Category: Ask

“Our organization exists so that donors can help these girls”

Steven Screen  |  Ask
communications.

I recently spent an hour talking to a founder of a nonprofit who totally gets it.

His organization provides schooling for girls in Africa.

We got to talking about fundraising (surprise, surprise) and I mentioned the principle of donor-centered fundraising.

He said the best thing any Founder has ever said to me:

“Our organization exists so that donors can help these girls.”

I just sat there and grinned widely.

Because how great is that? That one belief – that the organization exists so that donors can help – will be an incredible driver of fundraising success.

They will just skip right by all the pitfalls of talking too much about the organization itself. Of making the organization the hero.

Of relegating donors to mere “partners.”

I told him about the raw fundraising power of his belief, and how it was going to make his fundraising more effective.

He said, “Well, I knew I loved being able to provide schooling for the girls that I was able to help. I figured other people would love it too. So I’m creating a way to help more donors do that – which of course helps more girls.”

The Truth He Knew

This guy knew another powerful truth.

Most of your donors are more interested in your cause or beneficiaries – and what they can do to help – than they are interested in your organization.

In other words, he knows that his donors will enjoy sending a girl in Africa to school more than they would enjoy being a supporter of his organization.

So he’ll focus his communications on how the donor can send a girl to school in Africa instead of focusing it on his organization and how the donor can support them.

And he’ll raise more money.

How Different Would Your Communications Be?

If your nonprofit were to adopt this attitude – even if it’s just your fundraising that adopts the stance – how would your donor communications change?

Try writing your next appeal as if you were writing to donors, telling them about something they care deeply about – and offering them a chance to make a powerful change that they are going to love doing. You’ll love how well it works!

The Non-Obvious Mistakes that Cost You Money

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Mistakes.

This post is a list of what I call “non-obvious mistakes.”

No one in your organization will ever notice them.

But they cost you thousands of dollars every time you send out an appeal.

Because these mistakes are the difference between an appeal that raises $40,000 instead of the $68,000 it could have raised. These are the difference between an appeal that raises $2,500 instead of $8,000.

Regardless of how big or small your organization is, these non-obvious mistakes are expensive:

  • Lack of clarity about what the donor’s gift will do. Saying things like “Please send a gift today to provide hope” are not clear descriptions of what a donor’s gift will accomplish. As Brené Brown puts it, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” (Want to know how to be clear? Have a great offer.)
  • Not printing your donor’s name, address, and suggested gift amounts on their reply card. The tests are clear: customized reply cards with customized gift asks will increase the number of people who respond, and increase the size of gifts they give.
  • Mailing too many people. You’re sending your mailing to all your past donors, even the ones who haven’t given in several years.
  • Making your appeal hard to read. These are things like type that’s below 13pt, too many words per page, too-small margins, too much reverse-type, etc.
  • Not including clear reasons why the donor should give a gift right now, today. Most nonprofit appeals and e-appeals share what’s happening at the organization and ask for support. But they don’t include any reasons that the donor should give a gift right now – and then are weirdly surprised when very few donors give a gift today.
    How many of those mistakes is your organization making on a regular basis?

These get missed because – somewhat rightly – we’re usually focused on the obvious mistakes that everyone knows about:

  • Messing up donor data. Like addressing mail to me as “Dear Seven” instead of “Dear Steven” and doing it for years. (True story.)
  • Print shop foul-ups. Things like half of your donors getting a reply card for a different nonprofit. (Another true story. Super fun!)
  • Lousy Links. When the links and buttons in your email don’t lead donors to the right place.

Everybody who has done direct response fundraising for any length of time has a couple of these under their belt. Things happen. But you can build systems and processes to eliminate most of these obvious mistakes, most of the time.

But it’s the other kind of mistakes that kill you.

It’s the non-obvious mistakes that stop organizations from “making the leap” to the next level.

It’s the non-obvious mistakes that keep organizations from ever reaching the scale they need to make a big difference.

The best thing you can do is learn. Read this blog. Follow people who have done this stuff at scale. For instance, follow Lisa Sargent on Twitter – she’s rocking it lately with great advice. As much as possible, do what experienced people recommend, not what know-nothing opinion-havers in your organization say they like.

And for those of you who can’t do what experienced people recommend because people in your organization won’t let you – hold tight. I’m working on something I’m calling the Convince Your Boss Kit. Stay tuned. And for now, do as much as you can!

How to Land More Sponsors for Your Next Event

Steven Screen  |  Ask
sponsors.

Want to be more successful at landing business sponsorships for your events?

Here’s an easy way to land more sponsors when you’re asking for sponsorships through the mail or email.

Our clients have applied the following lessons from successful direct mail and landed more (and higher value) sponsors:

  • Get to the point — that you’re asking for an event sponsorship — very quickly. Usually within the first couple sentences, and no later than the first sentence of the second paragraph.
  • Mention a “shared value” with the organization you’re asking. Something like, “I know you care about the elderly, and it’s clear [COMPANY NAME] does too…”
  • Write from one person to one person. Do not use the Organizational or Royal “we.” Make it a direct ask from one person to one person (even if you don’t know who the other person is, exactly).
  • Sell the benefits of the sponsorship, and “sell” the outcomes your organization creates in the same way you’ll sell them to a donor. For example, if your organization provides housing for elderly people, you could say something like, “In addition, your sponsorship will help a local senior in need have a safe, long-term place to stay.”
  • Provide the name of a person to call if the reader has a question, and a phone number (direct line if possible).
  • Be sure to repeat the Ask for a sponsorship in the last paragraph or two. Just like with your fundraising direct mail and email, very few people will read the whole thing.

Apply these easy ideas the next time you send a letter or email to potential event sponsors, and you’ll land more sponsorships!

Three Things All Direct Response Fundraisers Should Know

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Direct response.

Last month I received a brilliant email from a friend.

It perfectly sums up why direct response fundraising is so hard:

“I’ve started telling people there are only three things they need to know about development.

    1. It’s the most counterintuitive thing you’ve ever done. (What people like isn’t motivational. What’s motivational, you won’t like.)
    2. The only way to know what works is A / B testing.
    3. You can spend years, and lots of $’s doing your own testing, or you can hire those who have done it and see immediate results.”

Everything you need to know to succeed in direct response fundraising is all right there.

“It’s the most counterintuitive thing you’ve ever done.”

The things most people think will work in direct response fundraising don’t work very well.

For instance, there’s the assumption that “to get a first gift from someone, that person needs to know that our organization is good at what we do.” Nope. Not true. Your organization’s effectiveness is not even in the Top 5 reasons why most new donors give a gift.

There’s another assumption that says, “we need to always tell stories of success.” Nope. Not true. You only want to do this some of the time, and less often than you think.

“The only way to know what works is A / B testing.”

The reason I can state so strongly that “your organization’s effectiveness is not in the Top 5 reasons why your new donors give” is because we’ve tested it.

We know, from direct head-to-head testing, that including content about how effective your organization is in a donor acquisition piece will reduce the number of people who respond.

You can certainly acquire donors while accentuating how effective your organization is. But you can acquire more donors if you focus your message on the things that matter more.

I was taught this as a young fundraiser in the early ‘90’s. And it’s just one of the many nuggets of wisdom available from our industry’s roughly 70 years’ worth of A / B testing. Each one of those nuggets can help you and me know how to raise the most money in a given situation.

“You can spend years, and lots of $’s doing your own testing, or you can hire those who have done it and see immediate results.”

Smart organizations are constantly looking for ways they can work less while raising more money. So they’re always looking for successes from The Fundraisers Who Have Gone Before, successes that they can apply to their organization.

Sometimes that means going to AFP seminars or spelunking on SOFII. Or purchasing the latest book from Tom Ahern, or Jeff Brooks, or Erica Waasdorp. Or hiring experts like the team at Better Fundraising.

Regardless of how you tap into all that knowledge, be sure you’re seeking out the learnings of “those who have done it” so that you can “see immediate results”!

The Choreography of Donor Attention

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Donor Attention.

Superfast, three-part tip to help you raise more money with your appeal letters.

Part 1 – Here’s How Your Donors “Read”

This is what’s called a “heat map” – it shows where donors’ eyes go as they look at your direct mail letters.Heatmap.Your donors will scan your letter to decide IF they will read your letter.

And not everyone will decide to read your letter.

But you still want everyone to receive the message you’re sending, right?

Part 2 – So, You Need To…

Knowing where your donors are likely to look, you need to “choreograph” your letter to put the most important information in the places where a donor is most likely to see it.

Part 3 – And You’ll Raise More If…

So you might ask, “What’s the most important information I can share with my donor?”

Here’s what our experience says. The most important information to share quickly with a donor in an appeal is:

  • Why their gift is needed today
  • What their gift will accomplish

Note: this is just one of the reasons why having a great fundraising offer, and knowing how to Ask powerfully, are vital to success. Great offers communicate very quickly why a donor’s gift is needed, and what it will accomplish.

Once you know all this, you’ll make different choices about what you say in your letters, and where you say it. You move away from the demonstrably poor-performing “share a story of success and ask for support” approach, and toward a direct mail approach that raises lots of money.

Please Don’t Wait Too Long to Ask

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Wait.

A word of advice to small- and medium-sized nonprofits: don’t “rest” your donors for too long after year-end.

I was taught – via stories and data – that the single biggest predictor of whether a donor would give a gift is how recently the donor had given a gift.

Put slightly differently – the more recently a donor has given a gift, the more likely that donor is to give you another gift. This is the “Recency” in classic RFM “Recency Frequency Motivation” modeling.

We had a client who didn’t believe this was possible. So we tested it.

We sent out an appeal in late January. (I should mention that they didn’t want to do this because they thought it would “bombard” their donors who had just been asked a lot at year-end. But everything we’d been doing for them was working great. So they trusted us enough to try it.)

The appeal did GREAT. Response rate and net revenue were huge wins.

Then we analyzed who gave to the appeal. Specifically, we looked at how recently each donor had given a gift.

  • The single largest group of people who gave were the people who had given the previous month (December).
  • The second largest group of people who gave were the people who had given two months prior (November).
  • The third largest group of people who gave were the people who had given three months prior (October).
  • The fourth-largest group of people who gave were the people who had given four months prior (September).
  • The fifth-largest group of people who gave were the people who had given five months prior (August).

Etc.

The test showed the organization that what I’d been saying was true.

Now, should you ask a Major Donor to give another gift the month after she gave a substantial gift? Nope. How about a Foundation who just gave you a grant? Also nope. And of course, there are additional and more sophisticated segmentation analyses.

But here’s what should happen for donor communications that you send to everyone…

Your Takeaways

What should you and your organization do with this information? I suggest three important takeaways:

  1. Realize (and share internally) what a big role recency plays in who gives to your fundraising. You’ll become a smarter organization immediately. Because will you mail all your appeals to donors who haven’t given a gift in 36 months? Nope. That means money saved.
  2. Don’t wait too long to ask your donors after they’ve given a gift. Every month you wait reduces the chance they will give.
  3. Ask more often. I love this part – when a woman at the organization reviewed the results of the test, she said something brilliant. She looked at me and said, “We should be giving our donors more chances to help, shouldn’t we? Because every time we’ve been ‘resting’ our donors, we’ve accidentally been lowering how much money we raise, right?” Exactly right. It was a joy to watch “the light go on” for her, and then to watch that organization raise more money that year as they started communicating with their donors more.

As I write this, It’s early January. And it’s important to Thank your donors in a meaningful way in January. But don’t wait too long to Ask your donors for support again. We Fundraisers should constantly be learning from the past by letting tests like the one above show you how to raise more money!

Should You Mention Your Goal Amount?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Goal Amount.

Here’s a great question from a smart Fundraiser (and Free Review Friday watcher) named Jeff:

“I had a quick question: Is there an advantage to mentioning the overall goal in an Appeal? Yes, our offer may be $25 a week to help a kid in need, but what about telling our donors our overall appeal goal is $50,000? Have you found an advantage in telling this larger goal, or can it actually decrease giving from some donors?”

And here’s my answer:

Yes, I think it’s a good idea to mention the goal in the appeal.

However, what’s more important is to include multiple other reasons for the donor to give a gift today.

For instance, if you have five kids who are coming into your program next week, I’d mention that before I’d mention the goal.

Here’s why…

Your goal has far more meaning to internal audiences than it does to external audiences.

Insiders and stakeholders love mentioning goals because they know exactly what the goal means. They know the context, they know the scale of the amount, and they know how important it is.

But I’d wager that more than 95% of your donors don’t know if a particular amount is a lot or a little for your organization.

Note: there are times where a massive goal can get your donors’ attention and help motivate them to give. But those situations are outliers, in my experience.

Most of the time, your goal – by itself – is just not much of a motivator for your donors.

Give Your Goal Meaning

When mentioning a goal, I try to give it a meaning that a donor would value.

Here’s an example I gave Jeff: “We need to raise $50,000” is a LOT less impactful than “I need to raise $50,000 so that every child who comes to us can be welcomed, witnessed to, and see the love of Christ in action.”

In that example, I’ve turned a number with little meaning into a number that has a lot of meaning for Jeff’s donors.

The Context is More Important than the Amount

Here’s a data-driven finding that brings this whole idea home…

When an organization has a shortfall, the fact that they have a shortfall is more effective at getting donors to respond than the size of the shortfall.

That tells you something important: the context around an amount is more important than the amount itself.

So next time you have a goal, mention it!

  • A goal can be helpful, but you sure don’t need one (or need to mention one) to be successful.
  • What’s more important is to include multiple reasons to give today that have meaning to your donors.

More Good Reasons to Give Now = More Donations

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Give Now.

I’m calling this a “quick tip.”

But in truth it’s a massive, foundational idea for fundraising success:

The more good reasons you can give your donor to give a gift TODAY, the more likely she is to give a gift.

I’ve included a list of “good reasons” below.

But in a nutshell:

“Your help is needed today and here’s why”

Will raise more than…

“Our programs are making a difference – please give to help continue this good work.”

I know it might feel weird. But it works.

And remember, I’m talking about direct response fundraising here. That’s your letters, your newsletters, your emails. I’m not talking about grant proposals or conversations with Foundations. This idea can be helpful in those contexts, too, but it’s not as necessary for success.

Good Reasons to Give Now

Here’s a list of “reasons” that are proven to increase the chances that your donor will respond to your direct response fundraising:

  • Any “multiplier” (like a matching grant)
  • Any beneficiary that faces a need right now (this can be starting to be helped by your organization, or the next step in their process with you)
  • A deadline
  • A budget shortfall
  • Any acute need like “14 new people will enter our shelter this month” or “There are 35 people on our waiting list”
    It’s a learned behavior to begin to focus your fundraising on “reasons to give a gift today” instead of focusing your fundraising on your organization, your programs, your successes, etc.

To help you make the transition to this new way of thinking, here’s some evidence that this works from last week’s GivingTuesday.

I’ve been helping an organization add “reasons to give today” to all their fundraising. Here’s the report I received for how GivingTuesday went: “The team and I have really been trying to focus on the reasons to give NOW. Wonder where I learned that? We smashed through the goal, so I’m thrilled!”

For your next piece of fundraising – maybe your year-end emails?! – be sure to include reasons to give today. You’ll raise more money!

You Can Do Better Than “Donate Now”

Steven Screen  |  Ask
outcome.

I learned a long time ago that “donors fund outcomes.” They are more likely to give a donation if they think their gift is helping to create a specific outcome – as opposed to just “supporting your organization.”

Turns out the same principle works online, too.

Better Fundraising has had more success with online “donate” buttons that replace the word “donate” with an outcome that the organization produces.

The Lesson: replace the text on your “donate” button with text that reinforces the outcome of your donor’s gift

Here are a bunch of examples from our archives:

Provide Shelter
Feed 1 Person
Save The Parks
Provide an Ultrasound
Save A life
Provide Clean Water
Provide a Coat
Provide a Scholarship

You get the point.

The lesson for you: if you’re able, update any donate buttons you use in email, on your website, and in social media.

Instead of highlighting the action of giving (“donate” and “give now”), highlight the outcome the donor’s gift will help create

I should mention that we don’t have any head-to-head testing data that backs this recommendation up. But I’ve read results that back me up.

And the principle of “asking a donor to do a powerful thing” works better than “asking a donor to donate” has benefitted our clients too many times to count.

Good luck! And always remember that your donors are more likely to give this month than any other time of year. So don’t hesitate to Ask them to help your beneficiaries!