Steven, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

How and Why to Give Your Donors a Reason to Give Today

Steven | April 30, 2019May 16, 2019Ask

This is the sixth post in a series designed to help you create powerful fundraising offers.

And for a refresher, here’s my definition of an offer: the main thing that you say will happen when the person gives a gift.

The Four Main Ingredients

The most successful fundraising offers tend to have 4 elements:

A solvable problem that’s easy to understand
A solution to that problem that’s easy to understand
The cost of the solution seems like a good deal
There’s urgency to solve the problem NOW

Today, we’re going to break down element #4, “there’s urgency to solve the problem NOW.”

There’s Urgency to Solve the Problem NOW

There are two main ideas here…

There’s urgency

I cannot emphasize this enough: the more urgently your donor’s gift is needed, the more likely you are to receive a gift.

And let’s take care of an objection to this right off the bat. Immediately upon reading the previous paragraph, some people will say that using urgency too often will wear out donors, cause donor fatigue, and your donors will stop giving to you.

They will not test this approach. They will simply “know” that always using urgency will drive donors away.

This is not true.

Remember, your donors do not open every piece of mail. They open 3 out of 10 emails (if you’re good). So a pattern that seems to you like never-ending urgency can seem to donors like you’re asking for an appropriate amount of help – help that is needed for the important cause you’re working on.

The success of my career is due largely to knowing that mass-donor fundraising can be more urgent, more often than people think. And it will have almost zero negative consequences. (Because of course you’ll get a complaint or two – but when you compare those one or two complaints against the hundreds of gifts you receive, the complaints feel like a small hurdle.)

So let’s agree that urgency works. Here’s what you want to do…

Solve the Problem NOW

Here’s what you want to do: every email, letter, newsletter and event should give people multiple reasons to give a gift today.

You want to create urgency in any fundraising piece by highlighting reasons your donor should give a gift today. Here’s a brief list of reasons you can use in your own fundraising:

A deadline. This can be a real deadline (“Our fiscal year ends June 30th”) or an artificial deadline (“Please send your gift by the first day of school”) – they both work like crazy.
What will happen if your organization doesn’t do its work. This is making clear what will happen to your beneficiaries or cause if your organization is not able to help; “If we don’t help the middle-schooler learn to read, she’ll enter high-school at a massive disadvantage” and “If we don’t cure this person in time, they will lose their eyesight” and “If this program is not funded, children in our town will have nowhere to learn about the Arts.”
a. Many organizations don’t like to share this information. But it’s a fact! It’s the reason your organization exists! In my view, those organizations are hiding the truth from their donors. They aren’t treating their donors like adults. Trust me; your donors can handle it. And sharing what could happen if your organization doesn’t help reminds donors what’s at stake – it reminds donors why they gave a gift in the first place.
Social Proof. If you can show donors that “people like them are making donations like this” you will raise more money. Here’s a phrase that has helped our smaller clients have a lot of success: “[DonorName], compassionate people all over [LocalArea] are pitching in to help [Beneficiaries/Cause] – please do your part today by sending in a gift!”

Remember: LOTS of charities are asking your donors for gifts. Most of them are using the, “Hey, we’re helping a lot of people, would you partner with us?” approach. And that will cause some gifts to come in. But if you really want to stand out in your donors’ mailbox and inbox, you need to give her reasons to give a gift to you today.

You do that well, and you’ll get more gifts.

Next Up…

The next post will show you why some people in your organization won’t like a strong fundraising offer (something I suspect you already know is going to happen).

And I’ll show you how I convince people to try an offer for the first time. Because after they try it – and don’t see the massive number of complaints and donor exodus they fear – you’re on your way to using offers and raising more money!

Read the entire series:

How to Raise More Money by Asking for the Right Amount

Steven | April 25, 2019May 16, 2019Ask

This is the fifth post in a series designed to help you create powerful fundraising offers.

And for a refresher, here’s my definition of an offer: the main thing that you say will happen when the person gives a gift.

Quick Refresher

The most successful fundraising offers tend to have 4 elements:

A solvable problem that’s easy to understand
A solution to that problem that’s easy to understand
The cost of the solution seems like a good deal
There’s urgency to solve the problem NOW

Today, we’re going to break down element #3, ‘the cost of the solution.’

The Cost of the Solution Seems Like a Good Deal

There are a three main ideas here…

The Cost

When you’re able to tell donors exactly how much it costs for them to make a meaningful difference, donors are more likely to give.

Most nonprofits don’t do this. They say, “Here’s a bunch of stuff we do, please help us today with a gift.”

But in my experience (and the experience of all my mentors), you’ll raise more money if you find/come up with something specific to promise a donor that she’ll help do, and if that something specific has a price.

(Of course, the price for that thing has to be the right size for the donor. But we’ll talk about that below.)

Why is so helpful for donors when you promise that a specific thing will happen if a donor gives a specific amount? Because it shows them how much they need to give for their gift to make a meaningful difference.

To be clear, there are some donors out there who will give just because you work on a cause or people group that they care about. And when you remind them that you’re doing all of that work, some of those donors will give gifts.

But we’ve helped hundreds of organizations start raising more immediately when we help them identify a specific, meaningful part of their process that they can ask their donors to fund.

And then those organizations raise even more money when that specific, meaningful thing has a specific cost.

Because donors love to know what their impact will be. So by being specific about what their impact will be, and how much it will cost, you help your donors be more likely to donate to your organization.

Of The Solution

This might seem obvious, but let’s cover it just in case. The cost that you mention above needs to be for the exact solution in your offer.

If you’re talking about feeding a person, the cost needs to be for a meal.
If you’re talking about advocating, the cost needs to be for some meaningful part of advocating.

This often goes sideways when organizations follow this tactic almost to the very end… but not quite. For instance, an advocacy group will talk about how “$50 trains 50 volunteers to advocate effectively for the cause.” That’s a great offer. But then the letter will end with, “Please donate $50 to help us do all the things that we do.”

No. Stay on target. End the letter with, “Please donate $50 to train 50 volunteers today!” Then the reply card should say something like, “Here’s my gift to train volunteers.”

Seems Like a Good Deal

Donors are generous, compassionate, value-conscious humans.

Donors love it when they feel like they are “getting a good deal” on their donation.

This is why matching grants work so well! To a donor, it feels like she gets to have twice the impact for what she normally gives. To her, it feels like her impact has gone on sale for 50% off.

Because of donors’ desire to get a good deal, offers tend to work better when the cost of the solution seems like a good deal. Let’s look at some offers we’ve had tremendous success with:

“$1.92 to feed a homeless person Thanksgiving dinner” seems like a good deal.
“$300 to cure a person of a major disease” seems like a good deal.
“$10,000 to send an underprivileged girl to an Ivy League college for a year” seems like a good deal
“$50 to join my neighbors in the fight against cancer” seems like a good deal.
“Your impact will be DOUBLED by matching funds” seems like a good deal.

As you create your own offers, look for a couple of things to help show donors how they are getting a good deal:

Small parts of big processes that make a big difference. Things like “the cost of airfare to help an adoptive family meet their new child” or “the cost of internet streaming services so that people around the world can watch our sermons.” See how those examples are small parts of big processes – but they seem to have an outsized impact?

Anything that has a multiplier. If you use volunteer hours or grants of any kind to help a process or part of a process, that means the cost of that process is lower than it would normally be. For one organization, we helped them see that they were providing over $200-worth of service to local families for just $50. So now their main offer is, “Just $50 provides over $200 worth of help to a local family to stop domestic violence.”

And any time you can get matching funds, get them. You can use them far more than you think before your donors will tire of them. FAR more.

In a nutshell: any time you can convey to donors that “their gift goes farther/has more impact than normal,” you’ve increased your chances of getting a gift. And of getting a larger gift. For instance, matching funds increase both the average number of people who respond AND the size of their average gift!

Other Helpful Advice

Here’s a handful of helpful tips we’ve picked up over the years:

The offer amount may be different than how much you ask a donor to give. For instance, it may cost $12 to do something meaningful. Your letter or email would repeat the $12 figure often and talk about how powerful it is. Then you’d ask the donor to give you $36 to help 3 people, or $72 to help 6 people, etc.
In your mass donor fundraising, the cost of the offer will be more successful if it is less than $50. I’ve gone as low as 44 cents. What you’re looking for is a cost/amount that any of your donors can easily say, “Yes, I can do that.”
Don’t worry if your offer amount is low. People tend to give at the amounts they give at. In other words, if you have a donor who usually gives you about $50, when presented with an offer of $10 she’ll either give you $50 or $60. But she won’t give you $10.
For major donors, you can create higher-cost offers. For instance, your mass donor offer might be “$50 trains 50 volunteers” while your major donor offer for the same program might be, “$5,000 pays for our volunteer center for the year” Same program, different offer and different price point.

These Funds Can Be Undesignated!

Finally, you might be wondering how you can get specific on the cost of doing one part of what you do AND have the funds be undesignated so that you can use them anywhere you. Go here to download our whitepaper on this very thing!

Next Up…

The next post will show you the final of the four elements: how giving donors reasons to give NOW will dramatically increase the number of gifts you receive.

And remember: if all of this were easy, you and everybody else would be raising piles of money. It takes a lot of thought to create and refine a good offer.

But the payoff is huge – for your organization, your beneficiaries, and for you!

Read the entire series:

How to Describe the “Solution” Your Organization Provides

Steven | April 23, 2019May 16, 2019Ask

Fourth in a Series on Offers

I’m “going deeper” than I ever have to help you understand how to create powerful fundraising offers.

Why? Because creating a great offer is the easiest way to start raising more money immediately. You don’t have to try a new media channel. You don’t have to segment your donors differently. You don’t have to acquire a bunch of new donors.

You just have to think a little differently about what you say to your donors.

This is the fourth in a series of posts; here’s the first if you’d like to start from the top.

And for a refresher, here’s my definition of an offer: the offer of a fundraising piece is the main thing that you say will happen when the person gives a gift.

The Four Elements of Successful Offers

Here are the four “elements” or “ingredients” that I always include when I create fundraising. And these are what I’m looking for when I review fundraising…

A solvable problem that’s easy to understand
A solution to that problem that’s easy to understand
The cost of the solution seems like a good deal
There’s urgency to solve the problem NOW

Today, we’re going to break down what’s in #2, “A solution to that problem that’s easy to understand.”

A solution to that problem that’s easy to understand

There are three main ideas here…

A Solution

The first element in an effective offer is a “problem.” We talked about that in the previous post.

The second element is a “solution.” And this is pretty simple:

Whatever problem you present,
you’ll raise more money if the solution you present
solves that problem.

If the problem you’ve presented is that a person is hungry, the solution needs to be food.

If the problem is that a future season of the opera is at-risk, the solution needs to be to save the season (and not something like, “support the arts”).

Are you with me?

To That Problem

There’s a little phrase here that’s really important. It’s “to that problem.”

This is trickier than you think it is. A lot of nonprofits unknowingly get this wrong.

Let me share with you what happens, then give you an example.

What happens is that a nonprofit will talk about someone or something in need, but the offer – what you promise to a donor will happen when they make a gift – doesn’t solve the main problem that’s presented.

For example, earlier today I reviewed a video for a client. Here’s a super-simple summary of the video:

It talked about a refugee family from Syria
It shared about how the family was living in a refugee camp
It talked about how they were cold, wet, and hungry
It asked the donor to “send hope”

This video will absolutely raise some money. But not nearly as much as it could.

Why? Because the main problem it sets up is not solved by the offer. The solution the donor is asked to provide – “send hope” – does not solve that problem.

If the offer were to “send warm coats, tarps to keep the rain off, and emergency food,” then the organization would raise a lot more money. Because then the solution they offer the donor would solve the problem!

Should the idea that the donor’s gift will provide hope be in the video somewhere? Yes. But it should not be the main thing that the video promises will happen if the donor gives a gift.

So when you’re creating offers, be sure the solution you present solves the problem you’ve presented! (And when you notice there’s a mismatch, you either need a different problem or a different solution!)

Easy to Understand

Finally, the solution needs to be easy for the donor to understand.

Just as the problem needs to be easy to understand, so does the solution.

This has nothing to do with the intelligence of your donors. It has everything to do with how much time they’re willing to pay attention to your fundraising. They usually give you just a few seconds.

So you don’t have time for complex, five-step holistic solutions. This is why offers that focus on things at the lower end of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – food, shelter, water – always tend to do well.

And what if you’re an Arts organization that doesn’t have those? You still need to apply the principle and make your solutions (and your problems) as easy to understand as possible.

In the “opera” example above, we simplified the problem to “future seasons are at risk.” And we simplified the solution to, “because of matching funds, your gift will help secure every note of the future season.”

The problem is easy to understand (and still meaningful). The solution is easy to understand. I predict they are going to raise a lot of money.

The Consequences of this Approach

Let’s talk about how this approach makes people (maybe even you?) uncomfortable.

You and experts like you know that the problem you’re working on is not simple. And the solution that your organization provides is not simple.

And the approach above oversimplifies what you do in a way that makes you / your board / your program people / stakeholders uncomfortable.

Here’s the problem: in your mass donor fundraising, you aren’t talking to people like you! You’re talking to non-experts. You’re talking to people who don’t understand nearly as deeply as you. And you’re talking to them using a method (the mail, email, social) where they’re only giving you a few seconds of time.

Given those conditions, you need to oversimplify. Even if it makes you uncomfortable.

The simplicity made people at the Opera company uncomfortable. It didn’t share the whole picture. If you really dug into the situation, there were all sorts of complexities.

But we know that you don’t have time in a letter for all sorts of complexities. So we showed them how that simplicity was true – even though it didn’t show the whole picture. And if any donor asked about it, we showed them how to say, “What you read in the letter is true, AND there are some additional complexities, and I’m thrilled to have a donor like you who pays attention to things like this.”

Next Up…

The next post will show you how to use the third element in successful fundraising offers: “The cost of the solution seems like a good deal.”

And as I’ve mentioned before, all of this probably seem like a lot of work.

If it were easy, you and everybody else would be raising piles of money.

This stuff takes real thought and real work.

But the payoff is huge – for your organization, for your beneficiaries, and for you!

Read the entire series:

The Ingredients in Successful Offers

Steven | April 18, 2019May 16, 2019Ask

We’re doing a series of posts that explain “fundraising offers” so that you can use this super-tool to raise more money.

The previous post talked about what an offer is. My definition is as follows:

You can think of the offer as the very short summary of what you’re communicating to the donor about at this moment.

Over the last 70 years, smart fundraisers have noticed that successful offers tend to have a few things in common. Here’s my attempt to break down what you need to know – the ingredients that give you the best chance of succeeding…

The Four Elements of Successful Offers

Here are the four “elements” or “ingredients” that I always include when I create fundraising, and look for when I review fundraising…

A solvable problem that’s easy to understand
A solution to that problem that’s easy to understand
The cost of the solution seems like a good deal
There’s urgency to solve the problem NOW

My next posts are going to look at each of these elements in turn.

Today, we’re going to break down what’s in the first element, “a solvable problem that’s easy to understand.”

A solvable problem that’s easy to understand

There are three main ideas here.

A Problem

First, let’s talk about “a problem.” When you are talking to all of your donors (appeals, emails, events, newsletters, etc.) your fundraising will raise more money if it talks about a problem that needs to be solved.

This is the hardest hurdle for most nonprofits to jump. Most nonprofits don’t want to talk about problems. They don’t want to talk about the needs of their beneficiaries. Or about the negative consequences if the organization were not able to do its work.

This is not the place to dig into why that happens.

But I hope you’ll trust both my good intentions and 25 years of experience when I say this:

Sharing a need or a problem with your donors will help donors remember why they give to you in the first place, will help donors remember that there are people in need right now, will not take away from the “dignity” of your beneficiaries, and will help you raise more money.

To share some examples, here are some “problems” I’ve used in just the last week:

“Operas in future seasons are at risk of not being funded”
“A smart, underprivileged girl has qualified for college but can’t afford to go”
“Children are being sexually abused, and the people around them don’t know the signs or what to do about it”
“We have a budget shortfall”

Solvable

The problem you share needs to be “solvable.”

More donors respond when you present them with a problem that can be solved quickly or easily.

For instance, if the main problem your letter presents is “poverty in Africa” or “illiteracy in our country,” those problems are too big to be solved today. You won’t raise as much as you can.

Here’s my explanation for why. At some level, the donor knows that her gift will not “end illiteracy.” She knows that she can’t “end poverty in Africa.” So she believes your letter a little less. And she’s less likely to give a gift.

Instead, you want to share “solvable” problems like “one poor family in Africa” or “one junior high class that’s struggling to read.” The donor can easily see how those are solvable problems. Now she believes in your letter a little more, and is more likely to give a gift.

Easy to Understand

Finally, the problem needs to be easy for the donor to understand.

This is where it’s helpful to remind organizations that their donors do not know nearly as much about the problem you’re working on as the organization does.

Organizations tend to present complex problems to donors – problems that require a lot of context to fully understand and be moved by.

The problem with that strategy is twofold:

The vast majority of donors don’t have all that context. So the fundraising isn’t meaningful to them.
You’re communicating with those donors in the mail or email, where they are only giving you a few seconds of attention before deciding what to do. You don’t have time to give them all that context in just a few seconds! It’s like trying to give someone a PhD in a week. No matter how smart they are, it’s not going to work.

Let me share an example with you. We serve an organization whose mission is to “end generational homelessness.” It’s an awesome mission, and they’re an incredible organization. Their ED is one of the most inspiring leaders I know.

But when they make “generational homelessness” the problem in their fundraising, they raise less money.

That’s mostly because “generational homelessness” is a) not solvable with a gift today, and b) a really complex problem.

The fundraising offer we moved them to – the main thing they talk about at almost all times – is “Local moms and kids are homeless, and you can provide them with a safe place to stay for a night.”

The problem “local moms and kids are homeless” requires a lot less time and understanding from a donor – and it’s helped this organization grow their fundraising by an average of 20% per year for the five years we’ve been working with them.

Next Up…

The next post will show you how to use the second element in successful fundraising offers: “A solution to that problem that’s easy to understand.”

And listen, all of this probably seems like a lot of work.

It is.

But it works like crazy.

Our industry has 70 years of knowledge about how to create powerful offers. It can’t be downloaded to your brain, Matrix-style, in 10 minutes.

But I’m taking apart “offers” bit by bit, and explaining them, so that you can make powerful offers for your organization.

Because a powerful fundraising offer will help you raise a lot more money.

Read the entire series:

Why a Good Fundraising Offer Works So Well

Steven | April 16, 2019May 16, 2019Ask

This is the second post in a series on Fundraising Offers.

The first post talked about what an offer is: the main thing a fundraising piece says will happen when the person gives a gift.

A Good Offer Serves Your Donors

A good offer serves donors (and potential donors) by helping them understand, quickly, the difference they can make with a gift.

Always remember: the donors who are reading your mail and email are busy. They are sorting the mail or sorting email. Shoot, it’s even possible they are driving their car.

Your donor is scanning (not reading) your fundraising letter, wondering if your letter is about something she’d like to do today.

She doesn’t have time (or interest) for an organization that doesn’t describe what her gift will accomplish. Or worse, it describes what her gift will do in conceptual terms like “deliver hope” when she doesn’t know exactly what that means.

You know what she likes? Organizations that present understandable problems to her, in ways that are easy to understand. So that in just a few seconds, she can understand what the problem is and know how she can make a meaningful difference with a gift.

Reasons a Good Offer Works So Well

There are four main reasons a good offer works so well…

A good offer is easier to communicate quickly. A good offer can usually be summarized in a sentence or two. That clarity and brevity allows donors to know right away if they should keep reading or not. Donors love that.
A good offer requires the donor to understand less about your organization. Most nonprofits work under the assumption that a donor “must know all about all the things we do, and that we are good at it” before the donor can be asked to give a gift. For your mass donor communications, this could not be further from the truth.
A good offer is more emotionally powerful. Because your letter (or email or event or whatever) is not having to educate your donor about all the things you do, you can spend more time talking about the people or cause in need, the emotions of the beneficiaries, the emotion of the donor, etc.
A good offer tends to be specific. Good offers tend to have exact dollar amounts, so that all donors can see what it costs to make a meaningful difference. And they tend to include specific benefits or services that are provided for that amount. So rather than having to understand all of your programs and mission, the donor just needs to understand one small thing that makes a difference. Donors love that (even though experts don’t.)

Notice how all of those things “lighten the load” on your donors? Notice how a good offer makes it easier for them to understand what their gift will do? And how you’ll be able to tap into their emotions – which are the drivers of all giving?

Next Up…

The next post will focus on the four elements that successful offers tend to have in common.

And I do hope you’ll stick with this whole series. “Offers” are complex. But when you understand what they are – and understand how to make good ones – you’ll start raising more money immediately.

Read the entire series:

How to Create a Great Fundraising Offer: What’s an Offer?

Steven | April 4, 2019May 16, 2019Ask

I’m starting a series on Fundraising Offers – the least understood, most powerful way nonprofits (especially smaller nonprofits) can start raising more money immediately.

A strong offer helps your organization:

Raise more money with each piece of fundraising
Be more memorable to your donors
Build stronger relationships with your donors

This post will lay out some foundational ideas, then later posts will show you how to do it.

So first, let’s define what an offer is.

What’s an “Offer?”

A fundraising offer is the main thing a fundraising piece says will happen when the person gives a gift.

Here are some examples of offers taken from my files. Some are good, some are poor – later we’ll talk about what makes an offer effective or not. For now, we’re just working on identifying offers and understanding what they are.

I’ve underlined the “main thing that will happen” that each letter / email / newsletter emphasized:

“Will you join us as we fight poverty”
“Will you help these overcoming women in their journey”
“$1.92 will provide a Thanksgiving meal”
“Please partner with us as we end generational homelessness”
“For every $250 you donate, one child will attend camp this summer”
“Your gifts support the Harmony Experience for all”
“Your gift supports the arts in our community”

Every piece of fundraising communication has an offer.

Some offers are more powerful than others.

Some offers work for almost all organizations (e.g., year-end). Some offers only work for some organizations at very specific times of the year (e.g., opening night at the opera). Some offers are so powerful they can create billion-dollar organizations (e.g., “child sponsorship”).

Your job as a fundraiser is to find the most effective offers for your organization.

Can Changing Your Offer – Changing the Focus of an Organization’s Communications – Make that Big a Difference?

A good offer immediately improves an organization’s fundraising.

Just in the last couple months I helped:

An organization raise over $75,000 with an appeal letter when they’d never raised more than $3,000 with an appeal.
An organization raise $49,000 with an appeal when they’d never raised over $1,500.
An organization raise $5,500 with an email when they’d never raised more than $700.

The massive increases were created by changing their offers, by changing “the main thing the fundraising pieces said would happen when the person gives a gift.”

The organizations that went from $3,000 to $75,000 made a simple change. They changed their offer from:

“Together, we can change a young woman’s life”

…to…

“You can help one local woman go to college”

Doesn’t seem like such a small change could have such a big difference, does it? But by having a strong offer, and making it the main focus of a piece of donor communication, you can absolutely see remarkable increases.

Think of it this way: focusing your donor communications on the right thing immediately improves your organization’s fundraising.

What’s Next?

My next post will focus on why a good offer is so effective. I want organizations to understand why it works so well before I explain how to do it well.

Why? Because developing a strong offer is much more a “way of thinking” than it is a series of steps to follow, or a list of ingredients.

When I’ve given nonprofits or audiences the list of ingredients, they haven’t reliably been able to create strong offers.

To use a cooking analogy, I suspect I’ve been giving people a list of ingredients without providing the cooking instructions.

My fault. So with this series I’m going to “start at the start.” I’m defining what an offer is. Then I’ll describe why offers work so well. Then I’ll give you the ingredients. Then I’ll show you how to use them.

And then you’ll be on your way to creating stronger offers for your organization – and will start to raise more money immediately!

Read the entire series:

How to defend donor-centric fundraising to your boss

Steven | March 28, 2019June 21, 2019Ask

Today’s blog post is a 4-minute video.

It’s taken from a recent free webinar I did where I was doing live reviews of appeals and newsletters. (There’s another one this Friday – you can sign up for free here.)

The video helps explain why donor-centric fundraising is more effective than organization-centric fundraising.

It’s this simple truth – that most donors are more interested in themselves and the things they care about – that explains why classic organization-centric fundraising doesn’t work as well.

So if you want to try donor-centric fundraising, share this reasoning with your boss. It seems counter-intuitive at first. But it makes sense when you think about it – and we have 70 years of direct response fundraising testing to prove it!

Watch the video here.

11 donor-centric sentences you can use…

Steven | March 26, 2019March 26, 2019Ask

Here’s a question I get asked at least once a week:

“I see why it makes sense to write ‘to the donor about their gift’ instead of writing about my organization…

But how do I do that?”

My encouragement is that you can learn the same way I learned: you can take good copy from another organization and customize it for your non-profit.

So here are some sample sentences you can steal like an artist and customize for your organization. All of these sentences are from appeals that performed at or above expectations.

All are from appeal letters. Some of them are opening lines. Some are from the middle, some from near the end.

I’m writing you today with an important request. You are one of our most faithful donors, and I’m going to be very direct.

I’m so thankful to be able to write you about this.

You can really make a difference in the lives of suffering people.

When you give, it’s as if you’re right there beside us, caring for people in the field.

You’ll love how your gift is multiplied by volunteers and donated goods.

I couldn’t wait to write you this letter.

Look at how much good you can do; you can…

Here’s why your gift is so important.

[NAME], you’ve already been so generous, but I want you to know about the incredible need right now – and the opportunity for you to help.

I know you care for each [CATEGORY OF PERSON/CREATURE YOU WORK WITH].

Thank you for taking a moment out of your day to respond to this letter now.

There you go. Modify these for your organization – or just copy them!

Your donors will feel like you’re talking to them about the things they care about. And that’s the surest path to fundraising success.

5 Quick Thoughts to Help You Raise More

Steven | March 21, 2019March 21, 2019Ask

Here’s a quick list of 5 things that should help you raise more money:

1. Letters that look like letters tend to do better.

A “letter” is a proven way to effectively raise money. But if you break the “form” too much – too many photos, too many graphics, a big color banner across the top – it begins to feel more like a brochure than a letter. And brochures do not work.

2. You do not have to be a great writer to be great at raising money through mail and email.

The things that make mail and email fundraising effective are rarely what most people think of as “good writing.” Really, you just need to know a handful of ideas – all of which I’ll be teaching in a free webinar Friday, March 22.

3. When someone at a nonprofit says they are going to “innovate,” really what they should say is that they are “attempting to innovate.”

Not all innovation works. If we explicitly name that going in, we’ll all be smarter about whether attempting to innovate is a good use of time and budget.

4. If you really want to get better at direct mail and email fundraising – as in actually study good teaching, not just read tips – study Siegfried Voegele.

Start with this article by Chris Keating.

5. “Fundraising Offers” are the most powerful, least-understood tactic in fundraising.

The teaching in our industry on Offers, even my own, isn’t cutting it. So I’m working on a better way to teach the organization-upgrading skill of creating a good offer. Watch this space.