Steven, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

Sing from the Same Song Sheet

Steven | December 17, 2019December 9, 2019Year-End

Here’s a quick, easy-to-do tip to help you raise a little more this year-end…

The copy at the top of your giving form should promise the same thing – maybe even be the same copy – as the call-to-action in your year-end fundraising.

Here’s the thing. Most people who end up on your giving form over the next couple of weeks will be driven there by your letters or emails.

So make sure the copy at the top of your form – the copy that says why the donor’s gift is needed and what it will accomplish – echoes what you said in your year-end letters and emails.

This will help your donor know that they’ve landed on the right page. It will reinforce what they expect their gift is going to do.

And it will increase the number of people who fill out the form and give you a gift.

If the copy is different, say a statement about your mission and how a gift supports the organization… that will cause some donors to be a little less sure of what their gift is going to do. And that tiny lack of certainty will cause some of them to click away without giving you a gift.

Example Time

Say your year-end letter asks people to “send a special gift to keep a missionary in the field next year.”

Your giving page copy should say that same thing. It should not be boilerplate language about your organization! It should not say, “We believe that blah, blah, blah, and your gift supports our holistic approach to missions…”

If your year-end email says, “Your gift today will provide the food, medication, and loving care an orphaned Bonobo needs to survive,” then the copy on your giving page should not say, “Founded in 1972, our organization is relentless in our striving to care for endangered creatures, and your gift supports our synergistic efforts to…”

Are you with me?

Then make sure the copy on your donate page matches what your year-end fundraising promises to donors that their gift will do. To your donors, you’ll look like you have your act together. More people will complete your form, and you’ll raise more money!

Call a Major Who Hasn’t Given Yet (and here’s what to say)

Steven | December 12, 2019December 9, 2019Year-End

Here’s another quick tip for you as the year-end approaches…

Call a major donor who hasn’t given a gift yet.

Here’s what to do (this will be easy for some nonprofits, hard for others):

Make sure you know exactly who your major donors are.
Run a report to see which of them haven’t given in the second half of this year.
Call each Major who hasn’t given recently, or who you think could give another gift this year.

Here’s What to Say

Our approach is that this call is a reminder – a service to the donor – not a direct Ask.

Take as much of the following script as is helpful to you and the context of each donor.

“I’m calling because I know how much you love helping [beneficiaries/cause], and I noticed that we hadn’t received a gift from you yet, here at the end of the year. You and your generosity have been extraordinary. So I wanted to call to see if there’s anything you need from me, or [your organization name], to help you make a gift or decide to make one.”

Then stop talking. Be comfortable with tension (if there is any). Let the donor speak next and take the conversation from there.

Pro major gift fundraisers will also be prepared with three things:

How much you’d like the donor to give
What her gift will do / the outcomes her gift will create
Reasons her gift is needed before the end of the year

But even if you don’t have those things, make the call. Making the call is the most important element.

If your call goes to voicemail, leave the message on voicemail.

And if you can’t make the call, send an email. But only if you can’t call.

It Won’t Work for Every Major Donor –

Because nothing works for everyone.

But for some majors who have been busy, or traveling, or were on the way to sending you a gift but put down your letter and forgot – you’ll be providing them a great service. You’ll be helping them give a gift that they would love to make!

And you’ll be raising more money!

More Good Reasons to Give Now = More Donations

Steven | December 10, 2019December 9, 2019Ask

I’m calling this a “quick tip.”

But in truth it’s a massive, foundational idea for fundraising success:

The more good reasons you can give your donor to give a gift TODAY, the more likely she is to give a gift.

I’ve included a list of “good reasons” below.

But in a nutshell:

“Your help is needed today and here’s why”

Will raise more than…

“Our programs are making a difference – please give to help continue this good work.”

I know it might feel weird. But it works.

And remember, I’m talking about direct response fundraising here. That’s your letters, your newsletters, your emails. I’m not talking about grant proposals or conversations with Foundations. This idea can be helpful in those contexts, too, but it’s not as necessary for success.

Good Reasons to Give Now

Here’s a list of “reasons” that are proven to increase the chances that your donor will respond to your direct response fundraising:

Any “multiplier” (like a matching grant)
Any beneficiary that faces a need right now (this can be starting to be helped by your organization, or the next step in their process with you)
A deadline
A budget shortfall
Any acute need like “14 new people will enter our shelter this month” or “There are 35 people on our waiting list”
It’s a learned behavior to begin to focus your fundraising on “reasons to give a gift today” instead of focusing your fundraising on your organization, your programs, your successes, etc.

To help you make the transition to this new way of thinking, here’s some evidence that this works from last week’s GivingTuesday.

I’ve been helping an organization add “reasons to give today” to all their fundraising. Here’s the report I received for how GivingTuesday went: “The team and I have really been trying to focus on the reasons to give NOW. Wonder where I learned that? We smashed through the goal, so I’m thrilled!”

For your next piece of fundraising – maybe your year-end emails?! – be sure to include reasons to give today. You’ll raise more money!

You Can Do Better Than “Donate Now”

Steven | December 5, 2019December 3, 2019Ask

I learned a long time ago that “donors fund outcomes.” They are more likely to give a donation if they think their gift is helping to create a specific outcome – as opposed to just “supporting your organization.”

Turns out the same principle works online, too.

Better Fundraising has had more success with online “donate” buttons that replace the word “donate” with an outcome that the organization produces.

The Lesson: replace the text on your “donate” button with text that reinforces the outcome of your donor’s gift

Here are a bunch of examples from our archives:

Provide Shelter
Feed 1 Person
Save The Parks
Provide an Ultrasound
Save A life
Provide Clean Water
Provide a Coat
Provide a Scholarship

You get the point.

The lesson for you: if you’re able, update any donate buttons you use in email, on your website, and in social media.

Instead of highlighting the action of giving (“donate” and “give now”), highlight the outcome the donor’s gift will help create

I should mention that we don’t have any head-to-head testing data that backs this recommendation up. But I’ve read results that back me up.

And the principle of “asking a donor to do a powerful thing” works better than “asking a donor to donate” has benefitted our clients too many times to count.

Good luck! And always remember that your donors are more likely to give this month than any other time of year. So don’t hesitate to Ask them to help your beneficiaries!

Do NOT Start Your E-Appeals with a Thank You

Steven | December 3, 2019December 3, 2019Thank

We ran a test that you should know about.

We randomly divided a nonprofit’s email file into two groups. We sent both groups the same year-end email with just one difference: the first sentence of one group’s email thanked the donor for their previous support.

The version that began with the Thank You raised significantly less money.

The Lesson: don’t start your appeals or e-appeals by thanking your donor for their previous giving

It seems like the right thing to do – but it raises less money.

So we now have a policy: do not start appeals or e-appeals with a Thank You for the donor’s previous giving.

My Attempt to Explain the Results

Always remember that most donors don’t read the whole thing.

Remember the “heat map”? The eye-tracking studies that prove most donors jump around, don’t read things from top-to-bottom, and certainly don’t read the whole thing?

Here’s my explanation: a number of your donors will read the first line of your emails. And if that line is Thanking them for their previous giving, they appreciate being thanked and then delete your message because they think nothing is being asked of them.

Another thing to remember: at year-end, your donors are moving even faster than normal. They have parties to go to, presents to wrap, etc.

And if a significant amount of your donors stop reading after the first sentence, you are going to raise less money.

So for your December and year-end fundraising emails this year, don’t succumb to the temptation of Thanking your donors right off the bat. It feels like it’s the right thing to do. But you’ll raise less money!

How to Choose What to Underline and Why

Steven | October 31, 2019October 22, 2019Ask

I’m going to teach you to raise more money by showing you what to emphasize in your fundraising letters.

Because if you underline or bold the right things, you’ll raise more money.

NOTE: for brevity, I’m going to lump all forms of visual emphasis as “underlining.” You might use underlining, or bolding, or highlighting, doesn’t matter. All of those are different tactics. I’m talking about the strategy of visually emphasizing small portions of your letters and e-appeals.

First, let me tell you why your underlining is so important.

Underlining has two purposes in fundraising writing. Almost nobody knows the second – and more important – purpose.

Bolding or underlining signals that a sentence is important. This is true of almost any writing.
But underlining also serves a second, more important purpose. The most effective fundraisers use underlining to choose for your donor which things they are most likely to read.

Because remember, most of your donors won’t read your letter from top to bottom. They will scan your letter – briefly running their eyes down the page. And as they scan, when they see a sentence that has been emphasized, they are likely to stop scanning and read.

It’s this second, more valuable purpose that most organizations don’t know about. So they underline the wrong things.

My Rule of Thumb

Here’s what I try to do. This doesn’t apply to every letter, but I try this approach first on every single letter I review or write:

The first thing underlined should be a statement of need, or a statement describing the problem that the organization is working on.
The second thing is a brief explanation of how the donor’s gift will help meet the need or solve the problem mentioned in the first underlined section.
The third thing is a bold call-to-action for the donor to give a gift to meet the need / solve the problem today.

If you do that, I can basically guarantee that your letter will do well. A MASSIVE number of fundraising letters don’t even have those elements, let alone emphasize them. If you have them, and you emphasize them, here’s what happens:

Donors know immediately what you’re writing to them about
Donors know immediately what they can do to help
Donors know immediately that they are needed!

Because of those things your donors are more likely to read more. And more likely to donate more.

There Are Some Sub-Rules

No pronouns. Remember that it’s very likely that a person reading the underlined sentence has not read the prior sentences. So if you underline a sentence like “They need it now!” the donor does not know who “they” are and what “it” is. The sentence is basically meaningless to the donor. Their time has been wasted.
Not too many. You’ve seen this before; there are four sentences that are bolded, five that are underlined, and the result is a visual mess that only a Board member would read. Be disciplined. I try to emphasize only three things per page, sometimes four.
Emphasize what donors care about, not what your Org cares about. If you find yourself emphasizing a sentence like, “Our programs are the most effective in the county!” … de-emphasize it. Though it matters a lot to you, no donor is scanning your letter looking to hear how good your organization is at its job. But donors are scanning for things they are interested in. So emphasize things like, “Because of matching funds, the impact of your gift doubles!” or “I know you care about unicorns, and the local herd is in real danger.”
Drama is interesting. If your organization is in a dramatic situation, or the story in the letter has real drama, underline it. Here are a couple of examples from letters we’ve worked on recently: “It was at the moment she saw the ultrasound that life in her belly stopped being a problem and became a baby” and “The enclosed Emergency Funding Program card outlines the emergency fundraising plan I’ve come up with.”

And now, I have to share that I got the idea for this post when I saw this clip from the TV show “Friends”. It turns out that Joey has never known what using ‘air quotes’ means – and he’s using them wrong (to hilarious effect). I saw it and thought, “That’s like a lot of nonprofits trying to use underlining effectively.”

If you’re offended by that, please forgive me. I see hundreds of appeal letters and e-appeals a year. I developed a sense of humor as a defense mechanism. 🙂

The good news is that learning how to use underlining is as easy as learning to use air quotes!

You can do this. Just remember that most of your donors are moving fast. Underline only what they need to know. That’s an incredible gift to a compassionate, generous, busy donor!

And if you’d like to know how Better Fundraising can create your appeals and newsletters (with very effective underlining!) take a look here.

Your Fundraising Should Be More Vulnerable

Steven | October 29, 2019October 22, 2019Ask

Today’s post is all about vulnerability – a quality your organization needs to have if you want to be more successful when raising money.

I’m going to illustrate vulnerability using four quotes from Brene Brown. Brene is a research professor who’s done deep research on courage and vulnerability. (She probably doesn’t know it, but much of her work applies directly to fundraising!)

If you apply the principles she discovered to your fundraising, you’ll be better at engaging and keeping your donors.

“Through my research, I found that vulnerability is the glue that holds relationships together. It’s the magic sauce.”

Donor relationships are a lot like human relationships. Donors like to feel needed, and they like to feel appreciated.

Weirdly, most nonprofits in my experience are lousy at doing this. And it starts with an inability to be vulnerable.

For instance, they might ask their donors to “partner” with them, or ask for “support.” But most nonprofits rarely ask for help as if they really need it.

Go look at your fundraising materials. Just scan them. Do you get the impression that your organization or your beneficiaries really need help?

I’d like to suggest that if your nonprofit was more vulnerable to your donors you would engage your donors more deeply, keep them for longer, and raise more money.

In my experience, organizations raise a lot more money when they are vulnerable.

“Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.”

I think one of the reasons there’s a massive donor retention problem in Fundraising is that most donors feel so little connection with the organizations they donate to. And I blame that mostly on poor donor communications. Most nonprofits are constantly talking about themselves and taking credit for everything they’ve done. You can look at the materials of many organizations (especially their websites!) and never know they even have donors.

Think about your relationships with other humans. Do you feel connected to, and valued by, the people who are always talking about themselves? Nope.

If you want to experience connection with your donors, be vulnerable. Tell them that their gift (or their volunteer hours, or their Board service) are needed. Tell them that you’re doing as much as you can, but you need their help. Tell them that you’re not reaching everyone who needs help, but that you could reach more people if they donated.

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”

It’s hard to ask for money. For most of us, it’s unnatural. And I think that’s why organizations tend to pussy-foot around it.

It takes real courage to ask boldly for money! Much of my work is with leaders of organizations helping them overcome fears about Asking. They don’t like it. Or they think it will reflect poorly on themselves or the organization. They come up with all kinds of crazy rationalizations for why they shouldn’t ask.

This week I heard a doozy from an ED: “I need to be the positive leader, but staff can encourage donors to give…”

I submit to you that’s not good leadership. Nor is it courage. It certainly isn’t vulnerability.

Here’s what that ends up looking like in appeals and e-appeals (as always, these are actual sentences from actual appeals):

“Will you help us do more of this good work?”
“Will you partner with us to help those in need?”
“Thank you for your determination to support our staff.”

Do you see any real need or vulnerability there? Neither do it. Neither do their donors.

When looked at through this lens, is it any wonder that an appeal that ends with…

“There are people right now who need help, but we don’t have the budget to reach them. Will you please send a gift today to help them?’

…will raise more than an appeal that ends like this?

“Will you help us do more of this good work?”

Ask courageously! The things you fear won’t come to pass. Or if they do, it will be in such small measure compared to the incredible generosity you see from your donors.

“I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”

As a nonprofit, here’s how to pay attention and practice gratitude: watch every gift come in with joy and amazement. Think of the incredible connections you just formed between your donors and your beneficiaries! Think of the incredible good you just did!

Because remember: your donors LOVE to give! They love to support you. They love to help your beneficiaries or cause.

I think there’s incredible joy to be had in courageously stating a need, asking for help, and then watching generosity pour in.

I know you get numb to it after a while. Unless you are careful, the amazing generosity of donors pretty quickly just gets thought of as “monthly revenue” – every single time a gift comes in to your organization.

If there’s a ‘spiritual practice’ that most nonprofits should be doing, it’s practicing gratitude.

Because if you practice gratitude regularly, you become more grateful. And when you’re truly grateful for your donors, you will be comfortable being vulnerable with them. Vulnerability is where connection and relationship happens. You do that, and you’ll build a tribe of donors and an organization that can change the world.

What Is a Fundraising “Offer”? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Steven | October 24, 2019October 23, 2019Ask

A fundraising “offer” is the least-understood, most-powerful tool in fundraising.

It’s the secret key to Asking effectively.

Here’s what an “offer” is: a super-simple description of what your donor’s gift will accomplish.

Many nonprofits don’t pay close attention to how they describe what a donor’s gift will do. I can’t say this strongly enough: you should pay very close attention to the words and ideas you use to describe what your donor’s gift will do today.

I recently spent some time with Brady Josephson talking about what makes a successful offer. The blog post he wrote after our chat, 4 Components of a Great Fundraising Offer, has a ton of helpful thoughts for you, including a podcast we recorded.

Today, I want to share my super-simple formula for creating a successful offer. Brady created the excellent infographic at the right (click to enlarge).

You can read more about each of the 4 elements in Brady’s post. For now, let me leave you with an idea that shows you how important I think offers are.

As I look back over the nonprofits I’ve worked with, the biggest jumps in revenue tend to come from two causes:

A spike or long-term increase of media attention on the people, place or cause a nonprofit is working on. For instance, raising money to help refugees used to be an uphill slog in the mud. But because of the increased media attention on refugees in recent years (Syria, Iraq, Uganda, Myanmar) it’s become much easier. Response rates are up. Average gifts are up. But for the most part, a change like this is completely outside the control of your organization.
What you can control is your offer. The best example of this is World Vision. They were a tiny organization until they developed the “child sponsorship” offer – now they raise over $1.5 billion a year. It’s not that donors care more about kids now than they did 50 years ago. It’s that World Vision got really good at describing what a donor’s gift does.

Offers are so helpful to donors because they help donors quickly identify something good they can do today. A good offer doesn’t require your donors to understand your cause, your organization, or your methods. Put another way: a good offer makes it easier for a donor to say “yes!”

And when you make it easier for donors to say “yes!” you “open the door” to your organization a little bit wider. More donors will walk through, and they will bring donations!

PS — For more on creating successful offers, download our free e-Book, Fundraising Offers: What they are, how they work, and how to make a great one. Click here to download it!

Fundraising and Storytelling

Steven | October 22, 2019October 22, 2019Report

Hey! I just made this short video for you because I was working late. I’m preparing for the best fundraising conference out there – the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference next week in San Diego. Click here to watch the video – and I hope to see you at the conference!