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.
Doing some head-to-head testing, we noticed something powerful.
The phrase:
“Your gift today will provide clean water for a family”
Raised less money than the phrase:
“Your gift today will provide clean, disease-free water for a family.”
This little test teaches a couple powerful things that I’ve seen work again and again…
Embed the Problem in How You Describe the Solution
You see this all the time in political fundraising:
“Elect Biden for a Trump-free future!”
“Elect Trump to save our country from socialism!”
In both of those cases, the copywriter has embedded the problem (or the enemy) in the solution. The copywriter is making it clear that something bad will happen if the donor doesn’t give a gift.
This is a powerful 2-for-1 because you hit two buttons in the donor’s brain in one sentence:
You hit the “I want to do the positive thing!” button
You hit the “I want to stop the negative thing!” button
Here are three main places we use this powerful tactic:
The first time your letter or email describes what the donor’s gift will do
The P.S.
The headline of your reply card / landing page
Those are the high-profile locations that donors are most likely to see as they scan your direct response letters and emails. This tactic allows you to use those high-profile locations as effectively as possible.
This tactic works great any time space or attention is limited. In other words, if you aren’t using this in your Facebook and Google ads, you could be raising more money.
Example Time
Here are a slew of made-up examples to show you how this tactic can work across any sector:
You can provide racially-blind admissions assistance
You can provide gospel teaching that’s free from relativism
You can kill the cancer and save the person
You can end the commercialization of our town by supporting the arts
You can stop the developers and stand for the land
You can stick it to the pharmaceutical companies and fund research that will save lives
You can erase the shortfall and protect the kids
You get it.
Now, go look at your fundraising. How can you embed the problem in how you describe what your donor’s gift will do?
I want to show you how the “which is more important” argument – though it sounds academic – is having real-world consequences for your organization right now.
And it’s those consequences that cause some organizations to out-raise their peers, and some organizations to never “make the leap” to the next level.
Where It Starts
Here’s what I think this whole debate comes from:
I think most organizations don’t believe that donors enjoy giving to anything other than events.
Organizations believe that it’s not really possible that a donor could enjoy giving to a piece of direct mail, an email, a radio-thon, etc.
These organizations believe mass donor fundraising is somehow a negative act. They believe donors don’t like appeals or emails. That we fundraisers have to “twist the arm” of donors, or emotionally manipulate them, to get donors to give a gift.
The Demonstrably Untrue Argument
If you believe that arm-twisting or emotional manipulation is necessary to get a gift, of course you will enjoy stewardship activities more than “fundraising” activities.
These organizations think something like, “Now that the icky job of fundraising is done, it will be so great to steward our donors.”
There’s even an argument that goes something like this: Stewardship is the way we keep our donors giving to us year after year.
That’s demonstrably untrue. How do you explain all those organizations who don’t do any meaningful stewardship, yet they retain a significant portion of their donors each year?
The Consequences
In my experience, believing that mass donor fundraising is a negative act results in the following tactical mistakes:
Asking donors less frequently than you could be
Refusing to put a reply card and reply envelope in your printed receipts
Refusing to turn your newsletter into a fundraising vehicle
Always telling a story of “the good you’ve already done” in appeals and e-appeals
All of those things are done out of a belief that Asking in mass donor fundraising is a negative thing and will – sooner or later – drive donors away.
However, it’s doing the opposite of those things that raises the most money AND increases donor retention:
Asking donors more frequently than you think you can
Putting a reply card and reply envelope in your printed receipts
Never telling a story of “the good you’ve already done” in appeals and e-appeals
Every one of those things, done well, works like crazy. (It’s why so many of our clients are having incredible years. Some of them are sharing that they’re embarrassed to talk about how much money they’ve raised to their peer organizations.)
So I ask you a question: if the definition of “stewardship” is something like “making donors feel good about their giving so that they give again” – then if all of those tactics above increase donor retention, don’t they qualify as effective stewardship?
Donors Love to Give
Donors get joy from giving – whether that’s giving to an appeal letter or at an enjoyable event.
Donors love to give.
In every way, in any form.
They don’t give every time they are asked. (In the same way, you don’t buy your favorite product or service every time you see it advertised. And you don’t feel bad about it when you don’t.)
So as an organization, ask yourself if you believe that mass donors love to give to your mass donor fundraising. Because if you believe donors love to give, you’ll make different decisions about your fundraising. And those choices will help you raise more money.
And it will bring more joy to your donors at the same time.
Your printed newsletter should be raising a lot of money – as much as your appeals and, in some cases, even more.
The goal of this series has been to give you a tested, proven approach to creating a donor-delighting, money-raising printed newsletter:
Direct mail experts ran a series of head-to-head tests of different types of printed newsletters. The approach detailed here beat all the other approaches.
We’ve used this approach since 2004 to reliably (and sometimes incredibly) increase the money nonprofits raise from their newsletters.
We’ve taught this model at conferences, seminars and webinars. We’ve received hundreds of pieces of feedback about how the approach increased newsletter revenue. You do not need to be an expert to follow this model and raise more money!
So take it this approach and apply it to your organization. Test it against your current approach, or any other approach.
Be Intentional with Your Newsletter
Figure out what your organization’s approach is. Discover and name your organization’s underlying assumptions.
Maybe your organization believes that printed newsletters are obsolete. (They aren’t.)
Maybe your organization believes that printed newsletters shouldn’t or can’t raise money. (Neither is true.)
Maybe your organization believes the way you’ve always done your newsletter is the only way your organization can do a newsletter. (Not true.)
Maybe your organization fears that if you change your newsletter in any way, your donors will leave. (Also not true.)
Maybe your organization believes you could do a newsletter like the one taught here, but you could never do an Ask along with it, because it would offend donors. (You guessed it, not true!)
I’ve run into all of these beliefs before. And it doesn’t matter what you believe – what matters is that you identify what you believe that results in your current approach. Then you compare it with the approach outlined in this series and decide which approach to take.
Great newsletters don’t raise money by accident. Content is included for a purpose, and content is excluded for a purpose.
And remember: the primary reason donors read your newsletter is not to hear about your organization. They’re reading because they’re hoping to hear about themselves. Specifically, donors are reading to find out if they and their gift made a difference.
So start with this proven approach that shows and tells donors how they made a difference. And good luck!
The back page of your newsletter is where your donor’s good feelings can turn into another gift… or not.
What’s Happened So Far
If you’ve followed the newsletter approach I laid out starting here, your donor has scanned three pages of your newsletter. Those pages have been full of stories that show and tell the donor how she and her gift made a difference.
You’ve proven to her that her gift to your organization was a good decision.
Unlike other organizations who have sent your donor chest-thumping puff pieces about how busy and heroic their organization is, you’ve made your newsletter about the donor who is reading it.
She’s thinking, “Finally, an organization that gets me and what I’m trying to do.”
And she feels great!
Let’s Turn Those Feelings into Action
Here’s how to get a regular percentage of those donors to make a gift right then and there:
Feature one story on the top of the back page.
That story should be a “story of need” (this is different than the “stories of success” mentioned in this post in this series)
The need should be a need that your beneficiaries or organization are currently facing, or are going to face very soon.
Describe how the donor’s gift today will perfectly meet the need. This is your Offer, and you can download this free eBook if you’d like to know more about how Offers work and how to create a great one.
The bottom of the back page should be what we call a ‘faux reply card.’
The faux reply card is not meant to be cut off and sent back. The separate reply card you include with your newsletter is what will be sent back. The faux reply card is added because in head-to-head testing it increased the number of people who sent in a gift by 15%.
A successful back page tends to look like this…
Or this…
Want to Get Even More Donors to Take Action?
Pro-level newsletters select their stories to set up the offer that’s used on the back page.
In other words, if the back page is going to tell a story of need about feeding children, the stories in the rest of the newsletter will all be about children who the donor helped feed. Or if the back page is going to share a need to do advocacy work on an issue, the stories in the rest of the newsletter will all be about how the donor has helped fund successful advocacy work.
Put slightly differently: each newsletter has a theme, and the theme is directly related to the offer. The greater the percentage of content that is not on-theme, the lower the amount of money the newsletter will raise.
Your newsletters do not need to be perfectly themed to succeed. But in our experience it increases the chances you’ll raise more money.
Feelings
It may feel weird to have a story of need and a reply card on the back of your newsletter.
Your newsletter is a Report, after all.
But it works great. This approach raises more money than any other approach that was tested.
And there are no negative consequences to doing your newsletter this way. People do not complain about it. You do not lose donors because of it.
You simply start raising more money with your newsletters. And retaining more of your donors. Because remember, your donors love to give. All you’ve done with this method is proven to your donor that her previous gift made a difference, then given her a reason to give another gift today.
More specifically, here’s who to send your newsletter to:
If you send three or fewer newsletters per year, send your newsletters to all donors who have given a gift in the last 24 months
If you send 4 or more newsletters per year, send your newsletters to all donors who have given a gift in the last 18 months
Who Not to Mail Your Newsletter To
Here’s who not to send your newsletter to:
Non-donors
Volunteers
Local organizations and businesses who are not donors
Why? Because every time we’ve analyzed the results of sending newsletters to that group we find the same thing: you lose money because it costs more to send the newsletter to that group than the revenue you’ll receive from mailing those groups.
Send Your Newsletter to Your Major Donors
Here’s a tactic we often use to increase the number of major donors who read (and donate to) your newsletter:
Instead of sending them a folded newsletter in a #10 envelope, send the newsletter unfolded in a 9”x12” envelope
Hand-write their address on the envelope
Add a cover letter that thanks the donor for their donation, and tells them that they’ll see how their donation made a difference when they read the newsletter.
Hand-sign the cover letter. You can even write a personal note on it if you’d like.
Include a customized reply card and reply envelope
If you’d like to take this a step further, email the major donor on the day you send the newsletter to let them know to look for it. If that email is sent by your Executive Director, your ED will receive replies from some majors thanking her for letting them know! It’s a great opportunity to deepen the relationship with those donors.
What Postage to Use
For your Mass donors, send your newsletter using nonprofit postage.
The only regular exception to that rule is if there’s a deadline to respond to your newsletter and you’re sending it out later than you planned. For instance, say your newsletter has an offer (on the back page, of course) to write a note of encouragement to hospital patients who are stuck in the hospital for the holidays. But you’re mailing just 3 weeks before the holidays begin. Then, by all means, use first class postage.
For your Major donors, use first class postage. Use a live stamp if you can. And set the stamp at a slight angle so it’s obvious that a human put the stamp on the envelope, not a machine. (Thanks for that tip, John Lepp!)
This is a Great Beginning…
The recommendations above are a solid foundation for who to send your newsletter to, and how to send it out.
Over time, your system will get more complicated. You’ll discover things like, “it’s worth it for us to send our newsletter to donors who gave between 24 and 36 months ago, who have given $1,000 or more, because we reactivate enough lapsed major donors to make up for the expense.”
Or you’ll discover things like, “When we have a newsletter with Offer X, it’s worth it to mail all donors who have given to Offer X in the last 36 months.”
Great. Love it. And if you’re not there yet, start here!
For the smaller nonprofits out there, who don’t have super-pro Designers creating their newsletters, donotworry.
Your newsletter does not need to have fancy or complicated design to be successful.
In fact, fancy and complicated design usually lowers readability – which lowers the effectiveness of your newsletter.
What you’re going for is “clean and easy to read.”
Here are a bunch of examples – kept purposefully small. You will be able to tell ata glance which ones are readable… and which aren’t.
This, Not That
This cover…
Not this cover…
That second cover has too much going on. I think there are six elements in the header alone. Too much copy. Seven different type treatments.
This interior page…
Not this interior page…
That second interior page has far too much copy. The one photo is too small.
This back page…
Not this back page…
The second back page has waaay too much “reverse text” (white text on a dark background) which is very hard to read for older donors. Plus it’s a self-mailer, which raises less money than newsletters that follow the format taught in these blog posts.
The lesson here; look at your newsletter from a few feet away. Does it look friendly? Easy to read? Or does it look thick with information and visually cluttered?
That’s Fine, But What Do I Do?
Here are the general newsletter rules we live by:
Not too much text
13 point typeface or larger
Headlines, subheads and picture captions should always be in a high-contrast color (preferably black)
Use reverse text only when it’s a couple/few words in larger type
Black text on a white background is always the most readable
Don’t put your text in colors that are low contrast (they are harder to read for older donors).
2 or 3 text columns max
Know What’s Most Important
The trick is to know what’s most important.
If you’re judging your newsletter by asking, “Does it look nice and use our brand colors?” you’re asking the wrong question.
The first, most important question is, “Is it easy to read and convey our main message in a couple seconds?”
Nail that. Then add graphic elements and flourishes but keep the text readable.
Because remember, it’s all about readability. If fewer people read your fundraising, fewer people give to your fundraising. So make your fundraising newsletter easy to read!
Of all the graphics we’ve created, this one gets requested most.
Our “Virtuous Circle” graphic was created to make it easy to see how the simplest building blocks of fundraising work together to create a powerful system.
But we’ve never fully explained it, step-by-step, in writing.
So buckle up. And know that all of this all stems from one of our core principles: doing fundraising in a way that serves donors is your surest way to raising more money.
A “Virtuous Circle” is…
A “virtuous circle” is a chain of positive events that reinforces itself. A positive thing happens, which leads to another positive thing, which reinforces the system and strengthens it over time.
Some fundraising programs are virtuous circles – they’re successful at getting donors to give, then they reward those donors, then those donors give again, etc. These systems raise more money both in the short term and in the long run.
But most fundraising programs aren’t constructed to be rewarding for donors. They’re constructed to be rewarding to the nonprofit itself (organization-centric content that makes internal audiences feel great) and easy to execute (not doing the hard work of designing for donors, writing to their level, doing only one thing with each piece of communication, etc.).
So rather than a system of positive events that reinforce each other, the system loses revenue and leaks more donors than it should.
Let’s look at how you can ensure that your fundraising program is a virtuous circle – and not a vicious circle.
Ask
The Virtuous Circle begins at the top with Ask because most fundraising relationships begin with an ask.
An effective Ask is also the beginning of serving your donors well. A good Ask serves donors by simplifying complex issues and making it easy for donors to make a meaningful difference.
After your donor gives a gift, she feels great. She gets that hit of dopamine that makes her feel warm and connected. She’s just affirmed to herself that she’s the type of person who helps people in need, and that she supports causes that are important.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment.
But it often starts to go sideways immediately because…
A Gift is Different than a Purchase
When your donor makes a gift, she feels great that she gave it. But she doesn’t know whether her gift will have an impact… or not.
This is where it’s vital for nonprofits to know that a charitable gift is different than a purchase of goods or services.
Why? When you make a purchase, you receive a good or service in return. You then judge whether your purchase was a good idea – or not. Was the meal worth it? Was the laptop a good purchase? Was the jacket made well, or did it fall apart after a year?
But when you give a charitable gift, you don’t receive a good or service in return. So you don’t have any evidence that your gift made an impact… or not.
But! Your donor does receive one thing in return: she receives your donor communications.
Therefore, one of the core jobs of your donor communications is to show and tell your donor that her gift to your organization made an impact. Not to convince her that your organization is effective, not to convince her that your organization does lots of good, but to convince her that her gift made a difference.
So she’s given you a gift. What should you do?
Thank
You do what your mom or grandmother taught you: you thank her.
You can read about how to Thank your donors effectively here and here.
But Thanking is only the beginning of the process. Think of it this way: most donors are “buying” two things with their gift: the feeling they get when they give the gift, and that their gift makes a difference.
Even when you’ve Thanked a donor, she still doesn’t know whether her gift made a difference or not. She doesn’t yet know whether her gift to your organization was a good decision.
Very few organizations Report back to donors well. Many organizations don’t realize they should do it. Some organizations want to do it, but instead of Reporting they make organization-centric communications that do more bragging than they do Reporting.
And because many donors never find out whether their gift made a difference… many of them never donate again.
Don’t you feel like your donors deserve to be Reported to? Doesn’t it feel like Reporting is a good way to serve your donors?
And there’s something in it for you, too. If you report powerfully to your donors, you’ll retain more of your donors year over year.
The Benefits
You Asked your donor to make a gift. You Thanked her well so that she feels appreciated. You’ve Reported, so she’s seen and felt that her gift made a difference.
You’ve “closed the circle,” and a host of good things are about to happen to your organization:
Your donors will trust you more because you Reported to them (when most of the organizations they donate to didn’t Report).
Because your donors trust you more, they’re more likely to give to your next appeal. So your future appeals raise more money.
Because your donors give more often, you’re more likely to keep them for longer.
Because you keep your donors for longer, you raise more money in the long term.
Implementing the Virtuous Circle
Implementation looks like this:
For Major Donors you have a relationship with, you take each donor linearly through the circle. You Ask them. When they give, you Thank them. You Report back to them. Only after Reporting do you Ask them for another gift. Of course there are occasional exceptions, but the idea is to take each donor through the steps, in order.
For Mass Donors, you need an ongoing stream of communications throughout the year that is a mix of Asks (appeals, e-appeals) and Reports (newsletters). Of course, Thank every donor who gives a gift. You need multiple Asks and Reports spread throughout the year because a) donors don’t open every piece of mail or email you send them, so you don’t know what they’ve seen, and b) it’s not cost effective to take each donor through the steps in order like it is with Major Donors. Think of it this way: a stream of several appeals and newsletters throughout the year isn’t perfect for anybody, but based on all our testing, we know it’s what’s best for your mass donors as a group.
Repeat
If you’ve taken your donors through the Virtuous Circle, you can Repeat the circle. You’ve earned the right to Ask your donor again.
And you’re going to raise more money.
Because the system most organizations are putting their donors through is either “Ask, Thank, Ask” or “Ask, Thank, Brag.”
But with the Virtuous Circle of Ask, Thank, Report, your organization will have a communications program that treats donors the way they should be treated – and this program raises more money.
This Maya Angelou quote sums it up best:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Because your donors don’t get every piece of communication you send.
They don’t remember (or even read) most of the words that you say.
But if your donors can feel that your organization is about more than just their donation – that your organization will go the extra mile to make sure they know their gift made a difference – that’s when the magic happens. It’s when your donors start to feel like maybe your organization exists to help them be great, instead of being just another charity that wants their money.
The Virtuous Circle makes donors feel valued and important by centering your communication strategy and program around your donors and their needs. And when you serve your donors’ needs, you tend to raise more money.
During these crazy last few months, nonprofits we serve have had a lot of success raising money using strong fundraising offers. By that I mean highlighting a specific part of what the nonprofit does and then asking the donor to send in a gift today to fund that part.
Not asking the donor to “partner with us” or to “support our mission” or to “provide hope.” But asking the donor just to fund the part that the appeal focuses on.
There’s a good question that must be answered when using this approach:
“How can you raise undesignated funds in your appeal if it focuses only on one program – even just one part of one program?”
The spreadsheet below illustrates a powerful truth:
The more recently a donor has given to your organization, the more likely they are to give to you again.
So for heaven’s sake don’t “rest” your donors and miss out on your best chance for them to give you another gift – and all the revenue that comes with it.
Short Story, Then Data
Let me tell you what you’re looking at.
A nonprofit was working on their January appeal. We recommended that the appeal be sent to all donors who had given a gift in the last 18 months.
They said, “But we can’t include the people who gave at the end of the year. They’ll be annoyed to be asked again so soon.”
We told them that the people who gave recently are exactly who they want to mail to. We said that recent donors were more likely to respond to the January appeal than other donors.
They didn’t really believe us.
But they agreed to proceed because everything we’d been doing with them was working like crazy. And we promised to analyze the response to the appeal to see if what we’d been teaching them about recency was true. *
Data, Sorted by Number of Months Since Previous Gift
Here’s the data. Pay particular attention to the column in yellow. It shows you the response rate sorted by the number of months since the donor’s previous gift. The farther down the column you go, the more months it had been since the donor had given a gift.
Look at the top line! The people who had given a gift in the last 30 days were the people who responded best to the appeal!
The group of people who had given a gift in the last 2 months gave a little less than half the total income from this appeal.
As you go down the yellow “% Response” column you see that the more recently a donor had given a gift to this organization, the more likely they were to give again.
What Does This Tell You?
Do not “rest” your donors by pulling them out of appeals for several weeks or months.
Do not “take your donors out and not ask them again until next year.” (Last Friday on Free Review Fridays there was an organization that was doing that.)
By waiting to ask your donors again you’re reducing the chance they will give to you again, not increasing the chance. In other words, you’re raising less money, not more. **
The $$$$ Consequences of ‘Resting’
Let’s look at a couple scenarios for the big group of donors who had given a gift 1 month prior. There were 3,686 of them who received the appeal. 9% of them gave a gift, and they gave a total of $20,676.
First scenario. What would have happened if this organization had “rested” their donors for a couple of months? Those 3,686 donors would not have received this appeal. The organization would have lost out on $20,676 in gross revenue.
Twenty. Thousand. Bucks. Just. Poof. Because the organization was fearful of the mostly mythical “donor fatigue.” That’s a concrete example of how fears around “asking too much” cause organizations to raise significantly less money.
Second scenario. What would have happened if they’d “rested” those donors for 6 months? According to the data, we can estimate that only 5% of them would have responded instead of 9%. So the organization would have raised $11,481 from that group instead of $20,676 (presuming average gift size is the same).
They would have raised $9,195 less by “resting” their donors for 6 months.
Think about that the next time someone in your organization wants to rest your donors.
And the crazy part is that it gets even worse! In addition to raising $9,195 less from that group of donors, by holding that group out of appeals and newsletters for 6 months the organization would completely miss out on all the other gifts that group would have given over those months.
Don’t Worry About “Donor Fatigue”
I can already hear the question.
“But what about donor fatigue?”
I have never seen “donor fatigue” in an organization that sends out fewer than 18 pieces of direct mail a year (plus emails). ***
As you mail and email your donors more often, you’ll hear complaints, sure. And the Board won’t like it. And a small percentage of major donors will ask to be taken out of your mass donor communications.
But in exchange for those “costs” you’ll raise more money, have higher donor retention rates, and do more good.
The organization that sent the appeal letter above used to send 8 appeals and 2 newsletters a year. With our help they currently send 13 appeals a year and 4 newsletters. Plus emails.
They raise a lot more money than they used to.
And their donor retention increased. They used to retain about 55 out of 100 donors every year. Now they retain about 63 out of 100 donors every year.
In other words, they communicated more with their donors and FAR more good things happened than bad things. Put more precisely, they gladly accepted a few complaints and treated a few major donors differently in exchange for more revenue, donors, and impact.
The way to get better at those appeals, e-appeals and newsletters is to practice.
You’ll be better at it a year from now. But only if you start practicing today.
Seek and accept expertise, but don’t let that delay you from starting.
As soon as you can.
And include your most recent donors!
* Of course there are cases where recency should not be the primary segmentation variable. If you’re already using a segmentation model more sophisticated than RFM, thank your lucky stars you’ve had the chance to learn such things, and know that this post is not for you.
** This applies to major donors, too, though not quite as linearly. The maxim holds, but you may know things about individual donors that exempts those particular donors. For instance, perhaps they have a family foundation that gives gifts once a year. Or they’ve told you that they’re only going to give one gift this year. The path to increased revenue from major donors, in our experience, is to be comfortable asking them for gifts more than once a year (within a system of Asking, Thanking and Reporting). The mistake is to take one major donor’s preference and use it as a strategy for all major donors.
*** The key here is to measure the right things. You want to measure and prioritize donor retention levels by segment, and Net Revenue. You want to pay the appropriate amount of attention to complaints, unsubscribes, and contacts from Majors. Pay attention to the performance of the group, not the squeaky wheels. Segmentation is your friend.
