The most important thing you can learn about fundraising — the one thing that can make the difference between mediocrity and big-time success — it’s this: It’s not about you. It’s about your donor! It’s so easy to talk about how great our organization is … and to forget that donors don’t give because you’re awesome. They give because they are awesome. That’s why successful fundraising is about donors, not about us.
Either this week or next week, my advice is to send an thank you email to your donors. That’s right, a pure thank you.
Fill it with gratitude. Thank your donor with raw emotion. Thank her for what she did (gave a gift to help), not for what your organization did. Tell her how valuable she is to your organization.
Most organizations thank their donors as if the donor is a very small part of a very big process.
You know intuitively that’s not a good idea. That’s like treating everyone you meet as ‘just one of the several thousand people you’ll meet in your life.’
Your goal is to make her FEEL your gratitude and thankfulness. Thank her as if your organization actually needed her gift last year!
You mean other than being honorable and polite?
Because she likely just heard from you (and a lot of other organizations) asking her to help. This is your first chance in 2018 to close the loop and show her that she matters.
Right? She’s about to receive all sorts of annual reports and other messages that say, “Look what WE did last year, look how many people WE helped last year, WE are awesome!”
I submit to you that you’ll build deeper relationships with your donors more by saying, “Thank YOU for what YOU did last year!”
Always remember: your headline and first sentence are really important because most people won’t read the whole thing.
But if you get your message of gratitude in your subject line, your headline, and your first sentence, your donor is almost guaranteed to get it.
Your goal is to be emotional and personal. Don’t sound corporate. Sound like one person writing to express sincere thanks to one other person.
You don’t have to overthink this. I bet the following would be very effective:
Dear [NAME],
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
Last year when your gift was needed, and you reached out in faith and generously helped. You and your gift matter, and you made a difference.
I am so incredibly grateful for you. Thank you for being a donor!
[SIGNATURE]
Try to have your email look as personal as possible – like it came straight from Outlook. If you have a fancy email template, try to use as little of it as possible. If you normally have a bunch of social or donation links at the bottom, delete them if you can. Don’t think of this as an email to your list. Think of it as an email from one grateful to one donor who is wondering if they matter.
Your donors.
Not to everybody on your email list. Just your donors. You do not want to give your non-donors one of the emotional benefits of giving (being Thanked) when they have not given a gift.
If you can’t segment out your non-donors, then send it to everybody.
As soon as you can!
Start your donors’ 2018 off with an incredible expression of gratitude to them! They’ll love it, your open rate will be higher than normal, you’ll feel great for doing it, and you’ll have taken a powerful first step towards fundraising success this year!
We’ve looked at a lot of nonprofit websites. More than is good for our mental health, frankly.
And we’ve found three things to be wrong with nearly all of them:
We’ll show you how to fix these common issues and transform your website into the fundraising vehicle you want.
Wanted to let you know about something special that’s happening this month . . .
We’re taking plain old January and turn it into Thankuary. It’s a whole month to help you and your nonprofit shower your donors with gratitude.
Two reasons:
You take the month of January and intentionally Thank your donors with emotion and focus.
We know you have other stuff to do, too. We get it.
So to help, we’re going to spend January talking about the most effective ways to Thank your donors. You’ll get step-by-step instructions. Great ideas. Guest posts. Sample sentences and paragraphs you can steal.
If you think you do a fantastic job Thanking your donors, that’s great. I hope you’ll comment and share what’s worked for you.
A couple of years ago we were working with an organization that swore up and down that they Thanked their donors well. So I looked through all of their receipts and thank you letters.
The first receipt letter I looked at began with this sentence:
“Recently our entire staff went on a retreat.”
That, my friends, is not the best way to start your receipt letter. What in the world were they thinking about Thanking where that sentence seemed like a good idea?
Fast-forward to last month we were meeting with another client. We were talking about spending January making sure their donors knew how important they were to this organization. (Is that something you should do for your organization?)
I said, off the top of my head, “Let’s call it Thankuary!”
And after much rejoicing, Thankuary was born.
So, Thankuary begins today. Stay tuned for our best advice on how you can Thank well, start your year off with some real donor love, and be on your way to a successful 2018!
In a hurry? Want the best of the best – fast?
Here are the top five Better Fundraising blog posts of 2017, as voted on by savvy internet viewers like you:
Plus the most-listened to podcast of the year, an interview with Scott Harrison of Charity Water. I was a better fundraiser, immediately, for having listened to Scott
There are also three other posts that we personally loved and think everyone should read:
That’s it. A little curated reading for you over the holidays. THANK YOU for being a fundraiser and making the world a better place – enjoy your holidays!
Short, powerful post for today.
I think these posts answer all the main questions that nonprofit fundraisers still working on their year-end emails, web and social would have:
There’s probably some repetition of core ideas in there. But you know that repetition is a fundraiser’s best friend, right?
It’s our hope that this is set of information is helpful to you. Or that it’s helpful in convincing your boss that the approach you want to take is tested and proven, not just something you made up or some yahoo on the internet said.
If you don’t have time to read all the posts, and just need what’s basically a template you can follow, check out our Year-End Digital Fundraising Toolkit.
As you make the most of your last few days, go boldly. YOU are the sacred connector between your donors and your beneficiaries or your cause. Because of you and your work, your donors get to experience the joy of giving. Because of you and your work, more people are helped and the world is a better place!
And stay tuned to the blog, we’re about to publish a sort of Benediction For Fundraisers for 2017. You’re going to love it!
This post is for small nonprofits.
If you already have multiple emails set up for the final days of the year, great. Move along. Go have eggnog with a major donor or something!
Keep reading if:
This graph shows what happens to online giving, by day, in December:
This is why you should send multiple emails at the end of the year.
Think of it this way: your donors are going to be giving during those days. It’s up to you whether they give to your organization or to the other organizations they support.
But they aren’t going to give to you unless you a) get their attention, and b) ask them to give. That’s what your emails at the end of the year are for.
We recommend a minimum of 3 emails:
If you can add another, send two on the 31st. If you can add yet another, send one on the 28th.
The more you send, the more money you’ll raise. It’s up to you.
Is there a limit to how many emails you can send? Of course. But most small nonprofits are so far away from reaching that limit that they can’t even see it. If you sent one last year, send two this year. If you sent two last year, send three this year.
Are you at a small nonprofit that is VERY concerned about sending more emails? Do you, or someone in your organization, fear that if you send even two emails at the end of the year you will:
Please know that those things will not happen. I’ve sent over 500 year-end emails in the last few years, tracked the responses and tracked the complaints. Small nonprofits do not need to worry about this. And if there is a specific someone who should not get them, just take them off the list. But don’t miss out on all the extra giving that happens during the spike you see above — and don’t rob all those donors of the joy of giving — just because one or two people don’t think you should send out more than one email.
In a nutshell, here’s what your emails should say:
It really is that simple. Think of it like an old-timey telegram: short sentences, short paragraphs, very few extra words. Just get to the point and repeat the point.
Remember, you’re not convincing anyone to give, you’re reminding them that their gift to your organization is needed and makes a big difference.
The very best thing to do during the last few days of the year (assuming you have an email list) is to send multiple emails to your donors.
The next best thing to do is to buy our Year-end Digital Toolkit. Normally about $150, it’s on sale for just $89. You’ll get proven successful example emails that you can mimic. You’ll save a ton of time, and you’ll love the confidence of knowing you’re following a proven strategy. Just one extra gift pays for the toolkit – and it’s going to pay for itself MANY times over.
YOU are the connection between your donors and your beneficiaries! That’s both a privilege and a responsibility. The privilege is the joy you get raising money and making the world a better place. The responsibility is to make sure your donors know that their gift is needed and their gift makes a difference.
There is no better time of year to do that than right now. It’s the easiest time of the year to raise more money!
My first job out of college had a weird feature. When you walked in the door, the first thing you saw was a life-sized cutout of a 70-year-old woman who looked like Barbara Bush.
Mrs. Johnson had white hair, a blue sweater set, and pearls.
The company was a fundraising agency that helped nonprofits all over the country raise money. And we were instructed to write every single fundraising appeal as if we were writing to Mrs. Johnson.
This was my first job out of college. I was 22. And writing fundraising letters to Mrs. Johnson seemed really weird. After all, she wasn’t going to change the world! She looked like a grandma. It was my young friends and I who were going to change the world!
Mrs. Johnson was in our office because the founder of that fundraising agency knew a couple powerful things:
So, our founder had us write every letter as if we were writing it to Mrs. Johnson. Having her life-sized figure in the office was a powerful way to get us to think about who we were writing to.
We also learned a powerful lesson: an organization can really like a fundraising letter – but if Mrs. Johnson doesn’t like the letter, the letter will be a failure.
I share this today because most nonprofits make the same mistakes that us yahoo copywriters made back then. Organizations often write letters and emails that they like. They write a certain way to impress themselves and please the staff or board. They use insider jargon and describe processes that only people in their niche care about.
All of which causes them to raise less money. Because, as a rule, Mrs. Johnson doesn’t care about any of that stuff.
It might be a Ms. Rodriguez. It might be a Mr. Patterson. It might be Mrs. Johnson. The important thing is to figure out who she is for your organization, and then write to her about the things that matter to her. Talk about your organization, without jargon, in a way that she can understand.
And if you’re guessing who your Mrs. Johnson is, don’t guess. Find out. It costs so little to find out. Do donor surveys. Do donor interviews. Do whatever you need to do to figure out who your supporters are. Please. Don’t. Make. Assumptions.
For instance, your donors are almost certainly older than you are. Every client I’ve worked with that had an age overlay done on their donors was shocked to discover how old their donors were.
One organization swore up-and-down that their average donor would be in their 50’s. Their average donor was 73.
It’s possible your Mrs. Johnson is different. For organizations that have a ton of child sponsors as donor, Mrs. Johnson tends to be about 49 years old, not 69 years old.
For organizations that are super youth-oriented, Mrs. Johnson might even be 35 years old on average. And she might be a Mr. It doesn’t matter. The thing is to figure out who it is for your organization, how old they are, and then write to them about what they care about.
You’re getting a handle on who your Mrs. Johnson is. You know she almost certainly knows less about your organization and your cause than you do. And that she has different interests and values than you do.
Now we’re getting somewhere!
You see, too many nonprofits look at their fundraising as their chance to communicate what is so special about their organization. But smart nonprofits look at their fundraising as a chance to communicate something of interest to Mrs. Johnson and people like her.
Don’t write about your organization. Don’t write about what your organization cares about. Instead, look for points of alignment between what your organization cares about and what your Mrs. Johnson cares about, and write about those things.
For instance, I used to serve an organization that helped disadvantaged women get an education, graduate from college, and get a job. The organization thought of itself as ‘giving a hand up, not a hand out’ and often asked their donors to “send in a gift today to help a local woman with a hand up, not a hand out.” Jim and I thought that this organization’s donors — their Mrs. Johnsons — cared more about providing an education than they did providing ‘a hand up.’ So we convinced the organization to instead talk about college credits, and to ask their donors to ‘send in a gift today help help a woman get one college credit closer to a job.’ Worked like crazy.
That’s a good example of focusing your donor communications on how your donors think about an issue, not how the organization thinks about an issue.
So figure out what your Mrs. Johnson cares about. Figure out what words and phrases she uses to describe those things. Then talk to her about what her gift to you will do using those ideas, words and phrases!
One thing that hasn’t changed since I was a young fundraiser: the average donor in the U.S. is about a 69-year-old female. And she’s the type of donor who will stay with you longest and give you the most over time.
She probably isn’t on social media. She probably checks email occasionally, but doesn’t trust it because it’s so hard to tell what spam is. She might be on Facebook. But she absolutely has a mailbox and reads her snail mail more than you and I do.
So that tells you the media channels that you want to use if you want to reach her effectively. . .
Amazing. All of this epic long post from a cardboard cut-out that I first met in 1993. But it’s a lesson that stuck with me as long as I’ve been a fundraiser, and I think it’s made me a more effective fundraiser.
My hope is that it does the same for you. Figure out who your Mrs. Johnson is. Grab some stock photography with a picture that looks like her. Print it out, and stick it to your computer monitor. Every time you’re writing your fundraising, make sure you’re writing to her. About what she cares about. Using words she would use. Do that and you’re on your way to have a LOT of Mrs. Johnsons devoted to your cause — and sending you lots of money!
What happens when you wait . . .
I get it. I’ve put things off until the last minute before.
What usually winds up happening is I tell myself, “Oh, I’ll remember to do that in time.”
But by the time I get to it, 9 times out of 10, I miss out.
Don’t let that be you.
Order your Year-End Digital Fundraising Toolkit now!
Because December 31 isn’t here yet. And there are lots of things you can do to raise the money you need before the 31st. Even in the next couple weeks!
If you’re ready for year-end, you can skip this. If you’re not ready, we get it. We’ve been there.
Don’t panic. You can do five things today for more revenue by year-end.
Make it so easy for your donors to give you a gift online that they can’t miss it (or get distracted by other options). Use some sort of interrupter like a splash page, homepage overlay, or just a big, bold donation button that goes straight to your donation page.
Tell your donors you need to raise $X by Dec 31. Let them know if you have a match or a shortfall. Tell them they have X days to do it. Believe it or not, that’s all they need to know. Remind, don’t persuade.
This isn’t the time to tell stories, share photos, or offer details about your programs. Trust us. Get straight to the point and ask for a generous year-end gift.
You should send emails on December 29, 30 and 31. These can (should!) be versions of the same email that progressively get shorter and more urgent — eg. “This is your LAST CHANCE to give a gift this year!”
If you’ve never tried it, build some Facebook ads to run during the last week of the month. Use the same messaging as your emails — but shorter! Advertise them to a lookalike audience of people who like your Facebook page.
If you want a great cheat sheet to walk you through exactly what to do, remember — we’ve developed a Year-End Digital Fundraising Toolkit. It can be yours for just $149. Buy it now and this year-end will be your best year-end yet!