Category: Ask

Need an emergency fundraising email because of the LA fires?

Steven  |  Ask
Fires.

We’re replacing today’s blog post with a special announcement:

If you’re at a small nonprofit, and the fires in LA have caused you to need extra/emergency funds, we’d like to help: we will write an emergency fundraising email for you.

<< If you don’t work in/around LA, but know someone who does, please feel free to forward this post to them. >>

Watching the fires unfold this week has been heartbreaking.  We work with people who have lost their homes. 

Knowing how the nonprofit community jumps into action at times like this, there are hundreds (thousands?) of smaller nonprofits in LA who could use some emergency cash.  And they don’t have the time or expertise or budget to get out an emergency email. 

So we’d like to help.

If you’re at a small nonprofit and would like us to write a free emergency fundraising email for you, here’s what to do:

  1. Send an email to info@betterfundraising.com
  2. Give us a brief snapshot of what’s happening for your beneficiaries or organization
  3. Tell us if your organization is too small to afford to do this on your own, or if you’ve just never really known how

We’ll reply with a few detail questions about your exact situation so we know what to say in the email.  Once you send us the answers, we’ll write an emergency email for you within a day or two.  We’ll also send a handful of tips that will help you with emergency fundraising in general.

We made this offer after hurricanes Helene and Milton last fall, and it was a joy to meaningfully help the organizations who took us up on our offer. 

We are inspired by all that nonprofits in the LA area are doing right now.  This is the way we can help, and just like you, we’ll help as much as we can.

If you or your organization need an email, please get in touch!

Approach to Appeals

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Appeal.

This month we’re sharing the ideas and strategies that had an outsized positive impact on the nonprofits we serve. 

Today’s idea is that there’s an approach to appeals (appeal letters and e-appeals) that, in our experience, tend to work the best.

Here’s the simplest summary of what the performance data leads us to believe:

  • The most successful appeals tend to be about the help that your beneficiaries or cause needs now, and how the donor’s gift will provide that help.
  • The less successful appeals tend to be about help that the organization has already provided, and request support for the organization.

When organizations change their appeals to be about the help that’s needed, and how the donor’s gift will help provide it, two things happen.  First, each appeal raises more money.  Second, the organization retains more donors year-over year.

Put another way, they start raising more money in the short term and in the long term.

Of course, appeals like this are only one element in an effective donor communications plan.  And they take a lot of thought to create.  For instance, appeals like this only describe part of an organization’s work.  You have to choose which part of your work to talk about, and you have to talk about it in an accessible way.

But if you create appeals that follow this approach, you’ll start raising more money immediately.

***

If you’re interested in what it would look like to have Better Fundraising write and design your fundraising, fill out the “get in touch” form on this page.  We’ll reach out to schedule a chat. 

And if you fill out the form before the end of the month, we’ll give you our 2024 pricing for all of 2025, a savings of $3,500.

For Overcoming the Resistance, We Thank You

Steven  |  Ask
Overcome.

There are a LOT of reasons not to ask for money.

At a conference earlier this year, we asked people to share what their biggest challenge in fundraising was.  The following list is just a small sample of the resistance that many fundraisers must overcome in order to ask for support…

  • “I’ve worked from age 10 to pay my way in life so it’s hard to ask for money”
  • “Being very new and not knowing where to start and expecting people to say no”
  • “My boss and his ideas”
  • “Fear about making a direct ask”
  • “Knowing how much to share due to the traumatic nature of our work”
  • “We have a private community that doesn’t want their photos taken or their story touted due to cultural tradition”
  • “Being too timid or just being intimidated by asking”
  • “Being new and don’t want to do something wrong”
  • “Managing all the tasks grants, major gifts, events etc. all by myself”
  • “Amount of permission / reviewers of fundraising pieces”
  • “I am a quiet person”
  • “Having the courage to talk about emotional stakes of children dying”
  • “Lack of any personal connection with our audience”
  • “My organization has a general unspoken theory of don’t ask”

There’s a lot that holds people and organizations back from asking for support.

So if you and your organization sent out fundraising this year-end, you overcame the resistance.  You overcame the fears, the bosses, and the hurdles.

You showed vulnerability and courage.

You served your beneficiaries or cause, and you served your donors.

Thank you.

Matte, Not Glossy

Steven  |  Ask
Paper choices.

In the midst of the holiday hubbub, here’s a tactical tip for you…

I was once part of a test to see if using matte paper, as opposed to glossy paper, would change fundraising results.

Here’s how the test worked:

  • We took the organization’s active donors (about 80,000) and randomly split them into two equal groups.
  • After writing and designing their newsletter, we printed half of the newsletters on matte paper and half of the newsletters on glossy paper.
    • Just to be super clear, the design and content of the newsletter was exactly the same.  The only difference was the finish of paper.
  • One of the groups of donors received the matte version, and the other group received the glossy version. 

The matte version of the newsletter raised more money.  Both the Average Gift and the Response Rate were slightly higher.

I’ve replicated these results in other tests, and so have lots of other Fundraisers.

The general understanding for why this happens is that glossy paper reflects more light than matte paper, and the reflections make anything printed on glossy paper a little harder to read.  This is especially true for older donors whose eyes don’t adjust between bright and dark as well as they used to.

And as you already know, when your fundraising is harder to read, fewer people read your fundraising.  And when fewer people read your fundraising, fewer people give.

The difference in money raised was not astronomical, but it was significant enough that the organization started using matte paper for almost everything (even over the objections of somebody in leadership who thought glossy paper was “more professional.”)

Using matte instead of glossy doesn’t apply to everything.  Does the outside of your holiday card to donors need to be matte?  No.  Can your annual report be on glossy stock?  Sure.

But when you desire a response from the piece, and therefore readability matters more, go matte.

5 Tips For Your Most Successful Digital Year-End Campaign

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5 Tips For Your Most Successful Digital Year-End Campaign

Are you ready?

According to Network for Good, most nonprofits raise about 1/3 of their revenue in December. And 11% of their annual total during the last three days of the year.

Year-end is the easiest time to raise more money online! Think about it this way:

Your donors are more likely to give during the last weeks of the year than any other time of the entire year.

And because year-end is such an important time for digital fundraising, we want to give you 5 tips that will ensure a successful year-end for your fundraising.

# 1: Use the same message in every channel

Some of your donors are online, some aren’t. Pick your strongest message, then repeat it through direct mail, email, your website, and social media. It’s more powerful for your donors to see the same message in different media channels than it is for them to see two different messages.  Repetition is your friend!

# 2: Ask early and often

You’ve been talking to your donors all year about what your organization does, you’ve told them how they can help. So this time of year, don’t Thank them. Or Report to them. It might feel counterintuitive, but our testing showed that Thanking and Reporting this time of year will cause you to raise less money than you could. Follow the advice below and just Ask well!

# 3: Emphasize the deadline

A deadline communicates urgency. December 31 is a natural deadline — for the tax year and for your organization. Tell donors your deadline and repeat it multiple times in your messages.

# 4: Set a goal

How much do you want or need to raise? What would it take for you to meet your budget? Feed everyone you want to feed by year-end? Shelter abandoned pets through the end of the year? Overcome a financial shortfall? Tell your donors the goal.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31.

# 5: Communicate consequences

What will happen if you don’t meet the goal? Connect the donor right to the heart of your work.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will have to cut back on the number of pets in our shelter in the coming year.

Or

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will not be able to advocate for the arts as effectively next year.

Whatever your organization does, if having less money means you would be able to do less next year, say so!

Most important tip? Start now!

This post was originally published on October 26, 2023.

The Lesson

Steven  |  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.

Lessons from 31 Year-End Fundraising Seasons

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Lessons from 25 Year-End Fundraising Seasons

This year will be my 31st year-end fundraising season. (In related news, I have a lot of grey hair.)

That means I’ve been a part of about 300 separate year-end campaigns for different nonprofits around North America.

Let me share with you what I’ve learned. Because we do lots of testing, pay close attention to what works, and have a pretty good handle on what works the best.

Today, I want to share how to think about year-end fundraising. It’s a short set of ideas that put you on the path to happy donors and full bank accounts.

Idea #1 – Your donors love to give, but they are busy

Before you do anything, just think about this for a moment. Your donors love to give! Share this idea with your staff and board. If you want to have a great year, you must remember that your donors love to give, but they are busy!

Most nonprofits think two unhelpful things:

  1. Our fundraising makes people give gifts they don’t really want to give.
  2. Every donor receives every message we send.

Neither of those things are true. And if you think those two things, you will only communicate with your donors a couple times in December. That’s a HUGE mistake.

Instead, remember that your donors love to give, but they are busy. They need to be over-communicated with during this busy season. (And if there’s a donor or board member who has already given their year-end gift, by all means remove them from the mailing list!) But for everyone else, you need to communicate to them often enough to break through all the noise, get their attention, and remind them to give you a gift.

Idea #2 – Think of your year-end fundraising as a service

That’s right. Not as fundraising, but as a service to your busy donors who love to give.

You are reminding them to do something they would love to do.

So what makes a good reminder?

  • A clear focus on the action you want them to take. In all your communications (letters, emails, your website, social) get to the point very quickly. Ask them to give a special year-end gift before the end of the year.
  • A clear focus on the deadline. Remind donors, again and again, that their special year-end gift is needed before the end of the year. Deadlines are magic in fundraising, and this is the best deadline you’ll ever have. Mention it early and often!
  • Remind them what their gift does. This is NOT a reminder of what your organization does with their gift. For instance, if you’re an Arts organization, don’t remind them that their gift ‘supports our programs to promote the arts…” Instead, remind your donors that their gift ‘supports the arts so that our community has a thriving arts scene and culture.’

Idea #3 – The only other ideas to add are reasons to give now

Resist the urge to talk about your upcoming capital campaign, or tell a story about somebody you’ve already helped.

The only other ideas to add are reasons your donor should give a gift right now. Things like:

  • Their gift will be doubled by a matching grant
  • Your organization has a shortfall and you need to ‘close the gap’ as quickly as possible
  • You have a big need for funds early next year and the donor’s gift will help

The Main Point

You can do these things and still write a warm, personal letter or email. Really, it’s a matter of focus. Make sure you communicate the main things in a way that donors who just briefly glance at your letter will still get the point.

So of course you can talk about how it’s been a good year. And you can thank your donor for their previous generosity. You can even talk about how pretty the snow is.

But those should not be the main, most noticeable parts of your letter. If you write and design you year-end fundraising following the principles above, you’ll raise a lot more money!

This post was originally published on November 13, 2017.

Who Are You Writing To?

Steven  |  Ask
Who writing to

Quick post today.

When you write, if you don’t have a picture in mind of what the person reading your writing is like, you tend to write for yourself.

I can speak from experience on this – the first posts from this blog are… not interesting.  I was writing to myself.  It took me months to develop a good picture of who I was writing to and for.  And that’s when this blog started to be helpful to people and our number of subscribers started to grow.

“Writing for yourself” happens all the time in nonprofit fundraising.  And it results in fundraising that’s not interesting or effective.

Contrast that to a nonprofit that has a good picture of what their donors know, care about, and the language their donors use.  When the nonprofit writes to and for those donors (instead of themselves) they create fundraising that connects more and raises more money. 

***

If you’re like me, you want to know why “writing to and for your donors” works so much better.  So even though I said this would be a short post, here’s a longer explanation if you’re interested.  🙂

When a nonprofit writes to itself: they base their fundraising on what the organization knows, what the organization cares about, and uses the words the organization uses.

This results in fundraising that:

  • Tries to teach the recipient things, instead of tapping into what the recipient already knows.  This is “13% of people in our county have experienced homelessness” compared to “You know that no one should have to be homeless.”
  • Tries to make the recipient care about new things, instead of tapping into what the recipient already cares about.  This is “Our program is one of the most effective literacy programs” compared to “You know the immediate difference knowing how to read makes on a person’s life.”
  • Tries to teach the recipient new words and phrases, instead of using words and phrases the recipient already knows.  This is “They are what we call a UETA – Under Exposed to The Arts” compared to “They haven’t been exposed to the Arts enough, and you can change that.”

Think about that for a second; look at all the extra work a donor has to do before they can give!  The reader of the email or letter:

  • Has to learn new things
  • Has to care about things they didn’t care about before
  • Has to learn new vocabulary (and sometimes whole new concepts)

This puts what we call an “education barrier” between the organization and its donors. 

Organizations using this approach tend to stay small because their fundraising materials ensure that only the “true believers” will give; because only the “true believers” will spend the time and effort to be educated.

The more effective approach is to build a picture of what individual donors who care about your beneficiaries or cause tend to know, care about, and read. 

Then write your fundraising to and for the people who fit that picture.

You’ll make your organization more accessible to more people, raise more money, and achieve more of your mission.

The Messaging Tactic You Can Learn from Political Fundraising

Steven  |  Ask
Prevent bad outcomes.

There’s a messaging tactic that small nonprofits can learn from the political fundraising this election season.

(And by the way, you’re probably as tired of political fundraising as I am.  But let’s separate our tiredness from a tactic we can learn from.)

The tactic is telling your donors what their gift will stop from happening.

You see this in political fundraising when you’re told that “a gift will stop the other party from gaining power.”  Or “you’ll stop some bad thing from happening.”  You get it.

This is a message that most small nonprofits don’t take advantage of enough.  We constantly talk about the things that the donor’s gift will make possible.  But we forget to say the things that the gift stops from happening.

Take child sponsorship for example.  Classic child sponsorship marketing tells people that their gift will provide an education for the child, provide food for the child, provide access to medical care for the child.  All of those things are outcomes that the gift will make possible.

But that misses a whole slew of things that the gift stops from happening that are powerful and motivating!

For instance, when a young girl is sponsored and stays in school, she doesn’t become a child bride.  Sponsoring a boy means he stays in school and doesn’t enter the drug trade.  Sponsoring any child means they stay under the eyes of loving adults and don’t get caught up in sexual trafficking.

Each of those is highly motivating to donors.  And I think you can see how using this messaging tactic would make for fundraising that more people would respond to.

So I ask you, in addition to telling donors what their gift to your organization will make happen, do you tell your donors the negative things that their gift stops from happening?

When you do, you will have given your donors additional powerful reasons to give a gift today.  And in my experience, that has two powerful results:

  • Donors have a better picture of your organization’s work and what their gift accomplishes.
  • You raise more money.