Author: Steven

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.

“Why are you writing about the organization?”

Steven  |  Report
Thinking writing.

This is the second post in our series on donor-centered print newsletters. The kind of newsletters that delight donors and raise more money for your nonprofit.

The first post was about the purpose of your newsletter. This post is the second and final Big Idea you need to succeed.

And after this – I promise – the posts will get tactical.

But if you don’t know this one idea, all the tactics in the world won’t help very much.

A Powerful, Unexpected Question

It’s 1994. I’m less than a year out of college working at a fundraising agency that specializes in helping large nonprofits raise money. And I’m writing my first newsletter.

I handed my draft to my boss – an accomplished, brilliant fundraiser.

He read the first story, scanned the rest of the stories, and handed the stack of paper back to me.

Then he asked me a powerful but unexpected question:

“Why Are You Writing About the Organization?”

I didn’t know it at the moment, but that was one of the most powerful lessons I ever learned about effective fundraising.

At the time all I could do was say, “What do you mean? It’s … the organization’s newsletter.”

“Sure.” My boss said, “but most donors aren’t reading a newsletter to find out anything about the organization. They are reading it to find out if their gift made a difference.

“The most effective newsletters are written to show donors what their gift accomplished. And the best way to do that is through stories about beneficiaries.

“So stop writing about the organization and its programs. Start writing about the donor and telling her stories about lives that have been changed because of her kindness. Then she’ll think it was a great idea to give to the organization, and be more likely to give again.”

So … I went back to my office to do a complete rewrite.

But I was a far more effective fundraiser from that moment forward.

Your Newsletter

As you create your newsletter, you will be tempted to “write about your organization.”

People in your organization will even push you to write about your organization.

They’ll say things like, “But we have to tell people about everything we do and tell them that we’re good at it!”

No. You don’t. In fact, when you do, fewer donors will read your newsletter. Because hearing about your organization is not why they are reading. They are reading because they are hoping to hear about themselves. Whether and how their gift made a difference. Whether they are a valuable part of your organization.

Keep this idea in mind as you read this series. Then all the tactics – the writing style, the headlines, the picture captions – will make sense.

You’ll start keeping your donors for longer. And your newsletter will become a major revenue source!

This post was originally published on February 25, 2020 in a series of 10 posts on Donor-Delighting Newsletters. This series has been published as an e-book that can be downloaded here.

What the purpose of your newsletter SHOULD be

Steven  |  Report
Newsletter.

This is the first in a series of posts that will show you how to create donor-delighting, money-raising newsletters.

We’re talking about newsletters that your donors love to open, the kind that increase the chance they’ll keep giving to your organization year after year, and the kind that raise way more money than they cost to send out.

What Is Your Newsletter’s Purpose?

Here’s our approach, and it’s been successful for every type of organization in every sector we’ve tried:

Your newsletter exists to show your donor how her gift made a difference, and to show her what her gift today will do.

There’s a lot in that one sentence, which we’ll unpack during this series.

But it’s just as helpful to understand what your newsletter should not be:

  • It should not a newspaper, full of all kinds of
    stories
  • It should not be about your organization, your programs,
    your staff, your volunteers, your sponsors, or your partners
  • It should not be about how much money you’ve
    raised
  • It should not be a “playbill” about the
    upcoming events and ways a donor can get involved
  • It should not “hide the good news” by only
    mentioning the donor at the very end of stories

And yet, those are the things that most nonprofits use their newsletters for.

 That’s why most newsletters don’t get read.

 That’s why they don’t measurably help organizations keep their donors.

 And it’s why most newsletters don’t raise much (if any) money.

Here’s the Big Idea:

Your donor is more interested in reading about herself – about what she and her gift did – than she is reading about any of those other things.

So if you want her to read your newsletter, write to her and write about her.

You Need a To-do list and a Not-To-Do List

Newsletters don’t raise a lot of money by accident.

The content is curated and the offer decided. Then it’s written and designed with the intent to raise money.

Everything included in it is done with a purpose. That means that a bunch of things are also excluded on purpose.

For smaller organizations, this is hard, because it means telling some staff that their program will never be featured in the newsletter. It means getting more stories and photos of beneficiaries. It means the “save the date” for your next event needs to be an additional mailing, not in your newsletter.

It’s hard, but it’s worth it. This approach works measurably better than any other approach I’ve ever seen in my 27 years of fundraising.

If you’d like to know more, stay tuned (and subscribe to our blog if you haven’t already)!

This post was originally published on February 20, 2020 in a series of 10 posts on Donor-Delighting Newsletters. This series has been published as an e-book that can be downloaded here.

Beware… the Curse of KNOWLEDGE!

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Beware… the Curse of KNOWLEDGE!

“Talking to donors about what they care about, in language that they quickly understand, absolutely leads to raising more money and doing more good.”

Steven learned this truth early on in his career and I think it’s a great reminder for anyone fundraising through the pandemic. 

Bottom line is that your donors are not experts on your organization, or your programs. If you want to see results, be sure to keep your message simple, specific, and solution-focused. Your donors want to support outcomes, not processes. 

That said, there’s a cost to fundraising this way because the experts in your organization won’t like it. But the benefits to your mission are clear. 

— Jonathan

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:

  1. Define “The Curse of Knowledge”
  2. Show how knowledge or expertise often hurts fundraising
  3. 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?

This post was originally published on November 13, 2018.

Spidery Handwriting and Responsibility

Steven  |  Ask
Responsibility.

The note from the donor was scrawled in spidery handwriting at the bottom of the appeal:

In case that’s hard to read, here’s what it says:

“I strongly suggest you remove this statement.  Never imply obligations to donors, or make us feel responsible for what might happen if we don’t give.”

Though I’m sorry that the letter caused the donor to feel distress, she perfectly expressed one of the reasons that fundraising is so powerful for our society:

Fundraising reminds us that we are responsible.

Each of us bears some responsibility for what happens when we give.  And each of us bears some responsibility for what happens when we don’t give.

At Better Fundraising, we believe one of the functions of fundraising is to “remind people who care that there is work that needs to be done.”

That’s not the only function of fundraising, of course.  Fundraising should show the power of beneficiaries to triumph, show how the world can be made better, and show all of us what’s possible.

So in addition to reminding people that they have responsibility, fundraising also reminds people that they are good and they have power.

But the fact remains: if what your organization is working on is important, make it visible.  Remind your donors what’s needed and what’s at stake.  (Our world isn’t very good at solving problems that it can’t see and doesn’t know about.)

You’ll get the occasional comment like the one on the letter above – because humans don’t always like being reminded that they carry responsibility.  But at the same time you’ll build an army of devoted donors who love “doing work that needs to be done” with you.

Assume Speed

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High speed.

When sending mail and email to your donors, assume that each person reading your material is moving fast.

We might hope that donors pore over our emails, looking to deeply understand what our organization does and how we do it.  We can wish that they’ll read every word, get every nuance, and then thoughtfully decide to give a gift.

But it’s more useful to believe that each donor is moving fast, sorting the mail, already thinking about dinner, or processing email on their phone in between pickleball games.

When you assume donors are moving fast, you end up creating letters and emails that are more accessible.  You create fundraising that works for people who are moving fast and for your “true fans” who want to know more.  (Here’s a post where I explain how to do it.)

You’ll raise more from the donors you currently have, because you’ll have made it easier for them to know what’s going on and what their gift will do.

And more people will become donors because you’ve made it easier for them to know what’s going on and what their gift will do!   

I’d wager that you know from your own life how quickly you process email and the mail.  Assume your donors are the same way.  It’s a gift to them when you create fundraising that’s easy for them to understand quickly.

And it’s a gift that results in you raising more money.

The Gap and The Gift

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The Gap

There’s a gap between your organization and your donors.

Savvy fundraising organizations know that donors don’t know as much about your beneficiaries or cause as your organization does.

That donors often don’t care quite as much as you care.

That donors often use different words and phrases than you would. 

Savvy fundraising organizations know that the people on the other side of the gap are not likely to close the gap themselves.  Donors are quite happy as they are, thank you very much.  They don’t have a felt need to be educated, learn new jargon, or grow to an expert’s level of understanding.

So savvy fundraisers make the generous act of crossing the gap and meeting donors where the donors are. 

That means writing to donors at donors’ level of understanding.  It means no jargon.  It means being specific, not conceptual.

It means figuring out what motivates donors to give and crafting your fundraising around those motivators – even if those motivators are not what motivates the organization’s staff. 

And when you’ve done the generous thing – crossed the gap to meet the donor where they are – then you can ask them to take a first step towards involvement and greater understanding. 

That first step?  It’s usually a financial gift.  A check in the mail or a donation online.

And that gift happens because you gave them a gift, first.  You crossed the gap.  You went to them.

This post was originally published on November 17, 2020.

The Six Types of Asks

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Six types.

There are 6 main types of “asks” that I see in fundraising.  Let me tell you what they are, then make a couple of observations. 

As I go through these, look for the type that your organization tends to use…

More General Asks

The ask is Organizational

The donor is asked to support the organization.

  • “Will you please support our work?”
  • “Please join us as we…”
  • “Will you partner with us?”

The ask is Conceptual

The donor is asked to do or provide something that’s a concept.

  • “Will you please provide hope to a person”
  • “You’ll help provide refuge…”
  • “Will you walk alongside someone as they…”

The ask is About a Topic

The donor is asked to support one area or part of the organization’s work, but it’s still conceptual.

  • “Your gift today will provide education!”
  • “Will you help provide habitat restoration for wild birds?”
  • “For Moms experiencing homelessness, will you provide housing?”

More Concrete Asks

The ask is Specific

The donor is asked to do something more specific.

  • “Will you provide a year of school?”
  • “You can provide 1 square meter of sanctuary for wild birds.”
  • “Your gift will provide a night of housing for a Mom experiencing homelessness.”

Note: if you’re wondering how to highlight a specific part of your organization’s work while still raising undesignated funds, download our free whitepaper here.

The ask is Specific with a Price

The donor is asked to fund something specific, and given the price to fund it.

  • “You can provide a year of school for $78!”
  • “1 square meter of sanctuary for wild birds costs just $150.”
  • “Your gift of $48 will provide a night of housing for a Mom experiencing homelessness.”

The ask is Specific with a Price, and is Timely

The donor is asked to fund something specific, with a price point, and what they’re being asked to fund is needed/about to be needed.

  • “Your gift before August 26th will provide a year of school for $78!”
  • “Before the migratory birds arrive next month, will you please give $150 to provide 1 square meter of sanctuary for wild birds?”
  • “Your gift of $48 will provide a night of housing for a Mom experiencing homelessness.  No one should have to sleep in a car during this heatwave.”

As I thought about the different types of Asks, I noticed something that I hope will be helpful to you: there are times and places for both “more general” asks and for “more concrete” asks.   

Here’s what I’ve observed:

  • “More general” asks tend to be successful with people who have a lot of context about your organization and what you do.
    • These people already know the importance of your work, and they already know some of the specifics. Think “major donors that you’re in relationship with,” grant-making organizations, and at events when you have time to give people the whole picture.
  • More specific asks tend to be successful to people who do not have a lot of context about your organization and what you do.
    • Asks that are more specific tend to work better in direct response fundraising: email, the mail, on TV, etc. In those mediums, most of the audience does not have much context about your organization and what you do. They simply don’t know. So being specific and concrete is really helpful for them.

    The lesson, as always, is to know the audience for any given piece of fundraising, and meet that audience where they are.

    Happy Fourth!

    Steven  |  Repeat
    fourth

    This Independence Day we’re reminded of the line, “toward a more perfect union.”

    Not perfect, but trying to get better every year.

    Just like fundraising.

    Happy Fourth!

    A Personal Note of Encouragement to YOU

    Steven  |  Thank
    Encouragement.

    Hey friend,

    I’m reaching out to you today because I want to encourage you.

    Being a fundraiser can be a difficult and lonely job.

    It’s a job where it often feels like nothing is ever truly done. The hours can be long and – honestly – fundraisers rarely hear these important words:

    Thank you – you are doing a GREAT job!

    Because you ARE doing a great job.

    Friend, you have chosen to do a job not many people can do.

    You combine your passion for your cause with your ability to invite donors to do something meaningful.

    You make a lot happen without a lot of resources.

    When things get tough, you dig in, find a solution, and make sure your organization has the funding needed to continue.

    You are a gift to your organization and to your community.

    Thank you for choosing to do a tough and necessary job as a fundraiser.

    Today, why not help cultivate a culture of gratitude at your organization by taking a minute to thank a co-worker for what they do? This gesture doesn’t have to be limited to the people you interact with daily. You might like to thank a faithful volunteer for helping stuff envelopes, a colleague on your programs team, or the person who does your payroll (yes, definitely thank them!).

    We work hard to thank our donors for their generous support, so why not thank each other too?

    So whether it’s a high-five, a thoughtful email, or a plate of fresh-baked cookies, take some time today to thank your colleagues for making the world a better place.