Most people do not expect Public Relations strategies to raise money today.
That’s why I’m always surprised when organizations put PR in their appeals and then are surprised that their appeal raises less money than it could.
Short & Sweet
Keep PR out of your direct response fundraising. That’s your appeals, e-appeals, and newsletters (if you’d like your newsletter to raise money).
Why? Because PR is meant to increase goodwill between the reader and the organization. Merriam-Webster defines it this way: “the business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution.”
But the appeals that raise the most money are relentlessly focused on motivating the reader to take action now. That’s a completely different goal and – when pursued – results in a completely different appeal.
Two Places PR Sneaks In
In my experience, here are the two ways PR shows up most often in appeals:
A story of a person who has already been helped
A description of the organization, or its programs, meant to make the reader believe that the organization is good at what it does
In my experience, including either of those things in an appeal causes the appeal to raise less money, not more.
A note on the #2 item above. I often hear nonprofits say things like, “But we have to tell them how effective we are!” Here’s the truth as I’ve experienced it: how effective your organization is (and similar sentiments) is something like the seventh-most important thing at motivating a person to make a gift to an appeal.
If you’ve done a great job communicating and repeating the six things that are more likely to motivate a person to give a gift – things like a great offer, strong urgency, clear negative consequences to inaction, etc. – then by all means mention how effective your organization is. But make sure you cover the more important stuff first.
The Place For PR
There is absolutely a place for PR in your nonprofit communications toolkit.
I’ve seen PR succeed at getting nonprofits in front of new, large groups of potential donors. I’ve seen PR lay the groundwork for successful fundraising campaigns. I’ve seen PR get nonprofits out of communication jams.
But good PR is always focused on helping an organization raise more money in the future.
And an appeal or e-appeal is focused on helping an organization raise more money today.
Mind Blown In 3, 2, 1…
Here’s a mind-bender for you:
A successful, hard-hitting appeal is excellent PR.
How? If successful PR “increases goodwill between the person and the organization,” then a successful appeal is excellent PR because it motivates a lot of people to give a gift – and every one of those donors feels great about giving.
If that’s not goodwill, I don’t know what is.
It’s just that the “goodwill” was developed through the act of giving.
This is the secret I wish more small- to medium-sized organizations knew: the best way to increase goodwill among their donors is to get their donors to give more often, not by telling donors how great the organization is.
So the next time you look at one of your appeals or e-appeals and think, “We’ve got some PR in our fundraising,” take it out. Focus your appeal instead on your offer and a strong ask. You’ll increase goodwill and raise more money at the same time!
Doing some head-to-head testing, we noticed something powerful.
The phrase:
“Your gift today will provide clean water for a family”
Raised less money than the phrase:
“Your gift today will provide clean, disease-free water for a family.”
This little test teaches a couple powerful things that I’ve seen work again and again…
Embed the Problem in How You Describe the Solution
You see this all the time in political fundraising:
“Elect Biden for a Trump-free future!”
“Elect Trump to save our country from socialism!”
In both of those cases, the copywriter has embedded the problem (or the enemy) in the solution. The copywriter is making it clear that something bad will happen if the donor doesn’t give a gift.
This is a powerful 2-for-1 because you hit two buttons in the donor’s brain in one sentence:
You hit the “I want to do the positive thing!” button
You hit the “I want to stop the negative thing!” button
Here are three main places we use this powerful tactic:
The first time your letter or email describes what the donor’s gift will do
The P.S.
The headline of your reply card / landing page
Those are the high-profile locations that donors are most likely to see as they scan your direct response letters and emails. This tactic allows you to use those high-profile locations as effectively as possible.
This tactic works great any time space or attention is limited. In other words, if you aren’t using this in your Facebook and Google ads, you could be raising more money.
Example Time
Here are a slew of made-up examples to show you how this tactic can work across any sector:
You can provide racially-blind admissions assistance
You can provide gospel teaching that’s free from relativism
You can kill the cancer and save the person
You can end the commercialization of our town by supporting the arts
You can stop the developers and stand for the land
You can stick it to the pharmaceutical companies and fund research that will save lives
You can erase the shortfall and protect the kids
You get it.
Now, go look at your fundraising. How can you embed the problem in how you describe what your donor’s gift will do?
I want to show you how the “which is more important” argument – though it sounds academic – is having real-world consequences for your organization right now.
And it’s those consequences that cause some organizations to out-raise their peers, and some organizations to never “make the leap” to the next level.
Where It Starts
Here’s what I think this whole debate comes from:
I think most organizations don’t believe that donors enjoy giving to anything other than events.
Organizations believe that it’s not really possible that a donor could enjoy giving to a piece of direct mail, an email, a radio-thon, etc.
These organizations believe mass donor fundraising is somehow a negative act. They believe donors don’t like appeals or emails. That we fundraisers have to “twist the arm” of donors, or emotionally manipulate them, to get donors to give a gift.
The Demonstrably Untrue Argument
If you believe that arm-twisting or emotional manipulation is necessary to get a gift, of course you will enjoy stewardship activities more than “fundraising” activities.
These organizations think something like, “Now that the icky job of fundraising is done, it will be so great to steward our donors.”
There’s even an argument that goes something like this: Stewardship is the way we keep our donors giving to us year after year.
That’s demonstrably untrue. How do you explain all those organizations who don’t do any meaningful stewardship, yet they retain a significant portion of their donors each year?
The Consequences
In my experience, believing that mass donor fundraising is a negative act results in the following tactical mistakes:
Asking donors less frequently than you could be
Refusing to put a reply card and reply envelope in your printed receipts
Refusing to turn your newsletter into a fundraising vehicle
Always telling a story of “the good you’ve already done” in appeals and e-appeals
All of those things are done out of a belief that Asking in mass donor fundraising is a negative thing and will – sooner or later – drive donors away.
However, it’s doing the opposite of those things that raises the most money AND increases donor retention:
Asking donors more frequently than you think you can
Putting a reply card and reply envelope in your printed receipts
Never telling a story of “the good you’ve already done” in appeals and e-appeals
Every one of those things, done well, works like crazy. (It’s why so many of our clients are having incredible years. Some of them are sharing that they’re embarrassed to talk about how much money they’ve raised to their peer organizations.)
So I ask you a question: if the definition of “stewardship” is something like “making donors feel good about their giving so that they give again” – then if all of those tactics above increase donor retention, don’t they qualify as effective stewardship?
Donors Love to Give
Donors get joy from giving – whether that’s giving to an appeal letter or at an enjoyable event.
Donors love to give.
In every way, in any form.
They don’t give every time they are asked. (In the same way, you don’t buy your favorite product or service every time you see it advertised. And you don’t feel bad about it when you don’t.)
So as an organization, ask yourself if you believe that mass donors love to give to your mass donor fundraising. Because if you believe donors love to give, you’ll make different decisions about your fundraising. And those choices will help you raise more money.
And it will bring more joy to your donors at the same time.
More specifically, here’s who to send your newsletter to:
If you send three or fewer newsletters per year, send your newsletters to all donors who have given a gift in the last 24 months
If you send 4 or more newsletters per year, send your newsletters to all donors who have given a gift in the last 18 months
Who Not to Mail Your Newsletter To
Here’s who not to send your newsletter to:
Non-donors
Volunteers
Local organizations and businesses who are not donors
Why? Because every time we’ve analyzed the results of sending newsletters to that group we find the same thing: you lose money because it costs more to send the newsletter to that group than the revenue you’ll receive from mailing those groups.
Send Your Newsletter to Your Major Donors
Here’s a tactic we often use to increase the number of major donors who read (and donate to) your newsletter:
Instead of sending them a folded newsletter in a #10 envelope, send the newsletter unfolded in a 9”x12” envelope
Hand-write their address on the envelope
Add a cover letter that thanks the donor for their donation, and tells them that they’ll see how their donation made a difference when they read the newsletter.
Hand-sign the cover letter. You can even write a personal note on it if you’d like.
Include a customized reply card and reply envelope
If you’d like to take this a step further, email the major donor on the day you send the newsletter to let them know to look for it. If that email is sent by your Executive Director, your ED will receive replies from some majors thanking her for letting them know! It’s a great opportunity to deepen the relationship with those donors.
What Postage to Use
For your Mass donors, send your newsletter using nonprofit postage.
The only regular exception to that rule is if there’s a deadline to respond to your newsletter and you’re sending it out later than you planned. For instance, say your newsletter has an offer (on the back page, of course) to write a note of encouragement to hospital patients who are stuck in the hospital for the holidays. But you’re mailing just 3 weeks before the holidays begin. Then, by all means, use first class postage.
For your Major donors, use first class postage. Use a live stamp if you can. And set the stamp at a slight angle so it’s obvious that a human put the stamp on the envelope, not a machine. (Thanks for that tip, John Lepp!)
This is a Great Beginning…
The recommendations above are a solid foundation for who to send your newsletter to, and how to send it out.
Over time, your system will get more complicated. You’ll discover things like, “it’s worth it for us to send our newsletter to donors who gave between 24 and 36 months ago, who have given $1,000 or more, because we reactivate enough lapsed major donors to make up for the expense.”
Or you’ll discover things like, “When we have a newsletter with Offer X, it’s worth it to mail all donors who have given to Offer X in the last 36 months.”
Great. Love it. And if you’re not there yet, start here!
The spreadsheet below illustrates a powerful truth:
The more recently a donor has given to your organization, the more likely they are to give to you again.
So for heaven’s sake don’t “rest” your donors and miss out on your best chance for them to give you another gift – and all the revenue that comes with it.
Short Story, Then Data
Let me tell you what you’re looking at.
A nonprofit was working on their January appeal. We recommended that the appeal be sent to all donors who had given a gift in the last 18 months.
They said, “But we can’t include the people who gave at the end of the year. They’ll be annoyed to be asked again so soon.”
We told them that the people who gave recently are exactly who they want to mail to. We said that recent donors were more likely to respond to the January appeal than other donors.
They didn’t really believe us.
But they agreed to proceed because everything we’d been doing with them was working like crazy. And we promised to analyze the response to the appeal to see if what we’d been teaching them about recency was true. *
Data, Sorted by Number of Months Since Previous Gift
Here’s the data. Pay particular attention to the column in yellow. It shows you the response rate sorted by the number of months since the donor’s previous gift. The farther down the column you go, the more months it had been since the donor had given a gift.
Look at the top line! The people who had given a gift in the last 30 days were the people who responded best to the appeal!
The group of people who had given a gift in the last 2 months gave a little less than half the total income from this appeal.
As you go down the yellow “% Response” column you see that the more recently a donor had given a gift to this organization, the more likely they were to give again.
What Does This Tell You?
Do not “rest” your donors by pulling them out of appeals for several weeks or months.
Do not “take your donors out and not ask them again until next year.” (Last Friday on Free Review Fridays there was an organization that was doing that.)
By waiting to ask your donors again you’re reducing the chance they will give to you again, not increasing the chance. In other words, you’re raising less money, not more. **
The $$$$ Consequences of ‘Resting’
Let’s look at a couple scenarios for the big group of donors who had given a gift 1 month prior. There were 3,686 of them who received the appeal. 9% of them gave a gift, and they gave a total of $20,676.
First scenario. What would have happened if this organization had “rested” their donors for a couple of months? Those 3,686 donors would not have received this appeal. The organization would have lost out on $20,676 in gross revenue.
Twenty. Thousand. Bucks. Just. Poof. Because the organization was fearful of the mostly mythical “donor fatigue.” That’s a concrete example of how fears around “asking too much” cause organizations to raise significantly less money.
Second scenario. What would have happened if they’d “rested” those donors for 6 months? According to the data, we can estimate that only 5% of them would have responded instead of 9%. So the organization would have raised $11,481 from that group instead of $20,676 (presuming average gift size is the same).
They would have raised $9,195 less by “resting” their donors for 6 months.
Think about that the next time someone in your organization wants to rest your donors.
And the crazy part is that it gets even worse! In addition to raising $9,195 less from that group of donors, by holding that group out of appeals and newsletters for 6 months the organization would completely miss out on all the other gifts that group would have given over those months.
Don’t Worry About “Donor Fatigue”
I can already hear the question.
“But what about donor fatigue?”
I have never seen “donor fatigue” in an organization that sends out fewer than 18 pieces of direct mail a year (plus emails). ***
As you mail and email your donors more often, you’ll hear complaints, sure. And the Board won’t like it. And a small percentage of major donors will ask to be taken out of your mass donor communications.
But in exchange for those “costs” you’ll raise more money, have higher donor retention rates, and do more good.
The organization that sent the appeal letter above used to send 8 appeals and 2 newsletters a year. With our help they currently send 13 appeals a year and 4 newsletters. Plus emails.
They raise a lot more money than they used to.
And their donor retention increased. They used to retain about 55 out of 100 donors every year. Now they retain about 63 out of 100 donors every year.
In other words, they communicated more with their donors and FAR more good things happened than bad things. Put more precisely, they gladly accepted a few complaints and treated a few major donors differently in exchange for more revenue, donors, and impact.
The way to get better at those appeals, e-appeals and newsletters is to practice.
You’ll be better at it a year from now. But only if you start practicing today.
Seek and accept expertise, but don’t let that delay you from starting.
As soon as you can.
And include your most recent donors!
* Of course there are cases where recency should not be the primary segmentation variable. If you’re already using a segmentation model more sophisticated than RFM, thank your lucky stars you’ve had the chance to learn such things, and know that this post is not for you.
** This applies to major donors, too, though not quite as linearly. The maxim holds, but you may know things about individual donors that exempts those particular donors. For instance, perhaps they have a family foundation that gives gifts once a year. Or they’ve told you that they’re only going to give one gift this year. The path to increased revenue from major donors, in our experience, is to be comfortable asking them for gifts more than once a year (within a system of Asking, Thanking and Reporting). The mistake is to take one major donor’s preference and use it as a strategy for all major donors.
*** The key here is to measure the right things. You want to measure and prioritize donor retention levels by segment, and Net Revenue. You want to pay the appropriate amount of attention to complaints, unsubscribes, and contacts from Majors. Pay attention to the performance of the group, not the squeaky wheels. Segmentation is your friend.
And when organizations that I work with use the word “vulnerable” or the phrase “the most vulnerable,” I delete it.
Here’s Why
When you’re Asking for support in your appeals and e-appeals, what usually works best is to present donors with a problem that is happening right now, one that the donor can solve with a gift today.
The problem with the word “vulnerable” is it accidently tells donors that there is not a problem today.
According to Webster’s, Vulnerable means:
Capable of being physically or emotionally wounded.
Open to attack or damage
Look at those definitions again. In both of those cases there is nothing wrong right now. A person is “capable” of being hurt. Or is “open to attack.”
Think about it this way. Say you received two simple e-appeals right next to each other in your inbox. One e-appeal asked you to give a gift to help a person who is in need today. The other e-appeal asked you to help a person who might be in need sometime soon. All things being equal, most donors will give to help the person who is in need today.
By describing your beneficiaries as “vulnerable,” you’re focusing donors’ attention on the fact that there’s nothing wrong yet. You’re telling donors that there might be a problem in the future. So there’s less of a reason for a donor to give a gift right now.
By using the word “vulnerable” you’ve caused fewer people to send in a gift today.
Here’s What I Replace “Vulnerable” With
Instead of focusing on what might happen, focus on what’s happening right now.
What this usually means is that instead of focusing your fundraising on all the people who might need help, you focus it on the people who need help right now.
Here are a couple of examples…
“Your gift to help vulnerable children in our schools learn to read will…” becomes, “Your gift to help a child who is a grade behind in reading level will…”
“Your gift to protect people who are vulnerable to this disease will…” becomes, “Your gift will help people who have this disease by… “
“Your gift will help the most vulnerable…” becomes, “Your gift will help the people who need it most right now…”
If your organization uses “vulnerable” or “the most vulnerable,” edit your future fundraising to talk about the people (or a person) who needs help now. You’ll start to raise more money.
The Big Picture
If you stop using “vulnerable,” will your next appeal raise twice as much money? No.
But if my experience is any indication, I think you’ll raise more money than you’re raising now.
Two reasons.
First, even though your use of “vulnerable” is a small thing, successful appeals and newsletters are made up of a hundred of small things. The better you get at noticing and improving the small things, the more money you raise.
Second, not using “vulnerable” is a very real step on the way towards a powerful principle to operate by. The principle is that you’ll raise more money with your direct response fundraising (appeals, e-appeals, radio, TV, etc.) if you share the most compelling problems your organization and/or beneficiaries are experiencing right now.
Sharing a current problem (not a potential future problem) with donors is one of the ways you can break through all the noise and increase the number of people who send you gifts.
And anything you can do to break through all the noise right now will help, don’t you think?
But if you’re the type of person who really thinks about your fundraising – what the purpose of each piece is, what makes some approaches work better than others – keep reading…
Because I have a helpful way for you to think about your appeals and e-appeals. And by “helpful” I mean “will help you raise more money with your next one.”
Our “Conceptual Model” for Appeals
Here it is…
The purpose of the Appeal is to deliver the Offer.
The purpose of the Offer is to illustrate what the donor’s gift will do to meet the Need
The purpose of the Need is to help your donor want to do something today
The purpose of the Story in your appeal is to illustrate the Need
If you follow that formula, you’ll give yourself your best chance of success.
The purpose of your appeal letter or e-appeal is to deliver your offer.
There’s a consequence of this approach that is both helpful and hard: you need to remove everything from your appeals that doesn’t help deliver the offer.
Should you mention your upcoming event? Nope. Should you include links to your social accounts? Nope. Should you “tell donors more about what we do”? Nope.
Just deliver your offer.
The Purpose of Your Offer
The purpose of the Offer is to illustrate what the donor’s gift will do to meet the Need.
An easy way to describe “offers” is that they are the promise an appeal makes for what will happen when the donor gives a gift.
“Please support our community theater” is an offer. So is, “Give a gift today to join us in the battle against cancer.” As well as, “$56 provides a night of safety for a family experiencing homelessness.”
When reading your appeals, donors are always asking themselves, “What will my gift do?”
Your offer is the answer.
The Purpose of the Need
The purpose of the Need is to help your donor want to do something today.
We see something again and again: when organizations share Needs with their donors in their appeals and e-appeals, they raise more money.
And conversely, when organizations do not share Needs in their appeals – usually sharing only successes and offering the donors the chance to “continue this amazing work” or “support our ongoing programs” – they raise less money.
In a nutshell, most donors don’t often think about the Needs your organization works on. They don’t remember that someone is hurting right now. They often need to be reminded.
And when they’re reminded, they give more often and give higher amounts.
The Purpose of the Story
The purpose of the Story in your appeal is to illustrate the Need.
We tell stories of individual people (when possible) in appeals because they illustrate the Need to donors far more effectively than dry statistics and large numbers.
But perhaps more importantly, stories are used because they’re more likely to touch a donor’s heart. Because when you’ve touched a donor’s heart, you’re already three quarters of the way to them making a gift. All you need then is a great offer to turn your donor’s intention into action.
Now What?
I realize this is conceptual.
But what I want you to realize is that this model is powerful and effective.
It works again and again and again. It’s the “default setting” for every appeal we consult on, write, and review.
And it makes creating appeals a LOT easier. You don’t have to come up with a new approach each time. You have a model that works, and you simply “paint by numbers” for each appeal.
My advice to you: try it. And if you’ve already tried it, try it again but work to do it even better. Make sure the Story perfectly illustrates the Need, and that the Need is perfectly met by the Offer.
You (and your organization) can learn to create appeals like this. You’ll love how much money comes in and how much more engaged your donors are!
And then because I’m a glutton for punishment (OK actually I love it), I do it for free, live, most Friday mornings right here.
I noticed the other day that there are three changes that I make to almost every piece I see.
These edits are EASY to make. And all of them will help you raise more money in your appeals, e-appeals and newsletters.
Take Your Organization Out
Any time you see “we” or “our,” immediately look for a way to take it out and replace it with a mention of the donor.
When you’re Asking in appeal letters and e-appeals, change things like, “We can help a local child get online so they can catch up in school” to “Your generosity will get a local child online so they can…”
Notice how this makes the donor the hero, rather than your organization.
When you’re Reporting in your newsletter, change things like, “Our Internet Hotspot program allowed Gregory to get online and get caught up to his class” to “You helped provide Gregory with a hotspot, and now he’s online and caught up with his class!”
Notice how this makes the donor the hero, not your organization or your program.
And notice how making your donor the hero is a theme around here. 🙂
Lead with What the Donor Values Most
Always try to put the most important thing first.
This is usually the outcome of your work, and not the program or process by which your organization made the outcome possible.
When Asking, change things like,
“Your generosity will support our Internet Hotspot program, which will help get a local child online so they can get caught up in school”
to
“Your generosity will help get a child caught up in school by getting them online….”
When Reporting, change copy that says,
“You supported our Internet Hotspot program that gets children online. Thank you for providing a local child with a hotspot so they could get caught up in class”
to
“You helped Gregory catch up in class by providing him with a hotspot.”
Make It Singular
When I’m Asking a donor to make a gift, I’m always looking to make it as easy as possible for her to say “yes.”
So I always ask donors to do a small thing instead of asking them to do a big thing.
So when you’re Asking, change, “Will you please help all the students in Bloom County to have internet access” to “Will you please help one student in Bloom County get internet access?”
I think of these as an “easy yes” versus a “harder yes.” I (and you!) always want to ask for an easier “yes.”
It works in Reporting back to donors, too. Change “Thank you for helping 1,437 students in Bloom County…” to “Thank you for helping Gregory and other students in Bloom County…”
And there’s another reason to make this edit: your donor knows she can’t help all the students. That’s a huge problem. So ask her to do something she knows she can do; help one person, solve one problem, do one thing, etc.
It’s Not Magic
When an experienced copywriter edits or writes fundraising, it can seem like magic.
But it’s not. It’s just a handful of principles like these, played out sentence by sentence.
And you can learn it.
Start with these three principles. Keep working on them until they happen by reflex – where you don’t even have to think about it.
Pretty soon everything you write will begin to seem like magic to the people you work with. And you’ll love how much money comes in!
I want you to remove your fundraiser hat for a moment, and put on your donor hat.
Okay. Now, I want to ask you a question. Would you rather:
Give to help an organization continue its work?
OR
Give to solve a compelling, immediate problem?
This question sits at the heart of why some organizations raise more money than others.
You see, organizations that regularly see poor fundraising results tend to make the same mistakes when speaking to their donors. They tell fundraising stories of people who have already been helped, and/or ask they donors to help the organization do more good work.
This kind of messaging in your appeals will consistently raise you less money because your donor isn’t solving an immediate problem – and the donor isn’t the hero of the story.
Conversely, organizations that consistently tell fundraising stories of acute, current needs will raise more money.
If you ask a donor to meet an urgent need, she is more likely to stop what she’s doing and make a gift.
Here are two quick examples. With your donor hat still on, would you rather give to this:
“Emma was hungry and alone when she arrived at our homeless shelter. We gave her a warm meal, and a bed, and she is now feeling better and getting back on her feet. Will you help us support more people like Emma?”
See how Emma’s problem is already solved? See how the donor doesn’t have a role to play other than helping the organization do more work?
Or, would you rather give to this:
“I have an urgent need to share with you. Emma just arrived at our homeless shelter. She is hungry, and she’s been sleeping on the streets. Please send a gift of $35 and give a woman like Emma a warm meal and a safe place to stay.”
See how there is a clear need to be met? And how there’s a specific way the donor’s gift will help?
In your appeals and e-appeals, make sure to give your donors an important, impactful role to play. When a donor gives, she’ll feel like a hero.
And when you make her feel like a hero, she’s more likely to give to you again in the future.
Now you’ve got the Holy Grail of fundraising: donors who love giving to you now (so you raise more money now) and donors who are more likely to continue giving to you in the future (so you raise even more money over time)!
