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.
Erica has more experience at every level of monthly giving than anyone I’m aware of. Big orgs, small orgs, programs just starting, you name it, Erica understands how it works and knows what to focus on next.
I’m sharing her post below because of the list in the middle. Regardless of whether you’re thinking about starting a monthly giving program or you have a thriving one, if you read the list you’ll find at least one actionable thing you can do to help your program work a little bit better.
During a recent webinar, someone asked me: “Does the timing of the launch of your monthly giving program make a difference? Are there certain times of the year that are better to start a monthly giving program?”
My answer is twofold:
If your organization is really gung-ho about monthly giving — as in, you almost care more about generating sustainers than one-time gifts — then by all means, go for it!
There is really no bad time to launch your monthly giving program. HOWEVER, it’s crucial that you have everything ready before you launch.
If you don’t have the people or the time to prepare, please do yourself a favor and hold off for a bit. Year-end is a busy time, so the last thing I’d want to do is add any more stress to your plate.
Knowing how you are probably as busy as a one-armed paper hanger, here’s what I recommend you do instead:
Just focus on getting as many one-time gifts in now during the year-end giving days — Giving Tuesday, holiday giving, etc. Then take one hour a week during the next two months, and chip away at getting everything ready for a launch in January.
Print out this list and just cross off each item as you go along:
Decide who’s going to be responsible.
Add monthly to your one-time donation page, if it’s not there already.
Create a monthly giving page if you don’t have one already.
Link the monthly giving page to other areas of your site and the pull-down menu.
See how the monthly gift will flow into your database.
If you can do pop-ups on your one-time giving page, create a pop-up to convert someone to give monthly.
Create the thank-you landing page/auto-responder, emails, direct mail, etc.
Create a letter to send out as a special invitation to those donors who gave at year-end.
Create a few emails to send out in January, inviting your email names to give monthly.
Create a special part in your homepage slider to link to your monthly giving page.
Create a launch email to send to your board, staff and volunteers first thing January, so everybody is aware of it.
Test everything before you go live!
If you just cross off the items on the list above, you’ll be ready to launch come January. What a great time to ask the donor to help 12 months a year.
Don’t worry too much about benefits or names if you think that’s going to take too much time; you can always add that later. The key is to ask your donors to give monthly first and make sure the recognition email and letter are in place. Send those right away. It’s always OK to “surprise” your monthly donors later with a special benefit. They’re getting the big advantage of feeling good by making a difference in a way they can afford.
Erica recently published a book on monthly giving and it’s brilliant. Here’s where to get it on Amazon – I can personally vouch that what she shares in the book will help you acquire more monthly donors, keep them for longer, and increase their lifetime values. It’s that good!
It’s a tour (de force) through a successful direct mail package. John calls out 26 different ideas that you can use for your organization’s direct mail appeals. (Many can be used for e-appeals as well.)
John and his business partner, Jen Love, know their stuff. This is well worth your time!
The summer (in North America anyhow) tends to be a quiet time for sending out mail appeals.
They can be a little hit or miss.
Late this spring, we were working on a June mailing for STEGH Foundation (who I wrote about this past January and their YE appeal).
And like the mailings before it, we applaud Amanda Campbell and the whole team at STEGH for going the extra mile for their appeals and their donors.
I worked with Rachel Zant on this appeal and we wanted to share the 26 ideas that you can steal right now to make your next appeal more successful.
I’ll go first!
Outer Envelope
Was a 9”x6” envelope. Testing tells us that almost anything other than a white #10 will do better in the mail.
It was closed face. It didn’t have a window. Makes it look more like personal mail than using a window.
We asked the letter signer, Jacqueline Bloom, to hand write her name and return address for us and we scanned that in and put it on the outer. No logo, no focus on this PMS colour or this specific font. This makes the outer look more personal from Jacqueline to the donor. Which is the point. Obviously.
We used a personalized mail indicia. Testing has shown us that a commemorative stamp > first class generic stamp > visual indicia > standard indicia > meter postage…
We used an image of lilacs in the indicia. Anyone in southern Ontario would know what that is and instantly be able to smell them since they are everywhere and gorgeous at this time of year. All of these things add up to a highly engaging and ‘openable’ envelope.
All of these things add up to a highly engaging and ‘openable’ envelope.
Next is the letter.
It was designed to look like a personal letter from Jacqueline to me, the donor. Personalized, indented, lots of white space, hardly any ‘design’ and used a large serif font.
Emphasis. Look at what is bolded and underlined. Some donors will only read or look at these things and make a decision to give or not. Make sure everything that you highlight will keep them engaged or move them to give.
We cut off the last paragraph on page one. I know a lot of people who HATE this. Think it’s a mistake. It isn’t. It’s done so the donor will flip the letter over to keep reading.
We also used a helpful “Please turn over…” written by Jacqueline as well.
We included a photo of Jacqueline by her signature so donors could envision who was talking to them in the appeal. Humans give to humans and we are constantly trying to remind donors that they are talking to other humans.
Jacqueline’s signature is very clear. You can see she took the time to write it out cleanly so it is readable. This very small thing does send visual clues to your donor – that you CEO or ED isn’t so important that they don’t have the time to ensure that their name is written cleanly.
The reply form.
It is full size. 8.5” x 11”.
It is personalized for me. The donor.
The gift array was also personalized to my previous giving.
We included an option for giving $198,000 – which is what we needed to raise. Doing this might seem a bit cheeky (and it is) but there have been instances where donors have checked that box or at the very least give a little more than what they tend to since they actually know what you are going to do with their gift.
It has a ton of white space.
If a donor wanted to give online or by phone, we made it easy to figure out how to do that or who to talk to!
Finally, we added a lift note.
Lift notes of almost any type tend to do just that – lift response. Try adding something that rounds out the case or adds a little more detail to the appeal in some way.
We decided to add a photo of the thing we were raising funds for.
We had Jacqueline write out the message, which makes it feel far more personal than just type setting it.
We also included a business reply envelope, postage paid, for the donor to send their gift back in.
Rachel’s perspective and 5 bonus tips:
This letter started off as a bit of a struggle for me, I have to admit. I’d already written a great letter for this appeal – asking donors to fund a new ventilator. It was a slam-dunk, highly emotional, compelling letter about the most basic of all human needs: the need to breathe.
But then we found out the ventilator had already been funded. Back to square one.
We learned the hospital urgently needed to fund a new C-Arm. It didn’t sound all that exciting at first – not after a letter about a new ventilator during COVID. However, our amazing contact, Amanda, hooked me up to an interview with a wonderful hospital staff person who was able to tell me in great detail just how vital this piece of equipment actually was.
The ever-talented John Lepp suggested I imagine the sounds this machine might make (or not be making). And from there, it was pretty easy to start writing.
Here are my top five tips and takeaways:
Start with YOU! You’ll notice I started the first sentence off with a “you”. Sure, the lead would still have been compelling without it – but the “you” draws the reader in to become a part of the scene. The next few sentences set that scene up in vivid detail.
Short and sweet. I purposely started off with short sentences that are easy to read and scan. You want your donor to keep on reading until they get to the ask! You’ll also notice the lift note copy is very short too – just a handwritten note on the back of a photo.
Ask for one thing. The ask is very direct, urgent and for one thing only! It clearly explains the machine and the need, and that’s it.
Tangibility. I did the math and divided the cost of the machine by the number of donors receiving this appeal and it worked out to a nice ‘affordable’ amount for your average person, so that became our first ask amount. I’ve used this approach in other letters and it’s worked out well.
Be consistent. The “Yes-line” or CTA on the reply form reiterates the ask in the letter. It’s not the same generic line used in every single reply form sent out. All the pieces in this package are related to the same subject.
We decided to share this appeal since on the surface, it’s one of those not too sexy, a bit boring and standard appeals you all should be doing but don’t take the time to since you are in a rush to get to whatever is next in your schedule or focusing on the shiny other thing someone in the office is waving around.
This appeal only dropped a few weeks ago but is performing very well and strangely, is reactivating some long lapsed donors at a surprising rate. (Donors who haven’t given in 6 to 7 years are responding at 4.2%!!!!)
If you want to talk about this appeal more or how we can make your appeals stronger this fall, please reach out anytime to chat!
Successful direct mail appeals tend to be written to communicate the main message in a) just the areas a donor is likely to see as they glance at your letter, and b) in the letter as a whole.
Why? Because a large percentage of your donors will just glance at your letter and make a decision for whether to give – or not. And you want your letter to be effective for both “Glancers” and for people who read the whole thing.
So how do you write a letter that works for Glancers and Readers?
It looks something like this:
The top-center or top-right corner of the letter contains a short blurb about the Need or about what the donor’s gift will do to help.
The first three-ish paragraphs tend to summarize the whole letter. They share why the donor’s gift is needed, what the donor’s gift will accomplish, and ask the reader to send in a gift today.
The middle section of the letter tends to go more in-depth. It shares more details about why the letter is being written, perhaps shares a story that illustrates the need for the donor to take action, and shares a bit more about what the organization does in situations like this.
The last couple of paragraphs tend to repeat what was said in the first three paraphs.
The Result
This results in a letter that “makes the whole case” in just the first few paragraphs. This ensures that almost anyone who picks up the letter will know what it’s about – which results in more gifts. Think of it as making half of your donors understand more about what their gifts help do – who wouldn’t want to make that improvement?!?
This results in a letter that can sound repetitive to internal audiences because it repeats the main ideas in a couple places. But the vast majority of donors (the audience for the letter!) don’t experience the letter this way. To donors, it sounds like a focused letter about something they care about.
This results in a letter that doesn’t “sound like us” – because if you’re going to summarize the whole case in three short paragraphs you don’t have time to talk the way the experts in your organization normally talk. But remember, if your letter doesn’t “sound like you” I think you should experience “not sounding like you” as a positive, not a negative.
Your Next Letter
The next time you write and design a letter, first go look at the heat map. Remind yourself (and anyone involved with approving the letter) that you’re writing two letters in one.
If you can make your letter work for both Glancers and Readers, you’ve done a great service to your organization and beneficiaries.
How? Because you’ve lowered the barrier to giving a gift. Instead of requiring a person to read the whole letter to know what you’re writing about, you’ve made it possible for Glancers to know – in just a heartbeat or two – why you’re writing them today and what they can do about it.
Do that and a surprising number of Glancers will send you a gift.
And your regular Readers will still send you their gifts.
The graphic above is what’s called a “heat map.” It tracks where reader’s eyes looked as they read this piece of direct mail fundraising. It also tracks the order in which the reader looked at each area.
There’s a LOT this can teach an organization about how to succeed in fundraising through the mail and email…
The “Heat Map” Lessons
Not all heat maps look exactly the same. But they generally look like this one, and they all teach the same lessons:
Most donors don’t read the whole thing
Most donors don’t read your letters in order – they “skip around”
Large type, and type in the upper right corner, will get more attention
They tend to focus on the beginning and the end
They are more likely to read words on the left side of the page than on the right side of the page
Many people at nonprofits find this news distressing.
I find it powerful.
Because once you know how direct mail works, you can use it to raise more money for your cause than you’re currently raising.
The Big Takeaway
So what do you do with this information?
Write your next appeal with the knowledge that you’re writing two letters in one:
One complete fundraising appeal needs to fit in the green areas (more or less). Because most people will scan your letter and decide whether to give a gift – or not – only by looking at the green areas. Your ‘letter in the green areas’ needs to contain everything a donor needs to know to decide whether to give you a gift today.
And the entire letter, from start to finish, needs to make sense for the minority of people who will read the whole letter and decide whether to give a gift or not.
The big idea here is that even though you only write one letter, it’s written and designed to work for BOTH groups of your donors.
The most effective direct mail appeals are written and designed to get the main message across in both the green areas and in the rest of the letter.
To do this well requires a particular style of writing. It’s a style that can be learned.
The tricky part – in my opinion – is to get people who don’t prefer that style of writing to see the reason for it and the benefits of it.
What To Do Now
So here’s the question: are your organization’s letters written and designed to get the main message across to both groups?
If your organization is writing and designing only for donors who read the whole thing, you can be raising a LOT more money.
If that’s you, here are the steps I’d follow. Make sure that the “powers that be” at your organization know about:
Heat maps and the lessons they teach
How you have two groups of readers
How it’s more inclusive to write letters that work for both groups
And how writing for both groups will raise you more money because you’re multiplying how many people receive your message.
In the next post, I’ll talk about how to write an appeal that works for both groups.
If this were a normal post, I’d go ahead right now and share how to write this type of appeal. But I find that it’s not the “tactic” of writing for both groups that holds organizations back from doing it.
What holds them back is either the belief that it doesn’t apply to their organization, or that they don’t like that style of fundraising letter (or email).
So let’s just sit for a couple of days with the idea that there’s a style of fundraising appeal that’s written only for people who will read the whole thing. And if that’s the style your organization is using, in my experience your message is not reaching a very large percentage of your donors, and you’re not raising as much money (and doing as much good) as you could be.
Thought you’d like to see some advice that Jonathan Steck shared recently around the ol’ Better Fundraising water cooler.
We serve a bunch of organizations who – perhaps like people at your organization – are worried about the increased amount of fundraising they plan to send out during the last few weeks of the year.
Jonathan is our Creative Director, and he sent the following email to our team:
Hey gang,
We’re getting a handful of clients lately who are pushing back on the amount of fundraising content we’re recommending be sent at this time of year.
This is not unusual.
I mentioned this in our traffic meeting yesterday, but one of the better responses you can provide clients who are concerned with volume at year-end is this:
We shouldn’t decide when the donor gives, or how they should spend their money. Let the donor make that decision.
The moment we (as fundraisers) stop sending appeals, we immediately limit a donor’s opportunity to give. Organizations think they are being considerate of their donors, but they’re really robbing them of the chance to make a difference in the world.
So, if the objection comes up, just encourage your clients not to cancel their year-end content. Let the donor make the decision to give or not.
Happy fundraising!
I love this. It treats donors like adults.
Don’t let fear set your boundaries for how much fundraising you do in the next few weeks. (Or ever, for that matter!)
Quick Example
And here’s a quick example for you. Jonathan and I just got out of a meeting with a nonprofit who followed our advice. They just completed a campaign where they sent 18 emails in 18 days.
They are thrilled with how much money they raised. They raised 60% more than they did last year. And they didn’t see any of the negative consequences that some of their staff feared: no mass amounts of unsubscribes, no angry calls from major donors.
Just money coming in, day after day for 18 days. Money they can use to do more of their mission.
Our Job as Fundraisers
Our job as Fundraisers is to be “sold out” for our beneficiaries or cause – and NOT to limit how much or how often a donor can give.
If you’re thinking it won’t work for your donors, or that your donors are special for some reason, read this.
On behalf of your beneficiaries or cause, you make the generous act of asking donors to help. That’s a gift to who or whatever you serve, to your organization, and to your donors.
Fundraising is often hard, draining work. You have to see and hear so many stories that are tough. Then you have to share them. You have to be other-focused. All of which is wearing.
But there are so many parts of fundraising to be thankful for! For the funds you help raise that make your organization’s work possible. For increasing people’s awareness of what you’re working on and giving those people a chance to do something about it. For the incredible changes made possible by your organization.
You make the world a better place! As Dr. Martin Luther King says, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Thank you for “bending the arc” towards justice – and we at Better Fundraising love getting to be a small part of the great work you do.
Thank you for being a Fundraiser, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Organizations that are optimistic about their fundraising are more likely to raise more money than organizations that are pessimistic about their fundraising.
It’s a classic case of how beliefs shape actions, and then actions shape results.
Beliefs Shape Actions
If an organization is pessimistic, you think “we don’t want to overwhelm our donors” so you don’t send a second year-end appeal or follow-up emails. Because of this, all the people who didn’t see your first appeal, and all the people who might otherwise give you another gift, don’t get the chance.
If an organization is pessimistic, you think “everyone is doing Giving Tuesday and donors’ inboxes are overwhelmed” so you don’t participate in Giving Tuesday. Because of this, your donors who thought of you on the morning of Giving Tuesday and would have loved the chance to help… don’t.
If an organization is pessimistic, you think “if a major donor hasn’t given a gift by this point, they probably aren’t going to.” Because of this, instead of calling all the major donors who haven’t given a gift yet to give a friendly reminder and providing a very real service to many donors, organizations move their focus on to other things.
Actions Shape Results
If you’re optimistic at year-end and mail two printed appeals, you’ll raise more money and retain more donors than if you send just one appeal.
If you’re optimistic at year-end and participate in Giving Tuesday, you’ll raise money from donors (and non-donors!) who like to give Giving Tuesday gifts.
If you’re optimistic at year-end and call all of your major donors who haven’t given a gift yet, you’ll receive many gifts and have conversations with donors who tell you, “Thanks so much for calling! It’s been a crazy year and I hadn’t gotten to sending you a gift yet, so I appreciate it!”
All of which result in raising more money.
Beliefs Drive Tactics
My point is that an organization’s beliefs – the “stories we tell ourselves” about fundraising and donors – determine the shape and boundaries of the organization’s fundraising programs.
Of course, human resources, cash on hand, knowledge about how to set up a giving page, all of those very real variables also affect fundraising programs.
But in my experience, beliefs are the primary strategy-setters and boundary-creators.
So this year-end, are you optimistic or pessimistic? That will tell you a lot about how you can expect your next 6 weeks to go.
If, after reading this, you decide to be more optimistic, it’s not too late to:
Mail a second year-end appeal
Send out three emails on Giving Tuesday
Call major donors who haven’t yet given a gift this calendar year
Ask Board Members who haven’t give a gift yet this year to give so that you can enter next year saying that your organization has 100% Board participation
Send out three to five emails on the last three days of the year
You can use optimism as a tool to help your organization raise more money and do more good.
There’s a gap between your organization and your donors.
Savvy fundraising organizations know that donors don’t know as much about your beneficiaries or cause as your organization does.
That donors often don’t care quite as much as you care.
That donors often use different words and phrases than you would.
Savvy fundraising organizations know that the people on the other side of the gap are not likely to close the gap themselves. Donors are quite happy as they are, thank you very much. They don’t have a felt need to be educated, learn new jargon, or grow to an expert’s level of understanding.
So savvy fundraisers make the generous act of crossing the gap and meeting donors where the donors are.
That means writing to donors at donors’ level of understanding. It means no jargon. It means being specific, not conceptual.
It means figuring out what motivates donors to give and crafting your fundraising around those motivators – even if those motivators are not what motivates the organization’s staff.
And when you’ve done the generous thing – crossed the gap to meet the donor where they are – then you can ask them to take a first step towards involvement and greater understanding.
That first step? It’s usually a financial gift. A check in the mail or a donation online.
And that gift happens because you gave them a gift, first. You crossed the gap. You went to them.
Here’s a bit of fundraising wisdom found in an unexpected place.
It’s from a musician named Gabe Anderson who is writing about emails that musicians send to their fans. But what he’s saying absolutely applies to a nonprofit’s email strategy:
Shorter emails, sent consistently, sustain connection much better than one long one every few months.
Packing an email with links and offers and stories and updates and discount codes is too much… all under the idea ‘we’ll make up for our lack of consistent communication by sending out an email that includes everything because it’s really important that they know everything.’
The solution is to send more emails… to people who look forward to getting emails from you… and then don’t overwhelm them with long paragraphs and links.
You don’t usually enjoy getting long emails either.
