The most common and destructive error fundraisers make is aiming their messages at themselves — creating what they believe would motivate them to give.
They should be aiming at their donors. And donors are very different from you in nearly every way.
Here’s help for aiming your work in the right direction so you can raise more money for your cause.
What story does your fundraising tell? Is it Bad News — the problem and brokenness that you want your donors to help you change? Or is it Good News — the promise of what can happen when your donor steps up and gives.
Or maybe there’s a third, more perfect, way.
We’ll show you that way, the approach to fundraising that avoids the revenue killing errors of either good news or bad news fundraising.
Most of your donors don’t care that your organization has been around for a nice round number of years. That’s why Give to us because it’s our 25th and we’re awesome is a lousy way to raise funds.
But there are some things you can do to leverage your anniversary into more revenue. We discuss four cool things you can do that will turn that otherwise meaningless milestone into good things.
Many organizations believe that their uniqueness is the main reason donors will choose them for their charitable giving. That’s a revenue-crushing mistake.
Successful fundraising starts where the donor is — not in the organization’s uniqueness — and makes a clear, simple case.
“I’m looking for an organization to support that’s completely unique,” said no donor, ever.
Your uniqueness is important. But it can drag down your fundraising if you over-focus on it.
How often we hear someone say: I will never use that fundraising technique because everyone does it!
We see something again and again and think it’s hackneyed, out-of-style, and ineffective.
Actually, it’s usually the other way: Those fundraising “techniques” you see again and again are the things that work.
This special podcast for fundraising nerds only includes the cheapest way to get a powerful fundraising education.
We’re taking a look at one of the most destructive forces in all of fundraising: The need we all have to make ourselves the audience for our messages: Fundraising From Yourself — or FFY.
It’s the quick and sure path to failure.
We’ll show you the three signs that FFY is happening in your organization and give you the tools for avoiding this common problem that costs nonprofit organizations millions of dollars every year.
Consider this: Most nonprofit organizations want “real relationships” with their donors. But they communicate with donors as infrequently as possible, and when they do, they tend to talk only about themselves. What kind of relationship-building is that?
We’ll examine three ways to walk the talk if you really want to build relationships with donors:
Donor acquisition — in any medium — has a fundamentally different “ecosystem” form donor cultivation. Knowing the difference will make you far more effective in both.
We discuss the differences in response numbers, cost, messaging, and long-term impact between acquisition and cultivation.
Before you know anything else about fundraising, there are three basic assumptions you should know about it:
Working with these basic truths is the key to success.