Steven Screen

Steven Screen is Co-Founder of The Better Fundraising Company and lead author of its blog. With over 30 years' fundraising experience, he gets energized by helping organizations understand how they can raise more money. He’s a second-generation fundraiser, a past winner of the Direct Mail Package of the Year, and data-driven.

How smart fundraisers save MASSIVE time and raise more money

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Repeat.

You are overworked.

You have too much to do and not enough time to do it.

But there’s an easy way to save a ton of time and raise more money: instead of reinventing everything each year, repeat your fundraising wins.

I know this might sound crazy. But it works like crazy. Here are some examples:

  • When it’s time to do your Thanksgiving letter, dust off last year’s Thanksgiving letter, update 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.
  • For your event, don’t make a new video. Use last year’s video.
  • Here’s a crazy example of “repeating” your way to success. I know an organization that, for the last 4 days of the year, divided their email list in half. Half of the people received the exact same fundraising email 4 days in a row. The other half received 4 unique fundraising emails. The group that received the same email each day raised more money and had a higher response rate!

Here’s the thing that smart fundraisers (and organizations) know: most of your donors are not paying very close attention.

Your donors don’t remember what last year’s Thanksgiving letter said. And they wouldn’t be bothered if this year’s letter were remarkably similar to last year’s letter.

So what do smart fundraisers do? When it comes time to Ask for donations, they repeat as much of what was done before as possible.

Those smart fundraisers focus on what works, do more of it, and actively work to NOT have to reinvent the wheel each time.

That’s how they save massive time. And raise more money.

They save the time of writing a new Thanksgiving letter. And getting it approved. And designed. And wrestling with the Program team over the exact phrasing.

Don’t Do Two Things

And perhaps what’s most important, they don’t do two things.

They don’t let themselves change something just because they are bored with what was done last time. If the previous thing worked really well, they dig deeper into that thing to try to make it better.

Second, they don’t bow to internal audiences who want to do things differently because of personal preferences. Your Board member may be bored with your event because it feels repetitive to him – but if you know that your event is raising more and more money every year, and most attendees don’t go for more than 2 years in a row, your board member’s opinion should be graciously accepted and then quickly left behind with other advice like “Direct mail is dead!” and “Let’s focus only on millennial donors!”

Learn From The Advertising World

Not everything from “advertising” is helpful in fundraising. But focus and repetition are VERY helpful.

The advertising world spends a LOT of time and money to a) figure out which message for each client is most powerful, and then b) make sure you see that exact same message multiple times.

But for some reason it’s a value in the nonprofit world to do everything different every time. Here’s how this manifests itself:

  • “What will our new theme be for this year’s auction/event?” Why is there an assumption that we need a new theme? If last year’s theme was powerful and worked great, use it again!
  • “What are we going to talk about in this year’s year-end letter?” If last year’s letter was great at motivating donors to give, why not save time by using it again and make only the updates we need to make?

The value of doing so many things new and different each year causes a lot less money to be raised, and a lot less good to be done.

Don’t Trust Your Feelings, Luke

To some people, it feels like less fun to work hard to identify what’s working and then repeat it. It can feel like less fun to concentrate on making it better each time instead of making it new and fresh.

It can feel like you’re not doing a good job when you send out an email that’s exactly the same as last year.

But I would argue that it’s way more fun to raise more money and do more good.

Does HGTV feel like they aren’t doing a good job when they have aired 50 programs in one week about improving houses? Does Apple feel like they aren’t doing a good job when they air the same commercial 50 times in one week?

No. Because they are focused on repeating what works.

Your organization should be, too. Because that’s what works best to raise more money.

And raising more money is why we’re here!

“They are not your donors, you are one of their charities”

Steven Screen  |  Ask
One of their charities.

While at the AFP International conference in New Orleans last month, I heard a quote from Mark Phillips of Bluefrog that stopped me in my tracks.

“They are not your donors; you are one of their charities.”

I wish more organizations would hear this and take it to heart. Because if they were to do this, their fundraising would get better immediately. Here’s how…

You realize that your nonprofit is in a constant battle with other nonprofits for the attention of your donor.

I find that most nonprofits act as if they are the only organization soliciting their particular donors. They assume they don’t need to attract each donor’s attention. They assume the donor will read everything they write. None of those assumptions are good ones.

Nonprofits need to realize that they are constantly competing for the attention (and dollars) of their donors. They need to work harder to get donors’ attention.

For example, this is why organizations that send out 8 appeals and 4 donor-focused newsletters are more likely to raise more than organizations who send out 4 appeals and 12 e-newsletters: the organization that communicates more relevant information more often is likely to get more attention and more donations from their donors.

So, are you communicating relevant information to your donors often enough? Are your email subject lines good? Is the envelope for your appeal mysterious? Is your writing interesting and clear? Are you actively trying to earn their attention … or just sending stuff out?

You realize you have to earn repeat donations from your donors

Your donor is hearing from a LOT of nonprofits she loves, about causes she loves. What are you saying to her to earn her next donation?

First of all, have you told her powerful stories about the impact she’s made, so that she knows her previous gift made a difference? Do you have a newsletter that regularly shares those stories?

And when you Ask, are you making a weak appeal for her to “partner” with your organization or to “become a supporter”? Or are you asking powerfully for a current need and positioning her (not your organization) as the hero?

You relentlessly focus on donor retention

Now that you know your donors “like to give around,” you become focused on keeping as many of them and their donations as you can.

So you measure donor retention to figure out what percentage of your donors you keep each year – and then you try to keep more the next year.

Why? Because “donor retention” is pretty much the same thing as “donor satisfaction.” And satisfied donors are more likely to give to your organization next year, and give more the following year, and put you in their will, etc.

Are you measuring donor retention? And are you trying to improve it?

Now it’s Your Turn

What can you do, today, that will help you keep your donors?

Is there a major donor you can call? Is there a newsletter you can start? Is there an appeal you can make stronger?

I promise you that if you work like crazy to get the attention of your donors, if you earn their repeat donations, and if you measure and focus on how many of your donors you keep, you’ll be raising more money in no time. And for a long time!

Do your fundraising materials have a donor-shaped hole?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Donor shaped hole.

Let me share an idea that’s been helpful for a number of fundraisers recently:

All of your donor communications should have a donor-shaped hole in them.

Why? So your donor can see a role for herself in what your organization is doing. So she can see a place where she can step in and do something meaningful.

If you get really good at doing this, really good at creating fundraising that makes donors say, “I see that, I can do that,” you’re going to raise a LOT of money.

The idea of a “donor-shaped hole” is an attempt to explain why a set of fundraising tactics is so effective at engaging donors. I’ll list some of the tactics below. You’ll see how each one creates a donor-shaped hole in appeals, e-appeals, events, and newsletters.

Talk To Her about What She Can Do

As you write your fundraising, write it as if you’re talking to one donor. And talk to her about what she and her gift will accomplish.

That approach is significantly different than talking about your organization, your programs, and the people you’ve already helped.

That’s a lot different than asking your donor to “become a supporter” or “please partner with us.”

Instead, write directly to her. Not to everyone, just to her. Use the word “you” a lot. Tell her that great people like her are needed. Give her an example of what her gift will do.

When you’re done, you’ll have a letter (or email, or event) that feels like a 1-to-1 communication to her and about what she can do. That’s a letter that a donor is far more likely to read and respond to than a letter (or an organization) that just keeps talking about itself!

Highlight a Small, Specific Thing Her Gift Does

What you want to do here is pick one powerful thing (or part of a thing) that your organization does. The trick is that it needs to be easy to understand, and inexpensive enough that everyone can afford one of them.

Say you’re an Education organization. You have lots of different programs, most of them long-term. You should look for part of one of those programs. For instance, if you provide math tutoring to middle school students, you can figure out the average cost to provide one day’s worth of tutoring for one student.

Most likely the cost to do that is low enough so that every donor could afford it. Congratulations, you’ve created a donor-shaped hole!

A $50 donor can provide one incredible day of tutoring for a child. A $1,500 donor can provide one incredible month of tutoring for a child.

Pro Level: Ask for the Amount She’s Most Likely to Give

Sophisticated organizations create a donor-shaped hole by asking for an amount that is the right size for the donor.

They do it using customized gift ask amounts based on each donor’s previous gift. Here’s what they do, in a nutshell:

  • When they export the mailing list, they also export the amount of each donor’s previous donation. This is often called “Most Recent Gift” or MRG.
  • That amount is used to calculate three gift ask amounts for each donor. Those amounts are usually 1 x MRG, 1.5 x MRG, and 2 x MRG.
  • When printing the reply card for each donor, the donor’s name, address, and customized gift amounts are merge printed onto the reply card.

This is a proven way to increase response and giving. Why does it work? Because it asks your donor to give about the same amount they gave last time. This makes a donor feel like you know them. It creates a donor-shaped hole that is exactly their size.

Thank, and Report

Organizations that Thank well (promptly, emotionally, donor-centrically) make donors feel great. Great Thank You’s show the donor that she is needed and that she is appreciated.

Great organizations tell each donor, “Thank you, a great person just like you was needed, and you did exactly what was needed!” That tells the donor that there was an important role for her to play in your cause or organization, and she played it.

Take off your “Fundraiser” hat for a moment and put on your donor hat. As a donor, wouldn’t you like to hear that there was an important role for you to play, and that you played it perfectly?

After Thanking, great organizations Report back to donors on what her gift made possible.

Richard Perry is the founder of Veritus Group and one of the best fundraising strategists in North America. (He’s also my old boss!) He says, “The greatest cause of donor attrition is that the donor did not know she made a difference.”

If a donor doesn’t know that she and her gift made a difference, why would she give another gift to your organization?

Again, take off your Fundraiser hat and put on your donor hat. If your donation was needed, wouldn’t the organization Report back and let you know? If you and your gift are important, wouldn’t the organization Report back to you and show you how?

If you mattered to the organization, wouldn’t they Report back to you?

If you mattered, they would. So if your donors matter to you, Report back to them and show them how they made a difference. For each donor, show her the ‘hole’ she helped fill!

Your Next Steps

Use these tactics to create donor-shaped holes in all of your fundraising communications. If you do, your donors will start engaging with your organization more because they’ll see that they are needed, that they have a powerful role to play, and that they matter!

And if you’d like fun, experienced coaches to help your organization do this, get in touch! We can review your fundraising and help you make it stronger, or we can even create your appeals, newsletters and e-appeals for you. For less than the cost of an employee, we can improve your fundraising materials, raise you more money, and free up internal resources!

See & hear my AFP International presentation on Storytelling

Steven Screen  |  Videos
Donors are heroes.

I was honored to give a presentation called “Storytelling for ACTION” at the AFP International conference in New Orleans this spring.

But even if you weren’t there, I want you to be able to use these strategies to raise more money. So I’ve recorded the presentation and have a video of it for you today.

Many of the ideas you’ll hear me describe are the same ones that are in our free Ebook (you’ve downloaded that, right?). But in the presentation, I provide more examples and give tips for how you can start raising more money immediately.

The session was called “the breakout session of Day 1 of the conference” by a high-ranking AFP member. I hope it is as helpful for you as it was for the folks at the conference!

Our Goal This Month

If you’d like coaching for how your organization can raise more money by telling stories more effectively, get in touch. Or we can even create your Asks and Reports for you. For less than the cost of an employee, we can improve your fundraising materials, raise you more money, and free up internal resources!

Exactly How to Run a Fiscal Year-End Email Campaign

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Send email.

Using email to raise money at fiscal year-end is exactly like using email to raise money the last week in December.

This month we’re teaching and blogging on fiscal year-end fundraising. Here’s why it works, here’s a sample letter, and here’s what to do in the mail.

And today, here’s how to use email to take your campaign to the next level and raise even more money.

Today we’re going to show you exactly what to do in email to raise money at Fiscal Year-End. It’s pretty simple…

Big Picture: Send Three Emails

Your first email should be:

  • Almost a word-for-word copy of your mailed appeal letter. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, repeat what’s in the letter, because repetition helps your fundraising.
  • Sent approximately 3 days after you send your snail-mail appeal letter. Your goal is for it to arrive in your donor’s inbox the same day it arrives in their mailbox.
    • If your donors are spread across the country, or if you’re using nonprofit postage, you may want to wait 5 or 6 days after you send your appeal.

Your second email should be:

  • A copy of the first email you sent, but a little shorter. Say that you’re reminding your donor about the deadline on the 30th, and then use the same words, phrases and paragraphs that you used in your letter.
  • Sent the morning of June 29th.

Your third email should be:

  • A copy of the second email you sent, but a little shorter. Say that you’re reminding your donor about the deadline on the 30th, and then use the same words, phrases and paragraphs that you used in your letter.
    • One tactic we’ve used with great success: don’t write a third email; just “forward” your second email with a note at the top. The note should say something like, “Dear [NAME], I wanted to make sure you saw this. Thank you!”
  • Sent the morning of June 30.

The trick here is to send the same message in every email. It’s the repetition of the same message that helps drive it home!

Where Should the Links Go?

Every link in every email should go directly to your giving page. Don’t have links to your website’s home page, your Facebook page, or your Instagram account. We call those “attention leaks,” and they tend to reduce the amount of money you’ll raise.

Ideally, your giving page has updated copy at the top that mentions your “fiscal year-end campaign” and the important deadline of midnight, June 30th. You want that page to reinforce the message that your donors read in the appeal letter or email!

Who Should Receive Them?

Your emails should go to your entire list – every email address you have – with the following exceptions:

  1. If there are any Board members or staff members who won’t want to receive the emails, feel free to take them off the list.
  2. If you’re able, remove people who have given to the appeal or email from subsequent emails. For instance, if they give to the email on the 29th, they ideally would not receive the email on the 30th.
    • If you’re not able to do that, add a sentence in the email that says something like, “If you’ve already given a gift, thank you so much! If you haven’t, please give by midnight, Saturday night…” That will ‘get you off the hook’ for donors who give early but still receive the later email(s).

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year to raise money in June!

How to Use the Mail to Raise Money at Fiscal Year-End

Steven Screen  |  Ask

We’re teaching and blogging this month on how to raise money at Fiscal Year-End.

First we wrote about why it works so well. Then we gave you a sample Fiscal Year-End letter and told you how to write the letter.

Today we’re going to show you exactly what to do in the mail to raise money at Fiscal Year-End. It’s pretty simple:

  • Send the letter to your donors around June 1. There’s no magic to that date. You can send it a little earlier or a little later. But that’s about the sweet spot to A) be close enough to the end of June for it to make sense to donors, and to B) give your donors enough time to respond.
  • Send the letter to all donors who have given a gift in the last 24 months. If you mail your donors often, say eight times per year or more, you probably should only send the letter to donors who have given a gift in the last 12 or 18 months. But for most organizations, mailing to all donors who have given in the last 2 years/24 months is worth it. Do not mail this letter to non-donors or to volunteers.
  • Send the letter with first-class postage to Major donors, and non-profit postage to all other donors. Using first-class postage to your major donors costs more, but it also increases the chances that they will open the letter. It’s worth it!

We’ll talk about what to do online later this month. (You’ll have more time to get ready for that!)

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year to raise money in June!

SAMPLE Fiscal Year-End Fundraising Letter

Steven Screen  |  Ask

There is a model that works really, really well for fiscal year-end letters; I’m going to share it with you. You should follow it because you’ll raise more money than you expect.

Remember: no one thinks fiscal year-end fundraising is going to work, but it works like crazy.

So if your fiscal year ends June 30th or September 30th, keep reading. If not, you can click away and go do something to delight your donors. 🙂

Today I’m going to share a letter that successfully raised a ton of money for one of our clients. They raised so much more than they were expecting that they want other organizations to be able to do the same thing.

I recommend you do three things: copy this letter, customize it for your organization, then send it to your donors on or before June 1st.

  1. What you want to do is copy the approach: the directness, the focus on the deadline, the short sentences and paragraphs. You can copy some of the phrases. Even the formatting. Copy all that.
  2. But customize your letter to be about meeting the need your organization exists to serve. Think of it like Mad-Libs: where this letter talks about what the donor’s gift will do, customize it to talk about what a donor’s gift to your organization will accomplish.
  3. Then mail it to your donors on or before June 1st. You want to give them a couple weeks to get back to you. Only send it to donors who have given a gift in the last 24 months. (We’ll talk about how to use email in a post later this month.)

Here’s the letter. You can click on the images to download the PDFs.

Fiscal year-end letter sample.


My Fiscal Year-End gift.

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year!

11 amazing fundraising truths discovered by new writers

Steven Screen  |  Podcast
Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

We asked two new fundraising (and very successful) writers who have been doing some very great work what they know about fundraising that’s making them succeed.

Here’s what they told us:

  1. Write as one person connecting with one person.
  2. Avoid the word “we” — unless it very clearly means you the reader and I the writer.
  3. Start your first draft with this phrase: I’m writing to you today because…
  4. Use the word you a lot.
  5. Articulate the fundraising offer early and often.
  6. Tell a story of need, not success.
  7. Ask clearly for money. (Don’t hint around!)
  8. Write at a 6th grade reading level.
  9. Include a P.S. and restate whatever is the most important thing in your message.
  10. Have a deadline, and mention it often.
  11. Keep the organization out of the way — make it about what the donor can do.

If you’re new to the work, or feel intimidated by it, this list can push you way up your learning curve, and fast!

Fundraising at Fiscal Year-End: Why you should do it, and why it works

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Fiscal year-end.

We’re blogging this month about fundraising for “Fiscal year-end” – why it works and how to do it for your organization.

We’re focusing on this because fundraising for “fiscal year-end” works great. And we want you to raise more money and do more good. If you’re not doing it, you should be.

It Doesn’t Make Sense…

The first thing to say is that no one believes that fiscal year-end fundraising will work for their organization. No one.

And that’s reasonable! After all, what donor is thinking about when your fiscal year is, and what happens at the end of it?

On the surface, who would think that an appeal about the end of your budgeting cycle would motivate a donor to give? It’s entirely organizational-centric, and apparently not donor-centric at all. But…

…It Just Works

Fundraising for fiscal year-end (FYE) works great for our clients (and lots of other organizations) year after year.

The FYE appeal letter is usually one of the best-performing letters of the year. The emails are usually the second-best performing emails of the year (behind only the December year-end emails).

I’m telling you this because, if your organization’s fiscal year ends June 30th, you have a great fundraising opportunity that – most likely – you’re not taking full advantage of.

This the proverbial low-hanging fruit for you. And we’re going to show you how to grab it.

Why It Works

If we dig a little deeper, we see why FYE fundraising works so well:

  1. There’s a simple, powerful problem the donor can help solve. Every one of us has had the problem of being ‘a little short’ at the end of a month. That means your donor understands and can feel the problem on her own. That right there makes her more likely to respond.
  2. There’s a clear deadline. We know from experience (year-end fundraising, anybody?) that having a clear deadline is magic for motivating donors to take action.

A lot of people will read those two things and think, “Really? That’s it? That’s too simple.”

I know. I think the same thing.

But it works like crazy every year! The power of a deadline and a simple, solvable problem work again and again and again.

We recommend this to every client whose fiscal year ends on June 30th or September 30th.

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year!