Steven, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

Newsletter Headlines That Work

Steven | August 13, 2024August 8, 2024Report

The previous post gave you a simple outline for how to easily write newsletter stories.

Today is about newsletter headlines; a massively important part of your newsletter’s success, but a part that most organizations spend very little time on.

Remember our belief that about 80% of the people who open your newsletter will read only your headlines and picture captions?

Doesn’t that make your headlines important? Maybe even more important than the story the headline is for?

We think so. So here’s how to write successful headlines…

Headlines Have One of Two Jobs

We try to do one of two things with newsletter headlines.

Be so dramatic and interesting that the reader wants to read the article. Think of this this way; the headline is the ad for the story. And/or…
Share the outcome of the story and involve the donor. Think of it this way: your reader should know, just from reading the headline, that their gift did something powerful.

Example Time

Here are a handful of examples of ineffective headlines – taken from real newsletters in our files – that do not accomplish either of the objectives above:

IFI Training Day Expands
Elizabeth’s experience encourages others to get their annual mammogram
Committed to change lives
Together We Rise
5th Annual Zip 5k + Fun Run Breaks Record For Participation
Board Of Directors Highlights/News
What is Extreme Poverty?
Upcoming Fundraisers
Camp and Retreat Centers as Holy Ground
Staff Updates
Pathways Supported Employment program fills in the missing pieces for people recovering from homelessness

And here are examples of effective headlines:

You’re helping find “Desperately needed” new treatments
“I wanted to Die”
The power of One Meal
“There is no more disease!”
Blind from a Chemical explosion, today he can see!
You did this!
You’re a hero!
Food delivered!
He used to eat garbage, you gave him dumplings!
“We never expected this to happen”
Cancer Patient Living On French Fries And Soda Pop
From Abuse to Prison to Redemption
“Your baby has cancer”
100 Happy Children
You helped save Darryl’s life
The Joy of Clean Water – Thanks to You!

Take a look at those effective headlines again.

Don’t you want to read the stories for those more than you want to read the stories after the boring headlines?

And don’t you know – just from scanning the good headlines — that your gift made a meaningful difference?

In other words, you didn’t even have to read the story and you knew your gift made a difference. Which made you trust the organization a little bit more. Which made you more likely to give them a gift the next time they asked you. Which made the organization raise more money and retain more of its donors.

All that from a good headline.

You are in a BATTLE for your donor’s attention

Always remember: nobody has to read your fundraising.

You’re competing with people’s phones, with the internet, with making dinner, and with all of the other mailings from nonprofits that your donor received that very same day.

Strong dramatic and/or donor-focused headlines are one of the most powerful tools you have to convey your main message and get donors to read your stories! They are an integral part of whether your newsletter is going to raise money… or not.

So go look at your headlines – for both your printed newsletter and your e-newsletter. If they aren’t doing either of the two jobs above, it’s time to fire them and get some headlines that will do their jobs. There’s too much at stake to have your headlines causing fewer people to read your newsletter!

This post was originally published on March 5, 2020 in a series of 10 posts on Donor-Delighting Newsletters. This series has been published as an e-book that can be downloaded here.

Outline for Newsletter Stories

Steven | August 8, 2024August 7, 2024Report

Here’s the outline we follow for newsletter stories.

It’s remarkably simple and it does two powerful things:

It makes your newsletter easier and faster to write because you have a model to follow
It makes sure each story helps you achieve the purpose of your newsletter

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Simple Newsletter Outline

PARAGRAPHS 1-2

Summarize the situation the beneficiary was in
Tell the donor the situation changed because of them
Summarize the positive situation the beneficiary is in today

PARAGRAPHS 3-5

Tell the beneficiary’s “story” as above, but go into more depth

FINAL PARAGRAPH

Thank the donor for making the transformation (from “before” to “after”) possible
Thank the donor for caring about the beneficiary enough to take action to help

The Power of This Approach

When you use this approach, your donor does not have to read more than the first paragraph to get your newsletter’s main message; that the donor’s gift made a meaningful difference in the life of one person or for your cause.

At Better Fundraising, we assume that 80% of the people who open your newsletter will only read the headlines, picture captions, and a paragraph or two. For those people (4 out of 5!) you want to do everything you can to ensure they still get your main message.

Other nonprofits will make their donors wade through tons of words to find out whether donors’ gifts made a difference. Sometimes the donor will never find out. I’ve seen newsletters where the donor is never even be mentioned.

But by following this model, you and your organization will communicate your main message to almost every person who opens your newsletter. That’s a huge win!

Repeat This Formula in Every Story

When a donor opens your newsletter you don’t know which story (or stories) they are going to read. So you want to use this formula for every story so – whatever they read – they get message that their gift made a difference.

This approach will feel repetitive to you – who sees every story. But vast majority of your donors won’t read every story.

It will feel repetitive to your staff and core stakeholders like your board because are far more likely than most donors to open every newsletter and read every story.

But Remember …

Your newsletter is not for you, your staff, or for your core stakeholders. It’s a communication vehicle to show the remaining 95% of your donors that their gift made a meaningful difference.

Why is showing donors that they made a meaningful difference so important?

So that they trust that giving a gift to your organization makes a real difference.

So that they are more likely to give you a gift the next time you ask.

So that they are more likely to keep giving to you year after year.

So that they are more likely to become a major donor.

So that they are more likely to leave you a gift in their will.

So … no pressure … but make sure your newsletter shows each donor that their gift made a meaningful difference. And one of the most powerful ways to do that is to write the stories following this outline.

This post was originally published on March 3, 2020 in a series of 10 posts on Donor-Delighting Newsletters. This series has been published as an e-book that can be downloaded here.

What your next print newsletter should be like

Steven | August 6, 2024July 31, 2024Report

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 in a series of 10 posts on Donor-Delighting Newsletters. This series has been published as an e-book that can be downloaded here.

“Why are you writing about the organization?”

Steven | August 1, 2024July 30, 2024Report

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 in a series of 10 posts on Donor-Delighting Newsletters. This series has been published as an e-book that can be downloaded here.

What the purpose of your newsletter SHOULD be

Steven | July 30, 2024July 29, 2024Report

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

We’re talking about newsletters that your donors love to open, the kind that increase the chance they’ll 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 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.

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. That means that a bunch of things are also excluded on 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 in a series of 10 posts on Donor-Delighting Newsletters. This series has been published as an e-book that can be downloaded here.

Beware… the Curse of KNOWLEDGE!

Steven | July 25, 2024July 25, 2024Ask

“Talking to donors about what they care about, in language that they quickly understand, absolutely leads to raising more money and doing more good.”

Steven learned this truth early on in his career and I think it’s a great reminder for anyone fundraising through the pandemic.

Bottom line is that your donors are not experts on your organization, or your programs. If you want to see results, be sure to keep your message simple, specific, and solution-focused. Your donors want to support outcomes, not processes.

That said, there’s a cost to fundraising this way because the experts in your organization won’t like it. But the benefits to your mission are clear.

— Jonathan

Think of this post as a brief introduction to the idea that being an expert about your field, or about your organization, can cause your fundraising to raise less money.

I’m going to cover three things very quickly:

Define “The Curse of Knowledge”
Show how knowledge or expertise often hurts fundraising
Talk about how to get past it to raise more money

The Curse of Knowledge

Wikipedia says, “The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.”

You know the feeling, right? You’re listening to an expert talk about something and you’re thinking, “That sounds really smart, but I’m not totally sure what everything meant.”

Let me submit to you that donors have that reaction All The Time when they read fundraising.

How Knowledge Hurts Fundraising

This is very simple:

Experts use jargon. They say that a child is “food insecure” instead of “often goes to bed hungry.”
They use conceptual language. They say “Will you stand behind the victims…” instead of “Will you give a victim exactly what she needs to recover…”
The write at a high grade level that takes more cognitive effort to understand.
Experts don’t like to talk about the Need. So they talk almost exclusively about the successes – which unfortunately hides the Need from donors.
They think about groups of people instead of one person who needs help. They’ll say, “Will you support vulnerable children…” instead of “Will you help a child who needs help now…”

All of these things make the fundraising sound smart and technically accurate – to experts.

But these traits make fundraising harder to read and understand by a donor who isn’t an expert. And – this is important – who is only looking at your letter or email for a few short seconds.

How to Avoid the Curse

Always remember who you are talking to: non-experts. So instead of saying, “Our holistic approach,” say, “Your gift helps them every single way they need help.” Instead of saying, “Your support will provide employment resources to disadvantaged people,” say, “You’ll give a job-seeker everything she needs to get a job.” This approach will sound overly simple to you, and will sound just right to your donors.

Always remember how you are talking to them – in a medium (usually in a letter or email) where most donors only give you a few short seconds of attention. You don’t have time to make complex arguments. This is not a conference or a meeting with a Foundation where you have lots of time, and people want to see the data. For mass donor fundraising you need to make it easy for your reader to know exactly what you’re talking about, and do it quickly.

The Cost and the Incredible Benefit

There’s a cost to doing fundraising this way: the experts in your organization won’t like your fundraising. This is a personal, subjective reaction because your fundraising won’t be written to their level of understanding and expertise.

That’s a real cost. Some organizations never pay it.

But the benefit is clear: talking to donors about what they care about, in language that they quickly understand, absolutely leads to raising more money and doing more good.

If you’re an expert, is that benefit worth the cost?

This post was originally published on November 13, 2018.

Spidery Handwriting and Responsibility

Steven | July 23, 2024July 19, 2024Ask

The note from the donor was scrawled in spidery handwriting at the bottom of the appeal:

In case that’s hard to read, here’s what it says:

“I strongly suggest you remove this statement. Never imply obligations to donors, or make us feel responsible for what might happen if we don’t give.”

Though I’m sorry that the letter caused the donor to feel distress, she perfectly expressed one of the reasons that fundraising is so powerful for our society:

Fundraising reminds us that we are responsible.

Each of us bears some responsibility for what happens when we give. And each of us bears some responsibility for what happens when we don’t give.

At Better Fundraising, we believe one of the functions of fundraising is to “remind people who care that there is work that needs to be done.”

That’s not the only function of fundraising, of course. Fundraising should show the power of beneficiaries to triumph, show how the world can be made better, and show all of us what’s possible.

So in addition to reminding people that they have responsibility, fundraising also reminds people that they are good and they have power.

But the fact remains: if what your organization is working on is important, make it visible. Remind your donors what’s needed and what’s at stake. (Our world isn’t very good at solving problems that it can’t see and doesn’t know about.)

You’ll get the occasional comment like the one on the letter above – because humans don’t always like being reminded that they carry responsibility. But at the same time you’ll build an army of devoted donors who love “doing work that needs to be done” with you.

Assume Speed

Steven | July 18, 2024July 17, 2024Ask

When sending mail and email to your donors, assume that each person reading your material is moving fast.

We might hope that donors pore over our emails, looking to deeply understand what our organization does and how we do it. We can wish that they’ll read every word, get every nuance, and then thoughtfully decide to give a gift.

But it’s more useful to believe that each donor is moving fast, sorting the mail, already thinking about dinner, or processing email on their phone in between pickleball games.

When you assume donors are moving fast, you end up creating letters and emails that are more accessible. You create fundraising that works for people who are moving fast and for your “true fans” who want to know more. (Here’s a post where I explain how to do it.)

You’ll raise more from the donors you currently have, because you’ll have made it easier for them to know what’s going on and what their gift will do.

And more people will become donors because you’ve made it easier for them to know what’s going on and what their gift will do!

I’d wager that you know from your own life how quickly you process email and the mail. Assume your donors are the same way. It’s a gift to them when you create fundraising that’s easy for them to understand quickly.

And it’s a gift that results in you raising more money.

The Gap and The Gift

Steven | July 16, 2024July 16, 2024Ask

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.

This post was originally published on November 17, 2020.