Steven, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

How to Focus on One Specific Program Yet Still Raise Undesignated Funds

Steven | July 9, 2019July 2, 2019Videos

I teach often about the power of using specific offers – highlighting specific programs or even parts of programs – in your appeals and e-appeals.

Then a good question always comes up:

“But how do I raise undesignated funds in my appeal letter if my appeal focuses only on one program?”

This video answers that question.

In the video I show you the things you need to say in your appeals, and the places you need to say them, to have your appeal raise undesignated funds.

I also share how to think about this approach – which is new for most people.

It’s just 5 minutes long. But watch it so that you too can enjoy the benefits of raising more money, benefits that come from talking about specific programs or parts of your organization – while raising undesignated funding!

7 Crucial Storytelling Tips to Help You Raise More Money

Steven | July 2, 2019July 1, 2019Videos

I make a lot of fundraising videos.

It’s a joy when a video helps a lot of people raise more money – and that’s exactly what this video has done.

I made it with Jeff Brooks and Chris Davenport. It’s called 7 Crucial Storytelling Tips to Improve Your Fundraising.

You’ll learn Jeff’s best tip for how to start your stories, my advice on the best stories to tell in appeals, and why repetition is so important to successful fundraising.

It’s a long one – 20 minutes – but if you watch just the first couple of minutes you’ll leave with a tip that will help you raise more money the very next time you send a communication to your donors. I hope you’ll watch it and raise more money!

Why Church Fundraising Dropped

Steven | June 27, 2019June 26, 2019Ask

Most churches are raising less than they used to.

Below, I’ll talk about why that is.

The solution is not easy. (If it were easy to raise money, we’d all be raising a lot more.) But there IS a solution.

Quick Backstory

In my experience, the vast majority of churches didn’t need to be good at fundraising.

Churches didn’t need to get great at fundraising because the tithe – members giving 10% of their income to the church – meant that the church raised a lot of money despite not doing much/good fundraising.

So churches didn’t need to get good at Asking. Churches didn’t need to get good at Reporting on what donors’ / members’ gifts accomplished.

In other words, most churches didn’t need to learn the skills and approaches that nonprofits have developed over the years to help them raise more money.

(Additionally, the generational shift from Builders to Boomers has hurt church fundraising, too. Builders tended to give because they were supposed to give. Boomers tend to be more skeptical; they want to know more about why their gift is needed and what it will accomplish. Personally I think this skepticism is warranted, even though it makes fundraising harder.)

Quick Story

Recently my pastor preached a fantastic sermon about why tithing was a practice that didn’t make sense in today’s world. Everything he said made a ton of sense.

And giving at the church dropped overnight.

Why?

Because many people no longer felt like they had to give. They’d been taught to tithe; tithing was a duty. The tithe was one of the main reasons people gave as much as they did.

They gave less because their main reason for giving had been removed.

And that reason was not replaced with any other reasons.

(The lesson, as always: if you remove a reason to give today, you raise less money.)

What Should Churches Do?

To solve this problem, let’s admit that the pastor and leadership team usually aren’t aware of the fundraising skills needed to thrive in today’s church fundraising environment.

But here are the two things they need to do:

Give their congregations new, powerful reasons to give today
Get great at the Skills and Strategies that nonprofits use to engage donors and raise money

Skills and Strategies like:

Give people multiple reasons to give today
Get good at describing the outcomes of people’s gifts
Develop and use great offers
Report back to donors on the outcomes of their giving
Give donors the credit for those outcomes
Segment donors, and treat major donors differently than mass donors
In addition to talking about giving from the point of view of God and the church, talk about what’s in it for the donor

The good news (ha!) for churches is that all of these are learnable skills. Because fundraising is a knowledge issue, not a talent issue.

Get in touch if you’d like to speak with us or connect us with your church!

Super Simple Segmentation

Steven | June 25, 2019June 21, 2019Ask

You can save a lot of money by segmenting your mailing lists.

I’m going to make a couple of super simple recommendations here, then I’ll unpack why:

Only mail your appeal letters and newsletters to donors
who have given you a gift in the previous 18 months.

Of course it gets more complex than that, as your donor file grows.

But if you’re new to segmentation, here’s where to start: mail only to donors who have given a gift in the last year and a half.

Why Just Those People?

Two reasons:

The longer it’s been since a person gave your organization a gift, the less likely they are to give you another gift. (This has been tested, analyzed and proven again and again.)
The dropoff in a donor’s likelihood to give you another gift is not a straight line. There’s a real “cliff” 12 months after a donor’s last gift.

When sophisticated organizations analyze the success of their mailings, they notice something: it often costs more to mail their lapsed donors than the income they receive from those donors.

Here’s what that means for you: if you’re sending your mailings to more people than “donors in the last 18 months,” you’re almost certainly throwing some money down the drain.

So the savvy organizations stop mailing those folks – with a couple of exceptions.

Should You Ever Mail Your Lapsed Donors?

Absolutely. But do it smartly:

Mail them only a couple times a year. Pick those times carefully; they are usually your Holiday / Year-end Appeal, and your other best-performing appeal.
When you do, create a version of your main appeal just for your lapsed donors. That version should, right at the beginning, tell the donor that you haven’t heard from them in a while. It usually goes something like, “Dear [NAME], I haven’t heard from you in a while, but I’m writing today because [URGENT REASON].” Then use the rest of your original letter.

Nerd Nerd Nerd

Please forgive me, the Teacher / Explainer / Nerd in me is making me say something.

Most nonprofits with large mail files do not follow my recommendation above. Instead of mailing to donors in the last 18 months, they mail donors who have given a gift in the last 12 months.

You know that “cliff” I mentioned earlier? It’s real. After it’s been 13 months since a donor gave you a gift, their chances of giving you another gift really drop. Fast. So most larger organizations don’t waste money by mailing donors who are unlikely to give a gift.

But I recommended 0 – 18 months above because, through testing, we’ve found it fruitful for smaller nonprofits.

Why? Because smaller nonprofits aren’t mailing their donors often enough. They just aren’t giving their donors enough opportunities to give. So when we mail to donors 0 – 18 months, we give the 13 to 18-month donors another chance or two to give a gift. And those gifts (plus the additional revenue from reactivating those donors) make the investment to mail them a good one.

What Should You Do?

The next time you pull a mailing list, critically think through who you are selecting.

If you’re mailing more people than “donors 0-18 months,” you can save real money by cutting your mailing costs!

The #1 Story that Raises the Most Money [VIDEO]

Steven | June 20, 2019June 19, 2019Videos

I think it’s the most helpful video I’ve ever made.

If you’d like to know how to:

Tell stories in your appeals, e-appeals and events so that more donors will respond
Tell stories so that your donors become more bonded to your organization
Tell stories so that you raise more money
Say what’s needed when sharing this thinking with the people in your organization who don’t like powerful fundraising

It’s all in there. Watch the video!

Q&A: Donor-delighting, money-raising newsletters

Steven | June 18, 2019June 18, 2019Report

I’m going to list a handful of questions I get all the time about donor newsletters.

My answers are going to be super-prescriptive, meaning I’m going to eliminate the gray area and just tell you what I would do.

Every answer has been tested to work better than (i.e., raise more money than) whatever approach was used previously. In most cases, the answers have been tested and found more effective hundreds of times.

Let’s get to it!

Questions & Answers

“What should the newsletter be about?”

It should be about your donor, and the effects of her previous gift. It should not be about your organization.

“What should the stories be about?”

Roughly 2 out of 3 stories should be about a single beneficiary. If you don’t have beneficiaries, then 2 out of 3 stories should directly show and tell your donor the impact her gift made.

“Should the stories all be about one thing?”

Yes. In our experience, newsletters that are themed – all the stories are about one portion of what your organization does – will raise the most money.

“What should I do to make my newsletter raise money?”

The back page of your newsletter should feature what we call a “story of need.” Describe a current need your organization or your beneficiaries are facing, and how the donor’s gift today will help meet that need. (Many donors would like to make a gift after hearing that their previous gift made a difference, and this story gives them a reason to make a gift now.). Additionally, your newsletter should also include a separate reply card and reply envelope.

“What should my reply card look like?”

It should look like a standard appeal reply card. The “action copy” that describes what the donor’s gift will do should tell the donor that her gift will meet the need that’s mentioned on the back page of your newsletter.

“What grade level should I write at?”

Around 7^th or 8^th grade. Writing at this grade level has nothing to do with the intelligence of your readers, or how intelligent they will think your organization is. It has everything to do with how fast and easy it is for them to understand what they’re reading.

“What will people be most likely to read?”

Your headlines, subheads and picture captions. Make sure that if a donor reads only those elements she will receive your main message: that her gift made a meaningful difference. Be sure to devote the appropriate amount of time to these elements; they are the most-read parts of your newsletter, so you should spend more time on them than you do on the stories themselves.

“What is the purpose of the donor-centric newsletter?”

Primary purpose: to show and tell your donor that her previous gift made a difference. Secondary purpose: for the donors who are now inspired to help even more, to make it easy for them to give a gift today.

“How often should the newsletter mention the donor?”

She should be mentioned in every story. You accomplish this by using the word “you.” In most stories she should be mentioned at least twice.

“Am I writing to all donors?”

No. Write as if only one person is going to read it.

“Who should I send this to?”

All donors who have given a gift in the last 18 months.

“Can I send it to our volunteers / lapsed donors / non-donors?”

You can, but it’s a waste of your money. Newsletters are empirically lousy at turning non-donors into donors (we’ve tested it). And if you include content in your newsletter for volunteers, your newsletter is less effective for donors.

Want More?

Those answers will help your newsletter start raising more money immediately.

If you’d like help taking your next newsletter from blank page to a donor-delighting, money-raising newsletter, take the Newsletters webinar I created with Chris Davenport (the founder of the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference).

You’ll see our super-simple template for your newsletter. It makes it as easy as possible for you. And I’ll walk you through all of the steps.

We received one quote that made my month: “Thank you so much for the webinar series – the best training $$s I’ve spent in the last 5 years.”

Unhelpful questions

Steven | June 13, 2019June 13, 2019Ask

I get asked questions about appeals ALL THE TIME.

And I believe that all questions are good questions. But not all of the questions are helpful questions.

There are some questions that are signs that a fundraiser or organization is heading down the wrong path.

Think of it this way. Say someone asked you…

“When I’m making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, when do I add the roast beef?”

You’d know that there’s something they don’t quite understand. “There’s nothing wrong with roast beef,” you’d say, “but it’s not a good idea to put it on a PB&J.”

I call questions like that…

Wrong Path Questions

Here’s a small handful of questions where organizations are asking about “when to put the roast beef on their PB&J.”

My reason for doing this is not to poke fun at the silly things nonprofits do (though that’s fun and, let’s admit, there’s a lot of material). My hope is to help Fundraisers like you know how to answer the questions that will invariably come your way from people in your organization who aren’t trained in all this stuff.

“How can we convince people we are effective?”

In a nutshell, you don’t even want to try to convince people that you’re effective in a letter or email. In my experience, doing so will cause your letter or email to raise less money. Donors do care about whether you’re effective, but in your mass donor communications your effectiveness is NOT one of the top reasons they give or don’t give. And in a letter or email, you only have time to talk about the top reasons.

“How can I make this sound like my Executive Director (or ‘our voice’)?”

Making direct mail or email sound like a particular person or “voice” is almost always a mistake. A more helpful goal is to learn the best practices for direct mail and email, then make your materials sound like those best practices. That means short sentences and paragraphs, it means being direct and repetitive. Those approaches are tested and proven to work the best. If “sounding like your voice” means your letter doesn’t sound like effective direct response fundraising, then your voice is hurting your fundraising, not helping.

Marginally effective: direct mail written in your voice.
Effective: direct mail that follows best practices, featuring small elements of your voice

“How can I use emotion without being emotionally manipulative?”

The idea that any of us fundraisers can emotionally manipulate donors is ridiculous. Donors are adults. They can make their own decisions. What you’re trying to do in fundraising is tap into emotions the donor already has.

“We don’t like to share any bad news or Need; how can I Ask effectively?”

You can’t Ask effectively if you don’t share Need. If you don’t like to share bad news or a need, you’ve just removed one of (if not the) most effective tools you have to motivate donors to give. Most donors, most of the time, are motivated to help people (or a cause) in need. Or to avoid the loss of something. If you don’t want to share need, you’ve placed an artificial ceiling on the amount of money you can raise for your beneficiaries or cause.

“We aren’t simple like those big organizations. How can we describe everything we do?”

Those big organizations aren’t simple. They are more complex than you know. But they are incredibly disciplined with their fundraising. They only talk about the parts of their organization that raise the most money. Your job is to find out the parts of your work that donors respond most to, then be disciplined and only talk about those parts. You’ll raise more money that way.

“I don’t like the way fundraising letters look; what else can I use that’s effective?”

Professional fundraising letters look the way they look because that “look” has been proven to work best. They key here is to set aside personal preferences and trust the testing that’s been done over the last 70 years of sending mail to people and analyzing the results.

The Challenge

The challenge for smaller-shop fundraisers is to make sure the “wrong path” questions don’t take your fundraising further down the wrong path.

That’s hard work. Because at small shops there are often multiple people with no direct response fundraising training, and they’re asking questions based on their opinions, not on the science of fundraising.

I hope this helps you face your challenges – at least with these particular questions!

Good questions

Steven | June 11, 2019June 5, 2019Ask

I get asked questions about appeals ALL THE TIME.

The questions tend to fall into three buckets:

Tactical questions
Right Path questions
Wrong Path questions

The tactical questions are good ones. They’re a sign of people and organizations trying to figure out the best practices for fundraising in appeals and e-appeals.

These are things like, “How long should my letter be?” and “Who should sign it?” (I should mention that I answer a number of these every week during Free Review Fridays.)

Right Path Questions

There’s a set of questions that I think are signs that a Fundraiser or organization is “heading down the right path” toward creating successful appeals and e-appeals.

Another way to put this: they are questions that people are asking about the things that really matter in the success or failure of appeals.

Because working on the things that matter will help you be more successful, faster.

My hope is at least one of them sparks a conversation about your appeals that leads you to the next level.

So here are just a few questions that I love getting, because they’re a sign that an organization is moving their donor communications forward…

What am I actually trying to make happen with an appeal?
Do we want our donors to “like” our appeal?
What should not be in an appeal?
What’s my offer?
Does the headline on the reply device make perfect sense after reading the letter?
Is the letter repetitive enough?
How many times should I ask?
Should I use “I” or “we”?
How do I create custom gift ask amounts?
Who should I send this to?
What should and shouldn’t go on a reply card?
What types of teasers work best?
What information should be a “headline” and what should be a “copy point”?
What should I leave out of the letter?
Should I do a different version for major donors?
Is my first sentence super easy to read?
What’s the real purpose of underlining and/or bolding?
How long before a deadline should I mail a letter?
Should I send a follow-up mailing?
What kinds of offers work best?
How can I use email to increase response to my appeal letter?

Each of these questions – to me – is a good question. It shows that the organization is wrestling with an issue that will help them better connect with their donors and raise more money.

Next Post…

Then there’s a set of questions I call Wrong Path Questions. They are questions that are usually a sign of an organization that is already on its way down a path towards raising less money.

It’s like a flock of birds arguing whether they should fly East or West for the winter when, really, they should be flying South.

Stay tuned for those in my next post.

Answer Her Three Questions

Steven | June 6, 2019June 4, 2019Thank

Here’s a little checklist I use to create powerful receipt packages, autoreplies and thank you letters.

I make an assumption that after a donor makes a gift to a nonprofit, at some level she’s asking herself three questions:

Did you receive my gift?
Did you appreciate my gift?
Are you going to do what you said you were going to do when you asked for my gift?

When writing and designing receipts and thank yous, I make sure the answers to those questions are the very first things communicated.

It’s a simple strategy, I admit. But it works for organizations that are trying to make the shift from organizational-centric communications to donor-centric communications, because it helps them avoid the common mistakes.

Notice What’s Not There

Notice something powerful…

Her questions are not about your organization. Her questions are not about your programs, your mission and vision, or your effectiveness.

Her first questions are about her and her gift.

Is there anything inherently wrong about talking about your programs, your vision and mission, or your effectiveness?

No. Of course not. But I would talk about those things after you’ve answered her primary questions.

“Did you receive my gift?”

This is more important than you think.

And if you think that most donors aren’t worried whether their gifts were received or not, I encourage you to go talk to lots of older donors who give through the mail. They often wonder this, especially when it takes more than a couple days for them to receive a receipt.

“Did you appreciate my gift?”

Donors want to feel appreciated. Valued. Meaningful. Very few nonprofits ever tell their donors that.

If you communicate to your donor that she’s appreciated, valued and meaningful – don’t you think there’s a much better chance that your donor will give you another gift down the road?

“Are you going to do what you said you were going to do when you asked for my gift?”

Most organizations make asks of their donors in specific situations: “please help us raise $400,000 at the event tonight” or “please give a gift to support the annual fund” or “your $25 gift today will introduce a local child to the opera.”

But then those organizations send boilerplate thank-yous that don’t acknowledge the specific ask. They ask you to “introduce a local child to the opera” and then send a thank you letter that says, “Your gift is supporting our 11 programs to support the arts in our county.”

To a donor, this causes disconnect. She wonders, “Hey, did the organization not know that I was giving to introduce a kid to the opera?”

You don’t want your donor wondering things like that!

It leaves the impression that a) the organization doesn’t have its act together, or b) it’s cavalier with donors’ gifts.

Ouch.

You don’t want to leave that impression. Especially if it’s the first thank you/receipt a donor receives.

The solution: customized thank you copy for each specific ask/event/offer you put in front of your donors.

My Suggestion

Answer her three questions first. Then the rest of what you put in there is up to you.

If your organization is exceptionally effective at using her gift, that’s of value to her. If you know she supports the same vision you do, that’s of value to her, too.

Just start by answering the questions she’s asking. That strategy will rarely lead you astray.