The Work of Your Organization vs. The Need for Your Organization’s Work

Mission impact.

Last week I wrote about how “generating attention” should be a bigger part of the nonprofit fundraising toolkit.

This is a quick post about how there’s a big difference between creating attention for the work of your organization versus the need for your organization’s work.

If you’re trying to get the attention of people who have expertise in what you do – think Foundations who focus on your cause, government agencies, partner organizations, and major donors who understand why your work is unique – then I would point people’s attention towards the work of your organization

Those people are already planning on giving gifts / working with organizations like yours.  They actively want to know how effective your programs are, why your work is unique and powerful, and hear stories about people you’ve already helped. 

However, if you’re trying to get the attention of people who do not have expertise in what you do – think “the general public” or your individual donors – then I would point people’s attention to the need for your organization’s work

Those people are not currently planning to give gifts to your organization.  People are not interested in how effective your programs are until they know there’s a need for your programs. 

So draw attention to the need for your work.  Once they understand and feel the need, then they’ll be more interested in learning how their gift (and your programs) will help meet that need. 

As you work to make an impact and get attention this year, know which kind of people you’re trying to get the attention of, and what you should be pointing their attention towards. 

Yesterday’s Successes, Today’s Truths, Tomorrow’s Hopeful Futures

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

I just noticed that almost all of the fundraising our team helped create last year can be divided into three groups:

  • Yesterday’s Success.  These are stories of people who have already been helped, and of things the organization has already accomplished. 
  • Today’s Uncomfortable Truth.  These are stories of what’s happening today, right now, that causes the work of the organization to be needed.
  • Tomorrow’s Hopeful Future.  These are stories of what will happen if a donor gives a gift.  For instance, “If you give a gift today, 1 square meter of wetland will be preserved from development” is a story about the positive future that will be created if a donor gives a gift.

Organizational insiders tend to think that sharing Yesterday’s Successes will motivate donors to give today.  And it will, to a limited extent.

But consistently telling donors about things that happened yesterday means you’re not telling donors what’s happening today.  And in our experience, the best way to motivate donors to give today is to talk about what’s happening today

The fundraising programs that we see succeed wildly are programs that intentionally share what happened yesterday, and what’s happening today, and what could happen tomorrow with the donor’s support.

When you give your donors the full picture, they’re more likely to give you their full support.

Own Your List

List.

We’ve all heard stories about people and companies that were succeeding on social media… and then “the algorithm” was changed…  and they lose a good portion of their audience.

This can happen to nonprofits, too.

As more and more nonprofits use Facebook and Instagram for fundraising, it’s good to remember that social media companies can change their algorithms or terms of service at any time. 

They can change a rule and your posts will seen by fewer people. 

This means that as you build a social media fundraising program, you are embracing more risk than when you’re building mail and email fundraising programs.

Please note: I am not advising nonprofits to completely avoid social media.  Social media can be a fantastic tool for smaller nonprofits to boost the performance of their mail and email campaigns.  Larger organizations with dedicated staff and budget can raise significant amounts of money.

But with all things social media, it’s good to acknowledge that you don’t have as much control as you do with traditional mail or email fundraising. 

This is why we counsel organizations to focus first on building their mail and email lists.  When you have limited resources, first build the systems and processes to maximize what you can highly control. 

This is doubly important because more money is raised via the mail and email than social media.

Then start to do the more speculative work of building and monetizing your social media presence.

An Appeal is a Promise

promise

An appeal letter is a promise.

The organization promises that if a donor gives a gift, something will happen.

As all the gifts are coming in this week, you’re seeing a lot of donors take you up on your organization’s promise.

The first half of fulfilling the promise is to do the work your organization does: feed the child, put on the play, add new books for the library, you get it.

The second half of fulfilling the promise is to show and tell donors that the appeal’s promise was kept.  Show and tell your donors the child that was fed, the play that was performed, the new books snug in their shelves.

After all, if your organization doesn’t “report back” to donors, how will donors know that their gift made a difference?

So right now, while you’re on the emotional high from all the gifts coming in, make sure you have a plan to “report back” early next year: a print newsletter, a donor-reporting letter, or perhaps an email that shares one story of change.

If you do, your donors will be more likely to donate the next time you ask. 

Why? 

Because they’ll know that your organization keeps its promises. 

Looks Like There’s One More Step

One more step.

Something happened to me pretty much as soon as we hit “publish” on last Tuesday’s post about “the 3 steps to using measurement to make you a better fundraiser.”

I was deluged with memories of people telling me that they’ve done all three steps and were now raising significantly more money… but somebody in the organization was requiring them to “change it back to the way it used to be” because the new way made them uncomfortable.

I even have a friend who two weeks ago was told, “I know we’re raising more money than we ever have, but as of today you need to go back to the way we used to do things.”  (To add insult to injury, they were also told that a) they couldn’t send out the year-end appeal they’d prepared, and b) they were going to have to send out less fundraising next year.)

So it’s pretty clear that just the three steps I advocated for aren’t enough. 

Here’s the 4th step…

#4 – Trust That There’s No ‘Catch’

Maybe better said, “trust that the increased money coming in is not going to be followed by some ‘gotcha!’ in the future.”

Because here’s the thing – there’s no catch. 

If the following three things are true:

  1. The information in your fundraising is true,
  2. You have consent to tell your beneficiaries’ stories,
  3. You’re Asking, Thanking and Reporting during the year…

…then there are no hidden fees, no submerged rocks, no cliffs, no balloon payments.  No mysterious “gotcha’s” are going to come due.

If you’ve developed new messaging that is driving more giving, it’s because you’re tapping into what motivates your donors better than you did in the past.  Trust that the fundraising data (response rates, net revenue, average gift size, etc.) that led you to the new messaging will continue to lead your organization to greater and greater impact.

Why I’m Bullish About Year-End Fundraising This Year

Bullish.

My mentor once said to me,

“I wish I would have noticed earlier in my career how closely overall fundraising results tend to mirror the economy.”

It’s such a simple idea.  But knowing it helped me be a more effective Fundraiser.

There are four main lessons I took from his remark, and I hope they are helpful to you, too. 

Takeaway #1 – When the Economy Is Good, Be Bullish

This is applicable right now, today.  (As I write this, the S&P is up 19% since the beginning of October.)

“Being bullish” means adding another letter or email in your campaign, or even adding another campaign.  It means expecting slightly higher results.  It means asking Majors for a little more.

Because the economy seems to be rebounding, I am bullish on year-end fundraising this year.

Takeaway #2 – When the Economy Slows, Reset Your Expectations

When the economy slows, campaigns won’t perform quite as well.  Response rates drop a bit, as do average gift sizes.  Majors tend to give smaller gifts.

So when the economy slows, savvy organizations reset their expectations.  If the goal and plan for the year was 5% growth, they think about reducing that to 3%.  They let their Board know the revised expectations, and why.

Takeaway #3 – The World Affects Your Fundraising

If there’s a major natural disaster the week your appeal lands in homes, that appeal most likely isn’t going to do as well.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, we knew two major campaigns that we’d just launched were going to underperform.   A significant portion of Americans’ attention turned to New Orleans… which meant less mail was opened… which meant less money was raised by our campaigns.    

You obviously can’t plan for natural disasters.  But you can plan for times when you know in advance that the world is going to affect your fundraising.  For instance, this coming fall is the 2024 Presidential election in the U.S.  We recommend most organizations not launch an important campaign the week before or after the election.

Takeaway #4 – Always Keep Noticing

My Mentor was in his 70’s when he shared this observation with me.  I love that, even in retirement, he was still noticing things about fundraising.  It’s a good goal for all of us Fundraisers: keep noticing things about fundraising, keep trying to get a little bit better at this craft.  It makes us a little bit more effective helping our beneficiaries, the organizations we serve, and our donors.

The Power of a Belief

belief

Here’s a quick story about how an organization’s beliefs about donors unknowingly drove their fundraising strategy…

We serve an organization that has a large number of monthly donors. 

I asked them if they had ever asked their monthly donors to give a little more each month.  “No,” came the answer, “we’ve never done that.”

I suggested we run a short campaign to their monthly donors asking them if they’d like to upgrade their giving.  It’s my belief that almost every organization has a lot of donors that are willing and able to give more.

But some folks around the table were nervous – they had a different belief.  They agreed that some small number of their monthly donors would and could give more.  But they believed that a greater number of their monthly donors would complain or completely cancel. 

In other words, they believed that their monthly donors (as a group) were giving as much as they were willing and/or able to give. 

I shared a couple of stories of campaigns like this I’d successfully run in the past.  And we decided to go ahead with the campaign.

The results were spectacular.  A thrilling number of monthly donors chose to give more each month.  Plus, those donors increased their monthly gift by even more than we thought they would.

As far as I know, there were zero cancellations.

And the impact?  The organization started raising an additional $60,000 every single month.

Lesson #1

An organization’s beliefs about donors drive its strategy, its annual plan, and even its copywriting. 

If you believe your donors are willing and able to give more, you do things like ask monthly donors if they would give a little more each month.  You send more appeals and e-appeals, and you ask major donors to give larger amounts. 

If you believe your donors are willing and able to give more, you write things like, “Will you please send in a gift today” instead of the equivocating, “Will you please consider sending in a gift today?”

Should you be smart about which donors you include when you do this?  Of course.  If you have a monthly donor who has told you that she’s on a fixed income and can’t give any more each month, don’t ask her to upgrade.  If you have major donor who has told you that they aren’t going to give any more this year, then don’t ask them.

Your organization has a set of beliefs about donors, and fundraising, and money.  Often those beliefs are unstated.  But they are driving your strategy, your annual plan, and even your copywriting.

Do you believe that your donors are willing and able to give more?

Lesson #2

There are real costs to believing your donors can’t or won’t give any more.

The organization above could have been raising that additional $60,000 every month the previous year.  And the year before that.  Think of the impact that was missed!

My goal in pointing this out is not to make all of us (myself included) feel bad for all the opportunities we’ve missed over the years.

My goal in pointing this out is for all of us to realize that our beliefs about donors and fundraising have real-world consequences. 

In my experience, believing that “many of our donors are willing and able to give more” will have positive real-world consequences.  Believing that “our donors are giving as much as they are willing and able” will have negative real-world consequences.

Try It On

So here’s what I want you to do.  I want you, just for a moment, to “try on” the belief that your donors are willing and able to give more.  Name one thing you would do differently.

Now, make a plan to do that thing.  Your organization (and the additional people you’ll help) will be thankful that you did.

Bittersweet Moments of Clarity

Clear thinking.

When you get better at something, there’s that bittersweet moment where you’re thinking two things almost simultaneously:

  • Oh man, I’ve been doing it wrong all along… and
  • Hey, I know how to do that better now!

In those moments, it’s as if you see the world a little more clearly than you did before. You understand how things work a little better than you did a moment before.

I had one of those “moments of clarity” recently, thanks to the impressive and irrepressible Jen Love.

We were on a panel at the Storytelling conference talking about direct response fundraising. I shared one of my writing tools: starting the first draft of every appeal and e-appeal with the sentence, “I’m writing to you today because….”

(I’ve written about why that’s an effective tool here and here.)

Jen then said something like, “Yeah, I love that. I’ve taken it a little further and what I use is, ‘You’re hearing from me today because…’.”

Cue my moment of increased clarity.

Her version is better than mine! It starts with the magical word, “you.” It places the donor in a more active role with more control. It leads to more writing about the donor and what they care about, and less about the organization.

I share this with you today because… You’re reading this today because you know that the more moments of clarity you can have, the more effective a fundraiser you’ll be.

But there are Fundraisers and organizations who don’t really want those moments of clarity. They like their way of doing things. Or they can’t believe that your moment of clarity could apply to them, their communications, or their donors. For those organizations, getting better at fundraising is a challenge.

But if you seek out those moments – if you’re eager to find out that what you’ve been doing is a little wrong, and that there’s a better way to do it – getting better at fundraising and raising more money is delightful.

In my experience, the most effective fundraisers are having “moments of clarity” all the time. Because of those moments, they see the world a little more clearly. And they create fundraising that’s more effective.

Hey, about your envelope…

star company envelope.

This blog post from Five Maples shares the results of a head-to-head test of the envelope on a direct mail appeal for a nonprofit.

Their donors were split into two equal groups. One group received a letter in an envelope that included the organization’s tagline. The other group received the exact same letter, but the envelope did not have the tagline on it.

The tagline on the envelope was the only difference.

The test showed that including the tagline on the envelope reduced the number of people who responded by 65%. Put another way, putting their tagline on the envelope reduced the number of people who sent in a gift by over half.

Let’s notice that this test isn’t about all taglines. It’s about that organization’s tagline, on that piece of direct mail.

But still, that is a massive impact.

You can take three lessons from this simple test that will make you a more effective fundraiser.

Lesson #1

If your organization is putting its tagline on your outer envelope, do you know if it’s helping or hurting?

If you don’t know, it’s time to ask questions instead of making assumptions.

(By the way, there is ZERO judgement here if you’ve been making assumptions. We all do it at the beginning of our fundraising journey.)

Lesson #2

A bigger lesson this data teaches is that what you put on your envelope matters. A lot.

There are very smart people who argue that what you put on the envelope matters more than what you put in the envelope. How’s that for a brain-breaker? Because if your recipient doesn’t open your envelope, what good does the incredible message inside do?

I don’t spend much time on that argument because I think it’s a chicken-or-egg situation – but it is fun to talk about with other Fundraising nerds over a drink.

Moving forward, you want your organization to be thoughtful about what’s on your envelopes and in your email subject lines (which are more-or-less equivalent). And if you want to know more about this right now, the blog post mentioned above is a great place to start.

Lesson #3

Data about fundraising will help you know what’s important and where to spend your time.

For instance, I spend a ton of time on outer envelopes, and on the description of what a donor’s gift will accomplish. I spend almost no time trying to make sure an appeal matches a nonprofit’s “voice.” I make those decisions because data shows how much envelopes and descriptions matter, and how using an organization’s voice in the mail usually causes them to raise less money, not more.

For what it’s worth, in my career I’ve tried to develop what I think of as an “evidence-based worldview” for how to be successful in fundraising. That worldview is made up of as many test results (like this one!) and facts that I can get my hands on.

If you can build a worldview like that, you’ll have a good idea of what path/tactic/approach will have the best chance of success, regardless of the situation.

And if you’re just beginning to build your worldview, this little test about a tagline on an envelope is a great place to start!