Category: Ask

How I Learned to Give Directions

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Give directions.

Back in the 90’s I received a lesson in giving directions, and I use that lesson in fundraising every day…

I was writing and producing radio commercials for a national chain of bookstores.  At the end of each ad, there were 8 seconds to describe the location of one of their stores.  And I was responsible for writing the description of each store’s location.

When I started writing these, my instinct was to start the description in the context of the store.  This resulted in descriptions like, “you’ll find us at the NW corner of Harlow and Prescott, across from the museum, in Byron Center.”

This approach puts significant cognitive load on the listener because they must remember a lot of details (which corner? what streets? across from which landmark?) before they even know what town the store is in.  And if the town turns out to be close by, the listener then has to “go backwards” and remember the details from before. 

Thankfully my boss corrected me and said something like, “don’t start the description from the store, start the description from a place the listener knows.  Always write from the known to the unknown.”

This advice changed how I give directions, and how I write.

My revised store directions were much more helpful to people: “You’ll find us South of Grand Rapids, in Byron Center, across from the museum, on the corner of Harlow and Prescott.”

My fundraising writing was better.  Before, I tended to write from the context of the nonprofit: “We have 4 programs to help people in our community.  And all our programs take a holistic approach to addressing the needs of junior high students who are behind in math.”  Today, I start with something the listener knows or understands; “There are local junior high students who are behind in math.  Our approach is holistic, and we serve them with 4 different programs.”

Going “from the known to the unknown” makes your fundraising easier to understand quickly because it reduces the cognitive load on your readers. 

This ability to meet donors on common ground – to write fundraising that they understand that then helps them see what their gift will make possible through you, is gold.

If you do this, more people will read your fundraising.  And when more people read your fundraising, more people tend to give to your nonprofit.

The Angels’ Share

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Aging barrels.

You already know that when a donor gives a gift to an appeal with matching funds, the donor’s gift is doubled.

But did you know that when a nonprofit uses matching funds, the matching funds themselves are more than doubled?

It’s kind of magic, and here’s how it works…

When a match is used in fundraising, it has two well–researched effects:

  1. “Response Rate” goes up.  So, if you normally have around 500 people respond to your appeals, if you feature matching funds, you’ll have maybe 600 people respond. 
  2. “Average Gift” goes up.  If the average gift to your appeals is usually $100, if you feature a match the average gift might increase to $120. 

In sum, more people will send in gifts than normal, and the gifts will be larger than normal.

The magical thing is that these things happen at the same time!  (Normally response rate and average gift size have an inverse relationship – when one goes up, the other goes down.)

What this means is that, when an organization or donor provides matching funds, the matching funds aren’t just doubled.  They are actually multiplied by 2.4!

Here’s how I share this idea with people:

You might think providing $1 in matching funds would cause the organization to raise another $1, producing a total of $2.

But what happens is that the $1 in matching funds causes more people to give than normal, and the gifts are larger than normal, so the organization raises another $1.40, producing a total of $2.40. 

This 40 cents of revenue appears out of nowhere!  So if you have an appeal that normally raises $10,000, if you add a match you won’t just raise a total of $20,000, you’ll raise $24,000.  That’s $4,000 out of thin air.

(By the way, if that doesn’t encourage your Board or major donors to provide matching funds to your next campaign, I don’t know what will.)

Today, I’d like to propose a name for this additional revenue that magically appears: the Angel’s Share. 

I’m “stealing like an artist” from the world of wine and whisky distilling, where the term “Angel’s Share” refers to the small amount of liquid that is lost to evaporation during the aging process in a wooden barrel.  I’ve always thought that was a beautiful way to frame the loss of a little of their product through evaporation.

And what I like about using “Angel’s Share” to describe the additional money that comes in from using a matching grant is that it’s a gain,not a loss.  It’s like a little blessing that’s given to the causes we care about. 

Now that you know about the Angels’ Share, be sure to use matching funds in your year-end campaign so you can experience this very real blessing.

And like me, I hope you’ll raise a glass at the end of the year and toast to the Angel’s Share!

Ingredients vs. Main Dishes

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Jeff Brooks blog

Today I want to point you to a fantastic blog post by Jeff Brooks over at the Moceanic blog. 

Jeff writes about one particular letter…

I’m going to show you a four-page direct mail appeal I wrote awhile back. I had an unusually strong story to work with, and I was tempted to over-focus on it by using the techniques of creative writing and journalism. Fortunately, I caught myself in time and turned it back into a fundraising message.

I’m encouraging you to read this because the letter is very good, and it’s always good to be exposed to effective fundraising.  And because, as Jeff walks you through the letter, he also shares helpful lessons about how to tell stories that move people to give. 

Give it a read!

How to ‘Keep It Simple’ When What You Do Isn’t Simple

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Keep it simple.

My previous post was about why it’s so effective to focus a piece of fundraising on a specific and low-cost part of your nonprofit’s work.

But many organizations don’t believe they have anything specific or low-cost that they can highlight for their donors.  They’ll say, “What we do isn’t quantifiable.  How can you put a price on inner peace / justice / the environment?”

So today I’d like to give you a few examples of how to identify and price a specific part of your organization’s work – even if your work seems unquantifiable. 

(I should mention that I have tried before to write down all the “rules” for how to do this well, and it results in a multi-page document with decision trees that only a deep fundraising nerd would read.  And in my experience, what people really want are real-life examples that they can learn from and apply to their own organizations.  So here are some examples that show you the process in action.)

I’ve divided the examples into work that is “quantifiable” and “unquantifiable” – though (spoiler alert) you’ll soon see that all nonprofits have work that is quantifiable.

Quantifiable

Say your organization has a goal to protect 150 acres of wetlands this year.  And that preserving these wetlands is only part of what your organization does.  Let’ see how specific we can get…

  • Make a rough determination of the percentage of your total budget that is spent on wetlands preservation.  For example, say your total budget is $1.1m, and you spend about 1/3 of your organization’s time and budget on wetlands preservation.
  • 1/3 x $1,100,00 = $366,630.  That’s how much it costs you to preserve these 150 acres.
  • Divide your cost by the number of acres you protect.  $366,630 / 150 = $2,444.  So, it costs an average of $2,444 to preserve one acre.
    • Note: this would make a great major donor offer; “If you give a gift of $2,444 you’ll preserve 1 entire acre of wetlands!”
  • There are 4,047 square meters in an acre, so divide the cost per acre by the number of square meters in an acre.  $2,444 / 4,047 = 60¢ to protect one square meter. 
  • This organization now knows that it costs, on average, 60 cents to protect 1 square meter of wetlands.

Now the organization can say things like:

“It costs less than dollar for you to protect a square meter of wetlands.  Think of all the flora and fauna you’ll help protect!  The square meter you protect might have a bird’s nest, or be part of a stream that’s full of life.  A gift of just $49 today will protect an area of wetlands the size of a pickleball court!”

I’m sure you can see how helping a donor think about their gift in that way makes it easier for the donor to envision their impact.

And I’m sure you can see how – at the moment a donor is reading your fundraising and deciding whether to give a gift or not – seeing that their gift of just 60 cents could preserve one beautiful piece of land that they can instantly envision is more likely to give a gift than a donor being asked to support an organization’s wetland preservation programs.

And the process above works for most anything that’s easily quantifiable; the number of people going to a museum in a day, the number of “nights of safety” provided to a victim of domestic violence, the number of words translated by a Bible translator, you get it.

If you don’t know exactly how many acres of wetlands you’re going to protect (or whatever), you can use the number than you plan to do this year to calculate your cost, or you can use your average per-acre cost from last year.

But now… what should you do if what your organization does is not easily quantifiable?

“Unquantifiable”

Many organizations will say something like, “Well, what we do isn’t measurable.  You can’t quantify it.”

My response to those organizations is to share my belief that every nonprofit is ultimately made up of specific, understandable actions.  Those actions may produce an outcome that is unquantifiable (think “healing” or “inner peace”), but if a nonprofit utilizes any time or money to achieve its goals, there are actions that can be quantified.

So the technique here is to take anything that feels unquantifiable and break it down into smaller, identifiable actions that individual donors will quickly understand. 

Here are some examples from my past, along with a couple of “specific, understandable actions”:

Unquantifiable:

  • “We provide justice to those who need it”

Quantifiable

  • Cost to coordinate the “matching” of an attorney who is donating their time and the person who is receiving legal counsel for free
    • This would be the “cost per hour” of the salary of the staff member who does the coordinating, multiplied by the number of hours it costs to match one attorney with a client.
      • “Your gift of $37 to CASA provides a person who needs it with an expert attorney they can trust.”
  • Cost of a legal fee paid for on behalf of a beneficiary
    • This would be the cost of the legal fee.  (You are free to include the cost per hour of the salary of the staff member who pays the fee.)
      • “Sometimes the only thing standing between a person being free of an abusive landlord is a $115 fee, and that’s what your gift will help pay today.”

Unquantifiable:

  • “We create networks of peacemakers”

Quantifiable:

  • Cost per new person added to the network
    • This could be the total budget of the organization for a year divided by the number of new people added to the network each year.
      • “The cost to add one new peacemaker to our powerful movement is just $90.”
  • Cost for training materials for one person
    • This would be the total development and printing costs of the training materials, divided by the number of people who receive them.
      • “Just $4 prints and hands our all-important training materials to a new peacemaker so they can have an even greater impact.”

Unquantifiable:

  • “Help people heal at a sacred place”

Quantifiable:

  • Cost per visitor
    • This could be the total budget of the organization divided by the total number of visitors each year.
      • “Your gift of $49 will welcome one person into the sacred land that both you and I love.”
  • Cost to maintain one acre of the location
    • This would be the total maintenance budget, divided by the number of acres.
      • “I figured out that it costs an average of $155 to maintain one acre of this special place.  Will you give a gift to provide enough maintenance funds to care for at least one acre today?”
  • Cost to maintain one walking path for one month
    • This would be the total amount of time spent maintaining paths, times the cost/hour of the people doing the maintenance, then divided by the number of paths, then divided by 12.
      • “Because we boost your gift with volunteer labor, the cost to maintain one of our beloved walking paths is just $75 for a month.”

I think you see the methodology here.  It’s breaking down what you do into easily identifiable steps, then figuring out the cost for that step.

Then, the fundraising shows the donor the value of that step. 

To borrow from my previous post, when a nonprofit uses this technique they have “reduced cognitive load for the donor, answered a question donors have (‘how much do I need to give to make a meaningful difference?’), and helped show that anyone can make a difference by giving to the organization.”

All of this works together to make your organization more accessible to more people by making it easier for a person to understand what their gift will accomplish.

The Magic of ‘Specific and Low-Cost’

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Specific-general.

You might have noticed how lots of nonprofits ask donors to donate to provide low-cost, specific things. 

Here are a couple of examples:

  • A gift of just $37 will fund our website for a day, making all the stories from our independent news site available to everyone.
  • A complete Thanksgiving dinner and care costs just $5.15.
  • The cost of an hour of equine therapy for a child with autism is only $53.

Have you ever thought about why nonprofits use this tactic?  Once you do, it’s obvious why so many nonprofits do this, and why it works to help organizations raise more money.

By focusing on something specific, with a specific price point, the nonprofit makes three things easier for individual donors:

  1. By focusing on one action, it means the donor just needs to understand the value of that action.  In other words, the donor does not need to understand the entire organization, what it does, etc.  The donor just needs to understand one simple part. 
  2. By providing a specific dollar amount, the donor now knows how much they need to give to make a meaningful difference.  Instead of donors asking questions like “Will my $50 do anything?” or “How much do I need to give to help somebody?” they know the answer.
  3. By having the dollar amount be low (say, below $50), the organization communicates that almost anyone can make a meaningful difference.  This approach makes the organization more inclusive and accessible, which increases the number of donors who give gifts.

I hope you’ll marvel with me for a moment at how much this tactic accomplishes for nonprofits.  In just a couple of sentences, the nonprofit has reduced cognitive load for the donor, answered a question, and helped show than anyone can make a difference by giving to the organization.

No wonder this tactic works so well in individual donor fundraising.

If you feel like your organization doesn’t have something that’s low-cost and specific that your donors can fund, that’s just because no one has taught you how to find it.  My next post will feature several examples that will show you how to find one for your organization.

And if you or someone on your team are worried that this tactic will cause your larger donors to give smaller gifts, don’t worry.  I talk about this very thing on page 24 of this short, free eBook.

For right now, if this has sparked an idea for something specific that your donors would love to fund, start thinking about featuring it in your next piece of fundraising, or testing it in email sometime soon.  I’ve seen many organizations identify something specific their donors love to fund and have their fundraising immediately accelerate to new heights…

Appeal vs Appealing

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Cry for help.

If you feel like your appeal letters and e-appeals could be raising more money, let me ask you a question.

Are you appealing for help, or are you trying to make your nonprofit appealing?

I ask because, somewhere along the way, nonprofits stopped writing appeals that actually appeal for help. 

Our industry calls these things “appeals” because that’s what they used to be — an “earnest request for aid” — a cry for help.  They were letters about a negative situation and an “appeal” for the reader to send in a gift.  (And later, in a newsletter, donors were given updates on what their gift accomplished.)

I see a LOT of appeals, and not many organizations follow the original model any longer.  Instead of saying, “Right now, people are being trafficked through our local airport, and your gift will help put a stop to it,” they write, “Our holistic approach to training airport workers has successfully interrupted the trafficking of hundreds of people, please support this inspiring work!”

Which is a shame, because appeals that are cries for help raise materially more money.

So next time you’re sending out an appeal or e-appeal, read it out loud and ask yourself: would a stranger reading this letter know exactly who needs help and how their gift will provide that help?

If not, you’re probably trying to make your organization appealing instead of appealing for help.

Focus Donor Attention on the Near Future

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Appeal focus.

The graphic above has been sitting in a folder on my computer for months because I’m not quite happy with it. 

But I’m following my own advice and “sending it out even if it isn’t perfect.”  I think it can help you raise more money this fall, and a lot of organizations need all the help they can get right now. 

Here’s the Big Idea; focus your appeals on the near future, not on the past.

To use the language I used in the graphic; you will raise more money if you focus your appeals on “work that needs to be done soon.”  You will raise less money if you focus your appeals on “work your organization has already done.”

Weirdly, nonprofits tend to relentlessly focus their fundraising on the past.  They share stories of people they have already helped.  They share statistics and lots of numbers from their past work.  They talk about the approach they’ve used.

I believe this comes from a good place – it’s an attempt to prove to donors that the organization knows what it’s doing and is effective.

But what I’ve seen from looking at fundraising results for 30 years is that individual donors send in more money when the focus of the appeal is on the near future, not on the past.

When you ask your individual donors to fund meaningful work that needs to be done soon, I think three things are happening:

  • Donors are thinking about something they can affect (the near future), versus something they cannot affect (the past).
  • Donors are thinking about the negative situation your beneficiaries are facing today, instead of a positive story of a person who has already been helped and no longer needs help.
  • Donors realize that their choice in this moment has consequences in the near term.

But really, even just those three bullet points overcomplicate things. 

It’s as simple as this little story … put yourselves in the shoes of a busy individual donor.  She’s at home, has a couple minutes, and is going through her mail or email.  She feels like making a gift.  Which appeal do you think she will give to:

  • “We’ve done work that’s important to you in the past, will you support us?”
  • “Work that’s important to you needs to happen two weeks from now, will you give a gift to help?”

Individual donors making quick decisions seem to be wired to support work that they care about that needs to be done soon. 

So focus your appeals on the near future – usually between the day you send it and about 8 weeks from then. Focus on meaningful work/service/help your organization plans/hopes to do in the next month or so.  Ask your donors to send in a gift to help fund that work. 

Save the focus on the past for when you are reporting back to donors.  Or when you are making a case to a Foundation for why they should give you a grant.

If our experience is any indication, you’ll be so pleased at how much money your appeals raise that you’ll never go back to focusing your appeals on the past.

‘But We Don’t Actually Do the Work’

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Middleman.

Earlier this week I wrote about focusing your fundraising to individual donors on what their gift will make possible, not on how your organization does its work. 

This advice immediately causes consternation for some organizations, particularly community foundations and what we might call “middleman organizations” that raise funds primarily to help other organizations.

For instance, I recently emailed with a woman who works for a local nonprofit that a) raises money to pay for the admin costs and staffing of a national program that runs in her state, and b) that national program engages the local community to c) utilize support provided by other nonprofits. 

Local foundations and organizations like the one above will say things like, “Well, we can’t tell donors that their gift will do anything specific because we don’t do the work.  We just make it possible for other nonprofits to provide their services.” 

However, I believe community foundations and middleman organizations can absolutely tell donors that their gift will make specific services happen.

I think what happens is that these nonprofits get too caught up in the difference between “what we do” and “what we make possible.”

As I wrote last week, individual donors are much more interested in what your organization makes happen than they are in exactly how your organization makes it happen.

There are lots of instances of this being true and completely above board.  For instance, international relief & development organizations usually have local/indigenous partners who “do the work” of feeding children, providing education, digging wells, etc. 

Medical research charities often outsource significant portions of their work, from bloodwork to testing to actually working with patients. 

My recommendation: don’t artificially limit what you say in your fundraising based on a belief that donors only fund your activities (how you do your work).  In our experience, donors tend to be more motivated by the outcomes your organization creates – what your work makes possible.

Your organization can absolutely make clear asks around providing specific services, even if those services are provided by another nonprofit/entity, as long as the donor’s gift provides funding that makes those services possible.

What, Not How

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Results.

Here’s a principle I live by when creating fundraising:

“Ask individual donors to fund what your organization makes happen, not how your organization makes it happen.”

Most nonprofits tend to focus their fundraising on “how their organization makes things happen.”  This means their fundraising tends to be full of three things:

  • Their Programs.  You see this in sentences like, “Our program Uplifting Kids takes children from 3-5 and….” 
  • Their Approach.  “We have a holistic approach that preserves the dignity…”
  • Their Analogy.  “What we really do is provide hope at the end of the road.”

That’s how the organization does its work.  It’s how the organization makes the change it makes.

It’s 100% true that institutional funders are very interested in how organizations do their work.  Institutional funders are often experts in the field, so when you tell them your programs & approach, the Grantmaking Officer has the knowledge & context to immediately understand why your programs & approach are valuable and worth supporting. 

In fact, a grants officer might have proposals from five similar organizations on their desk on any given day.  In that context, how the organization does its work is vitally important.

On the other hand, individual donors are usually not experts in the field.  They don’t have the knowledge or context that helps them understand why your programs and approach are valuable.  And these non-experts tend to value different things about your work than institutional funders value.

So the question, “What do individual donors value about our work?” is one that every nonprofit should be asking itself.

And for what it’s worth, in our experience individual donors are more interested in funding what you make happen.  They are interested in the results of your approach.  They want to fund the change you make.

For example, a nonprofit that provides preschool to underserved families should say, “Will you give a gift to send one child to preschool” instead of saying “Will you support Uplifting Kids, our program that takes children from 3-5 and…”

Share results like “13 underprivileged women graduated from college because of you” and “the fall theatre season was a smashing success thanks to you.”

Share specifics like, “You can help a child in outer Mongolia get the medical care they need” instead of “You can give a child hope at the end of the road.”

You get it.

Is there room to mention your programs, approach, and analogies in your fundraising?  Sure.  They are a small part of what makes up your brand. 

But your fundraising to individual donors will immediately start working much better if you start to focus on what your donor’s gift will do instead of how your organization will do it.