In emergency appeals about disasters, the numbers seem to function as “validation” that it’s a big disaster and that the donor’s help is needed.

So when I see something like this in an emergency appeal about the earthquake in Haiti last week…

Three days ago a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. More than 1,400 dead and, at this point, at least 7,100 people have been injured.

We are also hearing that more than 700 buildings have collapsed. Homes, hospitals, schools and churches have been damaged.

…I think it’s probably going to work great. But I wouldn’t use that approach in any other type of appeal.

Next For You

If you have a moment, go scan your recent appeals and e-appeals for numbers.

If you’ve been using too many numbers, or the wrong types of numbers, remember that when you write your next appeal. If you’re successful, I predict you’ll start raising more money with the next appeal or e-appeal you send out!

Windows Are More Important Than Frames

Steven | August 17, 2021August 17, 2021Ask

There’s a counterintuitive truth in mass donor fundraising:

If you talk less about your organization in your fundraising, over time donors come to value your organization more.

We know this because when we help organizations create fundraising that talks less about their organizations, the following things happen:

Short term revenue goes up
Donor retention goes up
The number of major donors increases
Long term revenue goes up

The best analogy I’ve come up with to explain why this happens is about windows and window frames.

Here’s what I mean…

Think of your donor communications as a window. And for a window to function, you need to have both a frame and the glass.

The content in your fundraising that’s about the people you help, or the cause you work on, is the “glass” in the window.

The content about your organization is the “frame.”

The more content about your organization in your fundraising, the wider your frame is. And the wider your frame is, the smaller the glass needs to be in order to fit inside the frame.

The smaller the glass, the tinier the window for your donors to “see through” to the people you help or the cause you work on.

Why is this important?

Because the people your organizations helps, or the cause your organization is working on, is more compelling than your organization itself.

In other words, donors are more interested in looking through the window than they are looking at the window frame.

The Counterintuitive Consequence…

When you use a “thin frame” and show donors more of what they came for, an amazing thing happens over time.

Donors come to value your organization more highly than they value other organizations. Why?

Because every time donors look at a piece of communication from you, the donor sees the thing they care about most.

Put another way, by talking less about your organization in your fundraising, donors come to value your organization more.

Your Frame is Important

Your frame can add value. It’s important. You can even use the frame to shape the conversation.

And it’s one of the ways a donor comes to know your organization and what you stand for.

But as you construct your fundraising – as you decide what to talk about and how much to talk about it – always remember that donors are usually far more interested in looking at what they can see through the window than looking at the frame.

Context is Everything

Steven | August 12, 2021August 11, 2021Ask

Context is everything in fundraising.

A conversation with a long-time major donor whose child was impacted by your organization’s work is different than a conversation with a potential major donor you’re meeting for the first time.

We all intuitively get this. And we modify our writing / behavior / messaging accordingly.

But when creating mass donor fundraising, nonprofits raise a lot less money because they forget this lesson in all sorts of little ways.

Take a look at these two examples.

Some organizations call the people they help “our clients.” That’s defining the helped people based on the organization’s relationship with them.

Saying “Will you support our work?” make sense (and feels powerful) from an organization’s point of view. But it’s defining the work based on the organization’s relationship to it.

The first rule of persuasion is, “You cannot take a person where you want them to go until you first meet them where they are.”

So you want to start with the donor’s context – you want to meet the donor where the donor is.

So instead of saying, “our clients,” you might say, “people suffering from PTSD who need counselling.” By naming what it is you’re helping with – rather than using the internal shorthand of “our clients” – you’ve “met the donor where they are.”

Instead of asking donors to support your work, ask them to “help a person suffering from PTSD.” Asking donors to “right wrongs” or “fight injustices” will always be more effective than asking them to support your organization.

Here’s another example from a piece of fundraising I saw the other day. The organization said this:

Please help stop human trafficking, your gift will support our organization’s work.

But don’t you think they would raise more money (and stop more trafficking) if they said this?

Please help stop human trafficking, your gift will help keep a young girl safe.

To a donor, it’s more important to “keep a girl safe” than it is to “support an organization.”

The Key Realization

It’s powerful to realize that most donors care more about the issue you’re working on than they care about your organization.

Why? It helps you remember that even though your donors serve your organization through their giving, you’re also serving donors by giving them an opportunity to do something about a cause they care about.

And when you remember that you’re serving donors, you’re more likely to go to their context – to “meet them where they’re at.”

When you use a context that makes more sense to donors, you serve donors more effectively and, as a result, you raise more money.

The Olympics and Year-end appeals

Steven | August 10, 2021August 9, 2021Repeat

I watched a little of the Olympics last week and noticed how the champions at the Olympics have a lot in common with the champions of year-end fundraising.

What do they have in common? The “champions” practice and compete all year long – not just when the spotlight is shining on them

There are a lot of nonprofits that send out a year-end appeal – and maybe one other appeal during the year.

That would be like the South Korean archery team just picking up their bows a couple times a year. They’ll never reach their potential.

Instead, the archers practice all the time. They enter several smaller competitions. All building towards the Olympics.

Similarly, the nonprofits who want to “reach their fundraising potential” when the spotlight shines on them at year-end practice all year long. They work on perfecting their Spring Appeal. They sweat over every word of the Ask at their event. They send out one e-appeal a month, track the results, and see what their donors are most likely to respond to.

They practice. Because how do they expect to get better at something they only do once or twice a year?

And because they’ve been practicing the whole year, they SHINE when the spotlight hits them.

They raise record-breaking amounts of money at year end.

You know those swimmers who break the world record as they win the gold medal? That could be your nonprofit with your year-end fundraising – but you have to put in the practice.

If you haven’t been practicing this year, I suggest you start. You’ll raise money this fall, and you’ll raise more money at year-end because of it.

And if you or anyone on your staff is worried that you’ll be asking too much, read this.

One More Thing…

You know how you probably won’t think about archery again until the next Olympics? And how you probably won’t even think about archery in the meantime?

The archers don’t have a choice about that. They don’t control what’s on the viewers screens.

But your nonprofit has a choice.

If you choose to send more letters, and send more emails, you’ll be on your viewers’ screens a lot more often.

And then you won’t be forgotten. Your donors will get to know you better. You’ll build relationship. And because of that you’ll raise more money and do more good.

Bragging is not Reporting (example)

Steven | August 5, 2021August 3, 2021Report

In our experience, most organizations don’t Report enough (especially to major donors). And when they do, they focus on what the organization did, on the organization’s role in the story.

We call that bragging. As in, “Our programs provided holistic care to 345 people…”

That leads to “Ask, Thank, Brag, Repeat” instead of the far more successful “Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat.” Remember … focus on your donor’s role in the story, not your organization’s!

Example Time

Here’s part of a newsletter story – a Report – that a client of ours sent to donors a couple months prior to working with us. Notice the bragging.

Our Dentists on the Road Program provides free, urgent dental care to low-income children and adults who lack insurance or a realistic way to pay for treatment. The service is provided in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa. Our fleet of dental vans provides up to 30 clinics per week.

Last year with the help of dedicated volunteers, we provided approximately $5 worth of care to patients for every $1 invested in the program.

In 2017, our 12 Nebraska Dentists on the Road vans treated more than 17,000 people. These people are no longer battling the intense pain and preventing future systemic complications associated with advanced dental diseases as well as socio-economic challenges associated with severe dental problems.

Children from lower-income families are almost twice as likely to have decay as those from higher-income families, yet they face disproportionately high barriers to receiving care. While in theory all Nebraska children are covered by Healthy Kids insurance, there are many reasons why they may be having trouble accessing it, such as difficulty finding providers that will accept it.

Notice how:

The donor is never mentioned?
There’s a lot of numbers, medical jargon and education?
Notice that when you run into all that detail you start to skip ahead? So do your donors.

Now look at the next time we talked about this program. We told the story of one person who had been helped, we prominently mentioned the donor’s role, and we gave the donor the credit:

Emergency Root Canal Saved Schoolgirl’s Tooth!

Your kind gift helped save the smile of 14-year-old Cecelia who needed urgent dental work.

When Cecelia bumped her tooth, it seemed like a harmless accident.

Her mother thought the soreness and swelling would go away, but the pain went from bad to worse and Cecelia begged to stay home from school.

But thanks to your gift, Cecelia was able to be helped by the Dentists on the Road program.

It turned out that Cecelia had nerve damage and an infection in one of…

There are a handful of things to notice here, all of which work together to make this an effective Report. This story:

Focuses on a person, not a program.
Quickly summarizes the need, then showed the donor how they helped meet that need.
- ➣ We do this because eye-tracking studies show that most donors don’t read the whole story.
Directly credits the donor for causing the transformation.
The language and paragraphs are simpler and easier to read quickly.

Now your donor knows – at a glance – that her gift made a difference. And she is more likely to give to your organization again.

Prior to working with us, this organization didn’t keep performance results for each newsletter. So, we don’t know exactly how much the new version outperformed the old.

But…

…after applying these guidelines for 6 months their net fundraising revenue was up 53%!

This post is excerpted from the Better Fundraising e-book “Storytelling for Action.” Download it for free, here

A Short Note for Writers

Steven | August 3, 2021August 3, 2021Report

Here’s a tip our writers use as they work on donor communications:

Use verb tense to help take your donors on a journey.

And here’s what that looks like:

When Asking for support (appeals, e-appeals, events) use the future simple tense to describe what the donor’s gift will do: “Your gift will help…”
When Thanking for a gift (receipt letters, thank you notes) use the present continuous tense: “Your gift is helping…”
When Reporting back to donors (newsletters, e-news) use the past simple tense: “Your gift helped…”

It’s a subtle – but powerful – way of communicating to a donor that their gift matters and that it made a difference.

This post is excerpted from the Better Fundraising e-book “Storytelling for Action.” Download it for free, here.

Offers are Twice as Important as Delivery

Steven | July 29, 2021July 28, 2021Ask

In your mass donor fundraising, how you deliver your fundraising offer is half as important as what your fundraising offer is.

How do we know that those things are about half as important? Here’s how…

The 40 / 40 / 20 Rule

You may have heard about the 40-40-20 rule. It’s one of the most valuable pieces of information we can provide you:

40% of the success of any fundraising is who you are talking to.

For instance, if you’re talking to major donors, you can expect to raise more money than if you’re talking to non-donors.

40% of the success of any fundraising is the Offer.

The “offer” of any fundraising piece (letter, email, newsletter, etc.) is what you promise will happen when a donor gives a gift. The better your offer, the more money you’ll raise.

20% of the success of any fundraising is the “creative” – how you deliver your offer.

This is the writing style, whether you’re donor-centric or not, the typeface you use, the header on your email, etc.

Here’s What You Should Do

Any time you’re creating a fundraising piece that’s going to all your donors, be more concerned with what your offer is than with how the piece delivers the offer.

In other words, spend more time thinking about how you’re going to describe what will happen when a donor gives a gift. Spend less time trying to sound like your Executive Director, or with getting your grammar just right.

Because most organizations spend most of their time on how they write. On “getting their voice right.” Or on using brand colors. But, those things matter only half as much as what you promise will happen when your donor gives a gift.

Spend more time on the portion of your communications that makes the most difference. Spend less time on the portion of your communications that makes the least difference.

This post is excerpted from the Better Fundraising e-book “Fundraising Offers.” Download it for free, here.

How Smart Organizations Raise More Money

Steven | July 27, 2021July 26, 2021Ask

This is simple to explain, but it takes a bit of work to do. But here’s how smart organizations raise more money:

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 you had recently given a donation of $100 to an organization. And today’s letter featured an offer of “$35 will train one volunteer to advocate for our cause.” The Ask Amounts should 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 the amount of your last gift. This is key to helping donors give as much they gave last time… or more!

Third, the description text (“…to train 3 advocates”) describes how many of the outcomes your 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 software to calculate the Ask Amounts and Outcome Amounts (“3 advocates”) for each donor. They’ll then merge in those amounts onto the reply card.

This takes real work, but it’s a tested, proven tactic to raise more money.

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.

Increase the # of people who respond
+ Gifts at the same size or larger _
= More money for your cause!

This post is excerpted from the Better Fundraising e-book “Fundraising Offers.” Download it for free, here.