Category: Ask

An Idea to Help Your Donor Acquisition

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Bright idea.

When you’re talking or writing to people who are not donors, and you’re thinking about what to say, here’s a truth to remember: 

None of them care about your organization, but some of them care about your cause or beneficiaries.

So, don’t start off your speech or letter by talking about your organization.  Attempting to start a relationship by talking about something you know the other person doesn’t care about is not a successful tactic. 

On the other hand, if you start off talking about your cause or beneficiaries, then the people who care are immediately interested in what you have to say. 

Now you’re ahead of the game.

Now, the people who are most likely to donate are the people who are paying attention.  And they already know that you care about what they care about.

In the very first moment, you’ve established common ground with the people who are most likely to donate.

And I have to add, the “holy grail” is talking about your cause or beneficiaries and tying it to a value to everyone believes in.  Think opening lines like:

“No one should have to suffer from a disease when the cure costs $100.  And now that you know you can massively improve a person’s life for less than the cost a nice dinner out, let me tell you how you can do it and why it’s important.”

Now everyone is paying attention. 

Or you could start by telling everyone what year your organization was founded.

* * *

Hey, my business partner Jim Shapiro is giving a free strategy session next Tuesday on event fundraising — and how a small but powerful shift in your speaking program can help you raise a whole lot more money.

See, most nonprofit events put all the emphasis on the wrong things. And I don’t want you make the same mistake in your next event. So click the link below to register for the strategy session and learn Jim’s “Mullet Method” for event fundraising.

https://betterfundraising.com/event-fundraising-webinar

PS — There’s limited availability so that Jim can have a real conversation with you. This is NOT one of those webinars where someone talks for 55 minutes straight. There will be lots of time for questions.

For more info, click here.

Top 3 Tips for Fundraisers Looking to Level Up Their Monthly Giving

Erica Waasdorp  |  Ask

The following is a hand-picked guest post from Erica Waasdorp.  Enjoy, and you can read more about Erica below.

* * *

Here are my top three tips for fundraisers who are looking to start growing their monthly giving program to the next level.

1. Commit to Monthly Giving

If you’re not committed to growing, you’re never going to grow. This is not a once and done campaign. Monthly giving should be included in your overall fundraising strategy.

One way to commit is by making a monthly gift yourself to your own organization. Another way is to give monthly to a few other organizations you like or admire. It’s a great way to see what they’re doing.

The main reason why a donor gives monthly is because they want to help. Making a recurring gift is more likely to fit in their budget, but if they don’t want to help because you’re not explaining the need and making the donor part of the solution, all bets are off.

2. Make It Easy for Your Donor to Find the Monthly Giving Option

I still see way too many websites where monthly giving is buried in ways to give, and it takes multiple clicks to get there. Check out tactic No. 6 from this NonProfit PRO article on numerous tests from NextAfter.

What do you have to lose by adding an extra button on the homepage and an extra button in an email? It’s a tactic successfully used by numerous organizations, and it’s not going to hurt your one-time giving revenue.

3. Create a Mini-Story or Nudge

In one sentence, how does a monthly gift help your constituents, your animals, patients, clients? Here are just a few examples:

  • “Start your monthly gift to ensure that more children can receive lasting support, access learning and have a better opportunity for the future. “
  • “You can help create lasting change by giving monthly, empowering people to lift themselves out of poverty.”
  • “Your monthly gift will make a difference every day and every month for neighbors in need.”
  • “Your monthly gift ensures seniors don’t have to choose between food and rent.”

Don’t overthink it. Just start somewhere, and you can always refine your message further.

Then look at your communication channels and messages and see where you can add the button and your mini story.

Your email newsletter? Your print newsletter? Your direct mail appeals? A buck slip in your thank-you letter? Your survey? The options are endless.

* * *

Steven says: This is a guest post from Erica Waasdorp, the renown (and wonderful!) author of Monthly Giving Made Easy.  If you want to start a monthly giving program, or make yours better, start with Erica.  Sign up for her newsletter (plus free resources) here.

This post was originally published by NonProfit PRO on October 16, 2023.

Could Your Fundraising Be More Accessible?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Accessible.

Here’s a goal for your fundraising in 2025 – make it more accessible.

The ethical reasons are clear: we should not make unnecessary design and language choices that make it harder for people to see, read and understand.

Additionally, the financial reasons are clear:

  • When more people can easily read your fundraising, more of your fundraising will be consumed, and you’ll raise more money.
  • When more people can quickly understand your fundraising, more people will keep reading, and you’ll raise more money.

Our next three blog posts will be full of tips for how you can make your fundraising more accessible.  All of the tactics we’ll share, as well as the overall idea, are part of the Universal Design movement.  (But we just call it smart fundraising 🙂 )

In the meantime, take a look at your fundraising and ask yourself:

  • Is the text easy for an older person to read?
  • Is the design easy for a “scanner” to quickly know what’s most important?
  • Is the copy written so that the reader needs a college education to understand it, or is it accessible to people with less education?

It’s emotionally stretching for an organization to make their fundraising more accessible.  But you’ll be doing the right thing.  And in my experience, you’ll also raise more money.

This post was originally published on March 19, 2024.

The Lesson

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Simplicity.

Years ago I served an organization that was raising about $350,000 per year from their individual donors.

They had a belief that they needed to share all of their programs, and show how those programs worked together to “solve the whole problem,” in order for donors to give gifts.  Their belief resulted in fundraising that spent significant time describing their programs and how their programs worked together.

I advised them that they needed to keep things simpler.  I suggested that they focus an e-appeal on one specific program.

They pushed back:

“We’re not a simple organization like one of those big national organizations you work with.  What we do is complex.”

I explained to them the lesson I had learned over the years: that the big national organizations have sophisticated approaches and programs, but that they purposefully keep their fundraising simple and emotional in order to make their organization more accessible to more people.

Those big organizations want everybody to be able to donate, not just the people who are interested enough to learn about their programs.

The organization I was working with had assumed that because the fundraising to individual donors was simple, the organization and its programs must be simple. 

But the lesson is that those big organizations appear simple because of a conscious messaging choice.  In their fundraising to individual donors, they choose to focus on single programs or simple outcomes because doing so is proven to help them attract more new donors and raise more money from current donors.

Sophisticated fundraising looks simple on purpose.

This post was originally published on November 26, 2024.

You Must Earn Your Donors’ Attention (they don’t read the whole thing)

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Attention Span

Most nonprofits, without realizing it, make a big assumption when they write their fundraising.

They assume their donors will read the whole thing. The whole email. The whole letter.

That’s a really unhelpful assumption.

Here’s a heatmap of a 1-page direct mail letter. It shows what a donor’s eyes tend to look at, and in what order it happens:

Click image to see a larger version.

We could spend a lot of time talking about what this means for your fundraising writing and design. But there’s one main lesson I want you to take away…

You Have to Earn and Keep a Donor’s Attention

You cannot assume your donor will read the whole thing.

Well, you can. But you’ll raise a lot less money.

So first you have to earn your donor’s attention. That’s having a great teaser on your envelope. Or a catchy subject line for your email. You need to get good at those things.

For your mass donor fundraising to excel, you need to be better at earning attention than you need to be at describing your organization or your programs.

That might feel like a “sad truth.” But it’s a really helpful truth if you want to raise more money and do more good.

How to Earn Donor Attention

There are three main ways to earn donor attention. You need to make your fundraising:

  1. Interesting to donors. This almost always means talking about your beneficiaries and your cause more than your organization and your programs. Remember: your donor first got involved because
    of your beneficiaries or cause, not because of your programs.
  2. Emotional. Emotions are what keep us reading. You want to constantly be using the emotional triggers: Anger, Exclusivity, Fear, Flattery, Greed, Guilt, Salvation.
  3. Dramatic. You want your fundraising to be full of drama and conflict.

Here’s an example. You already know that your first sentence of any fundraising appeal is super important. Take a look at these two:

“[NAME] Theatre is dedicated to producing high-quality, daring productions that take on challenging topics.”

vs.

“I’m writing you today about something you care about – and it’s in danger.”

I can basically guarantee you that more people are going to keep reading the second example. It’s written directly to the donor, it’s about something she cares about; it’s emotional, and it’s dramatic.

The first example – from a real letter from my files – is a classic example of telling the donor something the donor probably already knows and doesn’t really care about.

Note: Arts organizations often say that their fundraising can’t be emotional or dramatic because they don’t have babies or puppies to raise money for. I think the first example above shows that Arts organizations can absolutely be dramatic and emotional in their fundraising – they just need to think about it differently. After all, if a Theatre can’t get dramatic, it’s probably not that great a Theatre!

The Big Lesson

Your donors are moving fast. They don’t read the whole thing, watch the whole thing, or listen to the whole thing.

You need to get great at getting and keeping their attention. Study it. Know what your donors care about and then borrow tactics from advertising and social media to get your donor’s attention. And remember; we have 70 years of best-practices for earning and keeping donor attention. Smart fundraisers have learned a LOT over the years. Tap into it!

Because if you can earn your donors’ attention, they are more likely to keep reading.

And if you can keep your donors’ attention, they are more likely to give you a gift.

This post was originally published on March 12, 2019.

Creating Tension or Revealing Tension?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Tension.

I was speaking with a founder of a nonprofit recently, and she said something that was so good I knew I had to share it with you…

We were talking about sharing the needs of beneficiaries in appeals and e-appeals. I shared that we believed in sharing those needs, even though sometimes doing so made donors uncomfortable. Her reply was fantastic:

She knew those stories sometime caused tension in donors, she said.

Then she continued…

“When we nonprofits tell a story that shares the needs of a beneficiary, we don’t create the tension that the donor feels. The story just reveals the internal tension the donor holds between how the world is and how they believe the world should be.”

I love that! It jives with how I’ve always felt: great-performing appeals remind a donor that “something’s not right in the world, but it could be if you help.”

And it hints at why sharing the need is so effective in appeals and e-appeals: it taps into something the donor already knows and feels.

No education is needed. No programs or processes need to be discussed.

It’s like a shortcut to the donor’s heart. To what she cares about most.

Your donors want to make the world a better place. So share “stories of need” in your appeals and newsletters. (Save your “stories of triumph” for your newsletters and other Reporting tactics.)

Use a story to remind your busy donors that the problem your organization is addressing is affecting people right now, today. And that their gift will make a meaningful difference.

When you do, more donors will exercise their values by giving a gift through your organization.

And later – in separate communications – be sure to remind your donors of the good that their gift and your organization has done. Because if you’re going to reveal the tension, you should also reveal the triumph.

Organizations that only do one or the other aren’t raising as much money and doing as much good as they could be.

This post was originally published on October 5, 2021.

The Gap and The Gift

Steven Screen  |  Ask
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.

Direct mail and… Kale?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Kale.

Direct mail is like kale – nobody likes it the first time they try it.

Kale is a tough, leafy vegetable that tastes like a hedge.

But over time, a person can come to see the benefits of eating kale.  You start to appreciate kale.  And with the right prep and dressings, even enjoy it.

Direct mail is a tough, counter-intuitive, expensive way to raise money.

But over time, an organization can come to see the revenue that direct mail brings in and the relationship it builds.  You start to appreciate direct mail.  And with the right approach and understanding, even enjoy it.

Kale will never be as enjoyable as a cheeseburger.  Direct mail will never be as enjoyable as a great conversation with a major donor, or the emotional high of a beneficiary’s story at an event.

You might not like direct mail or kale.  But both of them are still good for you.

This post was originally published on February 6, 2024.

From Higher Ground to Common Ground

Steven Screen  |  Ask
ground

Most nonprofits have a “higher ground” understanding of their work and their cause. 

And they should!  They are experts.  They understand the cause they are working on, and they understand the complexities of what needs to be done.  They’ve built programs that are effective.  Their expertise makes them good at what they do. 

But when organizations create fundraising that invites individual donors to join the organization on its higher ground – instead of creating fundraising that meets donors on shared common ground – they put barriers between their donors and giving.

They make their fundraising exclusive.

The hallmarks of higher ground fundraising are things like:

  • Spending more time explaining the process the organization uses (your programs, or a particular approach) instead of the change in the world that the process makes possible…
  • Focusing more on the organization itself, and less on the cause or beneficiaries…
  • Sharing statistics to illustrate the size of the need or the scope of the organization’s work…
  • Educating the donor about everything that the organization does, rather than focusing on what donors tend to be most interested in…
  • All while using the organization or sector’s jargon to sound professional.

It’s like higher ground fundraising requires the donor to know about the organization in order for them to help the beneficiaries.

Two Problems

Higher Ground fundraising causes two problems.

First, it raises less money.  Every one of the bullets above, in our experience, causes individual donors to give less.  Individual donors tend to be more interested in what’s happening with the cause or beneficiaries today, and the change that the donor’s gift will make (or has made).  Individual donors tend to be less interested in the organization itself.

The bulleted points above are highly relevant to staff, organizational partners, grant-funding organizations, etc.  But they aren’t as relevant to individual donors.  Hence the old phrase, “Individual donors give through organizations, not to organizations.”

Second, the “higher ground” approach results in exclusive fundraising.  It creates a filter where the people likely to donate are the people who are willing to put in the time, the people who are willing to learn about the organization’s approach, and the people who are willing to speak the way the organization speaks.

Each of these is a barrier that some people will not cross.

From Higher Ground to Common Ground

Do the hard work to make your fundraising simple and inclusive.  Have a good offer.  Create fundraising for individual donors that any person who cares about your beneficiaries, at any level of understanding, at any reading level, will find relevant.

This means consciously deciding to leave the high ground.  It means you’ll have to defend your fundraising from internal audiences who love the high ground and want everyone to join them there.

Here’s why: there are a LOT of people out there who care about your beneficiaries and would like to give a gift to help.  There are far fewer people out there who are willing to wade through an education in your work before they can give a gift.

So if your communication and fundraising are always on the higher ground – and inviting donors to join you there – you will remain smaller than you could be.  You will remain doing less than you could be.

If your communication and fundraising are aimed at the common ground you share with donors, you will raise more money and have a larger impact.

In fundraising, the high ground is lonely.

This post was originally published on March 2, 2023.