Steven, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

Your Donors LOVE Helping Your Beneficiaries

Steven | November 29, 2018Ask

Here’s a Super Simple Principle that most small nonprofits should embrace to start raising more money right away:

Your donors love to help your beneficiaries
So when fundraising, ask your donor to help your beneficiaries, instead of asking your donor to help your organization.

It really is that simple.

Most organizations say things like “Will you help us continue this good work…” or “Please support our mission to fund the Arts…” or “Please partner with us as we…”

In each of those examples (all real, by the way), the organization is primary, and the beneficiary or cause is secondary.

But the vast majority of your donors care more about your beneficiaries than they care about your organization.

And your organization only adds value to your donor by helping them help the beneficiaries or cause that they care about so much!

So when Asking (appeals, e-appeals, events), ask your donor to help your beneficiary or cause. You’ll start raising more money right away!

PS — For more on how to write Asks that move your donors to Action, download our free e-book!

Two Lessons from Giving Tuesday

Steven | November 27, 2018November 21, 2018Ask

Reason #47 I shouldn’t be in charge: I thought Giving Tuesday was a dumb idea and would never work.

Boy, was I wrong.

But my wrongness is a great reminder of the big lessons that the success of Giving Tuesday teaches all nonprofits that are paying attention.

Lesson #1: the generosity of donors should surprise and delight us

Listen. “Giving Tuesday” is a made-up holiday, during one of the busiest seven-day periods of the year, immediately after donors have spent outrageously – and it is working like crazy.

If that doesn’t make you realize how generous donors are, nothing will.

While at their busiest, donors give. They give sacrificially. They give heroically. Of all the other things they could be doing that day, they give. In droves.

That should be a surprise. It should be a delight.

If I were King For A Day, one of my mandates would be for all Fundraisers to take ten minutes the day after Giving Tuesday to be surprised and delighted at the gifts their donors just gave.

Lesson #2: most nonprofits can Ask their donors for support more often

Ask yourself this question: if your donors will give your gifts on a completely made-up holiday, when won’t they give you gifts?

I’m convinced that Giving Tuesday succeeds – especially with smaller organizations – in part because of pent-up giving.

These organizations have donors who would love to give more. But those donors just aren’t Asked often enough. Or they are usually Asked in ways that hide the real need.

I could go all data-nerd on you, but instead, I’ll just tell a short story. In my 25 years of fundraising, I’ve only seen one organization where the data showed that the organization was Asking their donors too often. And that organization was mailing about 24 appeals and 12 newsletters per year.

Your organization shouldn’t be mailing that many. Or even nearly that many.

But I think the success of Giving Tuesday should teach you that your donors love to give to your organization – and that they will give gifts when you ask them well and you give them good reasons to give!

Looking back, I should have known that Giving Tuesday would work. Because the generosity of donors is a wonderful surprise that we can count on. And because most organizations don’t Ask their donors often enough.

For all you small-to-medium organizations out there: you have pent-up giving among your donors. Go give them powerful reasons to give gifts. They will surprise and delight you!

Your Donor Communications Should Be Simple & Direct

Steven | November 15, 2018November 13, 2018Ask

On Tuesday, I wrote about The Curse of Knowledge. To summarize: most nonprofits are experts in their cause or niche, and so they communicate to donors at the organization’s level of expertise and understanding.

Because the organization’s level of expertise and understanding are higher than most donors, this results in donor communications that appear to donors as disconnected and even irrelevant.

Ouch.

Listen, most donors are thinking, “I care about your cause / the people you help; what can my gift do to help them?” That’s why your donor is reading your letter.

But most nonprofits don’t answer that question! Nonprofits describe how the organization does its work instead of what the donor’s gift will do to help.

“But Donors Will Never Give to That!”

The fundraising that tends to work the best – in test after test – feels overly simple to experts.

“We have 19 programs that provide a holistic approach to care” will raise less money than “$1.92 will feed a hungry person.”
“End generational homelessness” will raise less money than “$33 provides a night of safe shelter for a homeless mom and her kids.”
“Experience the Arts” will raise less money than “You can provide drama classes for junior high school students.”

In each of the above cases, the Expert will say, “But donors will never give to that. That’s only part of what we do. And it’s not even the most important part!”

But remember – your donors aren’t experts. They don’t even want to become experts. They just want to help somebody or support the cause.

The Cure for the Curse

The cure for the curse is pretty simple. Talk to your donors at their level of understanding. Theirs, not yours.

(And remember how the conversation is happening: a letter or an email where you have the donor’s attention for several seconds. You do not have time for complex arguments, or to bring her to an Expert’s level of understanding.)

You Can Be Direct & Simple

Here’s what this means for your mass donor fundraising (the fundraising you send to everybody – your letters, your emails, your newsletters):

You can keep it pretty simple. Talk about one part of what you do, or one program, instead of everything you do.
Make sure it’s compelling. Think drama, think emotion. Remember, you only have your donor’s attention for a few seconds. Her attention is precious; you have to earn it, and you have to keep it.
You can be direct. Tell her the problem your beneficiaries or cause is facing, then ask her to give a gift to solve that problem.
Present a problem that she can solve with a gift.

a. Don’t talk to her about poverty in Pittsburgh and then ask her to “end poverty in Pittsburgh” – is that a problem she can solve? No. Talk to her about what it’s like not to have food at the end of every month, then ask her to feed a family for a month.

b. Don’t talk to her about how the Arts are dying in Arizona and then ask her to “save the Arts in Arizona” – she can’t solve that problem. Talk to her about your program to provide art supplies to middle school kids, then ask her to provide art supplies for one student, or maybe for one classroom.

As I mentioned earlier this week, your internal Experts won’t like fundraising that’s simple and direct.

But your donors will. And your Experts will like the additional revenue that starts coming in when you have the discipline to tune your fundraising to your donors’ level of understanding (and amount of attention) instead of that of your Experts.

Beware… the Curse of KNOWLEDGE!

Steven | November 13, 2018November 8, 2018Ask

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

I’m going to cover three things very quickly:

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

The Curse of Knowledge

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

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

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

How Knowledge Hurts Fundraising

This is very simple:

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

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

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

How to Avoid the Curse

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

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

The Cost and the Incredible Benefit

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

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

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

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

A Transformative Conversation

Steven | November 8, 2018November 7, 2018Ask

A conversation with a high-ranking official who wants their fundraising staff to talk a lot about their organization:

“It’s really hard to get new donors.”

Yup. I learned the hard way that when you have nothing to say, be careful that you don’t pay money to say it.

“Wait, what?”

Have you ever paid for a mailing list? Or for radio spots? But basically nothing happened? You spent twenty thousand bucks and got eleven new donors?

“Sure. A couple times. But everyone has paid for things that didn’t work.”

When this happened, did you realize your message was at fault? Or did your organization just move along to whatever the next urgent thing was?

“Well, it wasn’t really a failure. We raised awareness and got some name recognition.”

I hate to say this, but name recognition will only make a difference if your competitors are invisible or incompetent.

“What do you mean?”

Invisible means that they don’t have the courage to ask for donations. Incompetent means their fundraising is worse than yours.

“But our fundraising is way better than average. It looks and feels professional.”

I hate to tell you this, but most fundraising isn’t written primarily to raise funds. It’s written not to offend anyone. It’s written to please internal audiences. This is why most letters follow an outline that doesn’t work. And why most fundraising gets lost in the shuffle. And why most organizations never “make the leap” to the next level.

“Are you saying that most fundraising is ineffective?”

Even the weakest fundraising is somewhat effective. That’s because donors are incredibly generous. They are able to see past the poor fundraising because they care so much about the cause or the beneficiaries.

“Can you tell me what you mean by that?”

Weak fundraising is about the organization itself. But talking mostly about the organization in fundraising is a mistake because most donors care more about the cause and the beneficiaries than they care about the organization. Listen, they became your donors in the first place because they care about the cause. Your organization helped them do something about it – which is incredibly valuable but isn’t the primary reason they donated to you.

“So if I don’t talk about my organization, what do I talk about?”

Good fundraising is about your donor and what they already care about. About their passions and interests. About what offends them. About the problems in the world that break their heart.

“So how do I find out what my donor cares about?”

You already know what they care about! They care about your cause or your beneficiaries. They wouldn’t be your donors in the first place if they didn’t care about those things. So talk about those things at their level of understanding – not yours.

“Why their level? Why not ours? We work on such a complex, in-depth problem. And our holistic approach produces the best results! The statewide average is 37% but we produce an 89% …”

Forgive me for interrupting. Remember: she’s interested in her passions, her interests, at her level of understanding. Why did you just start talking about your approach instead of what she cares about?”

“Oh.”

Your approach makes you great at what you do. That makes your organization effective. But most donors are not experts. They don’t make their gifts based on your efficacy. Most donors make gifts based on whether you talk about something they care about.

“But if I just talk to donors about what they care about, why would they ever donate to my organization?”

That’s easy: because your organization will be the only one talking to them about what they care about. They’ll LOVE you. All of the other organizations will be droning on about their organization, their incredible processes, the stats that only experts understand, on and on. All the while your donors will keep donating – and new donors will be attracted to you – because you talk to them about what they care about. They’ll think you are a friend who can help them do the good in the world that they already want to do. It’s like you arrived in their life to help them. Doesn’t that seem like a good way to win, keep and lift donors?

“As much as I hate to say it, you’re beginning to make a little bit of sense.”

Thanks. You just started an incredibly rewarding journey where you’re going to come to appreciate donors in a whole new way – and raise a lot more money!

Editor’s Note: inspired by a Monday Morning Memo from Roy H. Williams, one of my advertising heroes.

Work Less, Raise More

Steven | November 7, 2018November 9, 2018Year-End

The Holy Grail

It’s the mythical Holy Grail of fundraising: working less while raising more.

For a nonprofit, that’s almost “playing against type.” It’s off-brand for the whole sector. We HAVE to work more to raise more, right?

We even take pride in it sometimes.

But smart fundraisers are always looking for ways to work less while raising more.

Here’s how to think about it: what you want to do is create fundraising assets that you can use again and again with minimal effort.

A Partial List

Just to give you a taste, here’s a partial list of fundraising assets that organizations can use again and again with minimal effort:

Specific campaign appeals (Back To School, Grateful Patient, etc.)
Monthly donor recruitment letters/emails
Campaign Web Banners and homepage sliders
A fundraising offer
Donor acquisition mailings (or radio scripts, or telemarketing scripts)
Creative Briefs
Year-end emails
Social Media series

Fundraising Assets

What you’re trying to do is create fundraising assets:

Something you only have to create once
That you can use again with minimal effort
And when you need to use it again, you do so while spending the minimum amount of minutes and money to update it

Most nonprofits, in my experience, act as if it is a value to do everything new each year. The first question the Event Committee asks itself is, “What should our theme be this year?” When an ED writes her year-end letter, she asks, “What should I write about this year?” The team asks, “What should our year-end campaign feature this year?”

I submit to you that those questions are not the best question to be asking.

The best question is almost always, “How did last year’s do and could I use it again with a little updating?”

I cannot tell you how many thousands of hours, and millions of dollars, I have saved clients with this approach.

Examples

Before I give you a couple of examples, go read this post on why “repeating” is such a good idea.

Here are three hand-picked examples for you for how something is an asset – and can be reused to raise more with less effort:

You have a good fundraising offer. Say you have an email that gives donors a chance to ‘provide art supplies for a local child for $17.’ You can use that offer again next year at the same time, and try it at other times during the year.
- We once had a client that had a very successful offer that they used once a year. I convinced them to try it twice and it worked great both times. Four years later they were using that offer between 6 and 8 times per year and it was consistently their best performing mailed and emailed piece. That offer was absolutely an asset; we refined it a bit each time to where it was a proven money-raiser with very little effort. Talk about an asset for that organization!
- We all know organizations that do this, from “$1.97 feeds a hungry person” to “$37 a month sponsors a child.” Even if those organizations get tired of saying those messages, they work so well that they keep using them.
You have a successful event that goes really well. Next year, you can repeat the same call to action, the exact same program (with new speakers), talking about the same thing. The only people who will notice the similarity are your staff and a couple of board members. To everyone else, it will look like you are really good at events and you really have your act together.
You have a successful letter, say your year-end letter. When it comes time for this year’s year-end letter, here’s what to do: take out last year’s letter, dust it off, change only what you need to, and send it again. Don’t change the formatting, don’t change the call to action, just send it again. Just as no one complains to Ford when they see the same truck commercial five times in one week; no donor will complain that your letter last year was awfully similar to this year’s letter!

Here’s the thing: anytime you do something that works in fundraising, you’ve just created an asset.

Recognize it. Keep it around. Get comfortable reusing it. Your donors will love you for it. Because if something works well, it’s almost certain that it will work again.

Pretty soon you’ll be raising more money while working less!

Assets For Sale

Our year-end products are for sale right now (the “bundle” is over half-off!).

Use them to create a ‘year-end campaign asset’ for your organization! Pick up our Digital Toolkit, or our packet of super successful fundraising letters, and upgrade your year-end fundraising.

You’ll raise more money this year. Then treat it like an asset: in 2019 you’ll work less and raise more!

What Small-Shop Fundraisers Should Do at Year-End

Steven | November 1, 2018October 30, 2018Year-End

You Don’t Have Time to Do Everything

Those silly consultants. They give you a list of fifty-four things to do, but you only have time to do four of them.

I get it. (And I am guilty of it at times.)

But if you only have time to do four things … do you know which four are the most important?

My List for Small-Shop Fundraisers

If I were doing the fundraising for a small organization with limited resources (and time!) here’s what I’d do, and the order I’d do them in:

Manage your major donors. Don’t just hope that they give a gift before the end of the year, manage them toward doing it! Know who your top donors are. Be in touch with them. Know exactly who hasn’t given a gift yet this year. Ask them to give a gift to help your beneficiaries or your cause (not to give a gift to your organization). Tell them their gift is needed now, and tell them their gift will make a difference.
Write and send your year-end letter. Make sure you send out a great year-end letter that powerfully asks donors to give a special gift before the end of the year.
Write and prep your year-end emails. Be sure to have at least three emails prepped for the last three days of the year. Remember that they can be very similar; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time.
Update your website to ask for a year-end gift. It’s been true of every organization I’ve ever worked with: a LOT of people will go to your website in December with the express purpose of making a gift. If the first thing they see on your home page is a clear call-to-action and a large button, you will raise more money than you expect.

That’s it! If you can only do four things, do those four.

Make sure you do a great job on each of those before doing anything else.

If you can only do three things, do the top three.

And so on.

Just remember that year-end is the easiest time of the year to raise more money than you expect. And your donors are wonderful but busy people! So communicate to them as much as you can. You’ll love how much money you raise!

Resources for You

We’re having a sale on our year-end fundraising products. Check out our store to see how you can raise more money while working less this year-end!

5 Tips For Your Most Successful Digital Year-End Campaign

Steven | October 30, 2018October 29, 2018Ask

Are you ready?

According to Network for Good, most nonprofits raise about 1/3 of their revenue in December. And 11% of their annual total during the last three days of the year.

Year-end is the easiest time to raise more money online! Think about it this way:

Your donors are more likely to give during the last weeks of the year than any other time of the entire year.

And because year-end is such an important time for digital fundraising, we want to give you 5 tips that will ensure a successful year-end for your fundraising.

# 1: Use the same message in every channel

Some of your donors are online, some aren’t. Pick your strongest message, then repeat it through direct mail, email, your website, and social media. It’s more powerful for your donors to see the same message in different media channels than it is for them to see two different messages. Repetition is your friend!

# 2: Ask early and often

You’ve been talking to your donors all year about what your organization does, you’ve told them how they can help. So this time of year, don’t Thank them. Or Report to them. It might feel counterintuitive, but our testing showed that Thanking and Reporting this time of year will cause you to raise less money than you could. Follow the advice below and just Ask well!

# 3: Emphasize the deadline

A deadline communicates urgency. December 31 is a natural deadline — for the tax year and for your organization. Tell donors your deadline and repeat it multiple times in your messages.

# 4: Set a goal

How much do you want or need to raise? What would it take for you to meet your budget? Feed everyone you want to feed by year-end? Shelter abandoned pets through the end of the year? Overcome a financial shortfall? Tell your donors the goal.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31.

# 5: Communicate consequences

What will happen if you don’t meet the goal? Connect the donor right to the heart of your work.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will have to cut back on the number of pets in our shelter in the coming year.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will not be able to advocate for the arts as effectively next year.

Whatever your organization does, if having less money means you would be able to do less next year, say so!

Most important tip? Start now!

We’ve built a Year-End Digital Fundraising Toolkit so that you can develop a successful year-end digital campaign. Buy it now and you’ll save time, raise more money, and have your best year-end ever!

Order your Year-End Digital Fundraising Toolkit now!

Super Simple Segmentation

Steven | October 25, 2018Ask

Most likely you can save a lot of money by “mailing smarter” – mailing your appeals and newsletters only to the people who are most likely to respond.

Put another way: a lot of nonprofits waste a lot of money by sending their appeals and newsletters to people in their database who are unlikely to respond.

Donor Segmentation

The idea of ‘donor segmentation’ is pretty simple at heart: separating your donors into groups and treating different groups differently.

Most smaller nonprofits basically “mail everybody” in hopes of raising more money and acquiring new donors. But in my experience, they almost always waste money by doing this, and have a smaller impact as an organization because of it.

Why? Because there are people in your database to whom you should not be mailing, because it’s a waste of money.

My Default Segmentations Settings

What follows is my “default mailing segmentation settings” – what I recommend most nonprofits do for appeals and newsletters.

Donor segmentation can get super-complex, but I’m keeping this purposefully simple. (In other words; for you Nerds out there using sophisticated RFM segmentation and ongoing testing results to refine your mailing selects, this is not for you.)

For almost all printed appeals and newsletters:

Each mailing should go to all donors who have given a gift in the last 18 months. This is commonly abbreviated, “all donors 0-18.”

However, if you mail your donors less than 4 times a year, each mailing should go to all donors who have given a gift in the last 20 months.

“But What About Non-Donors?”

I can hear people asking already, “But what about all the non-donors, names and volunteers on our database? We have to mail them!”

No, you don’t.

Or more precisely, No, you shouldn’t. You almost always lose money sending a regular appeal or newsletter to non-donors: the returns don’t justify the expense.

I’ll talk more about what you should do for non-donors, down below. But for now, let’s talk year-end…

Donor Segmentation at Year-End

At the end of the calendar year more donors are more likely to give gifts than at any other time.

So it makes sense to mail your year-end appeal to more of the people on your database.

Note: this could be your “Christmas” or “Year-end” or “Holiday” appeal – whatever your biggest appeal at the end of the year is.

Here are my default settings:

All donors giving in the past 0-24 months
All donors $500+ farther back, 25-36 months
All donors $1,000+ from 37 to 48 months
Additionally, year-end is basically the only time I regularly counsel smaller nonprofits to mail to the “non-donors” or “names” from their database. But even then, I’d only mail to people who were added in the last 24 months.

To Acquire New Donors

Instead of “mail everything to everybody,” here’s a better strategy to turn those “names” on your database into donors:

Mail them only a couple times a year
If they have been in your database for two years and never donated, stop mailing them
The only “normal” appeal you should send them is your Holiday/Christmas/Year-end appeal
Send them an appeal specifically designed to acquire new donors. That appeal should:
- Directly ask them to make their first donation.
- Ask them to support one specific, compelling part of your organization. Don’t ask them to “become a supporter” or “partner with us as we…” Here’s why this approach works better in test after test: it’s easier for a non-donor to understand one powerful part of your organization than it is for them to understand the whole of your organization.
- Pro tip: if this mailing works, you can use it every year without changing it!
Never send newsletters to non-donors

Follow this advice and you will likely save a lot of money that you’ve been wasting by paying printing and postage to send letters & newsletters to people who won’t respond.

And you’ll turn more of your “names” into donors by sending them targeted mailings.

So you’ve just increased your Net Revenue quite a bit: you’ve saved money, and you’ve acquired more new donors.

Resources for You

We just released our brand new eBook to help nonprofits get better at Asking. It’s free, go download it.

Our previous eBook, Storytelling For Action, is also a free download. It has the helpful “Story Type Matrix” that shows the research-based guidelines for what types of stories you should tell, and when you should tell them.