Category: Repeat

Foundations

Steven  |  Repeat
Back to basics.

There are some core, basic principles in fundraising.  (As an industry, we tend to not talk about them enough because we silly humans like shiny things.)

But these core principles are part of every successful, national organization I know of.  They should be the roadmap for the fundraising programs that small and medium-sized nonprofits are building.

Principles like:

  • Communicate with your donors regularly.
  • Focus more on improving the metrics that matter most, like “net revenue” and “retention rate,” and focus less on metrics like “likes” and “awareness.”
  • Infuse your individual donor communications with emotion.
  • You have to Ask, you have to Thank, and you have to Report.
  • Create as many fundraising assets as you can, and fewer fundraising art projects.
  • Use language your donors understand immediately. 
  • Major Donor Management systems work better than ad-hoc approaches.
  • Build a donor pipeline.  Have steps and benchmarks for everyone from “email list subscribers” to legacy givers.

The surest path to success is to build your fundraising program on and toward these principles.

Then, defend them and enshrine them. Make sure they don’t leave when your current staff do. 

You could say these principles are boring, in the same way you could say that a foundation for a building is boring.  But you cannot build a reliable, ever-expanding organization without a good foundation.

Take More Steps

Steven  |  Repeat
Steps progress.

This post is the first in a series of special posts for January.  Last year we kept track of the ideas that had outsized impact on the small and medium-sized nonprofits we serve.  Each of the posts this month is about one of those big ideas.

I hope they are helpful as you think about your fundraising this year.

***

Every piece of fundraising you make & send is a step on your journey to raising more money.

Here’s the simple truth: the more steps you take each year, the closer you are to raising more money, because you get better when you practice.

You know those organizations that send out 10 appeal letters, 6 printed newsletters, and 50 fundraising emails?  They can do that because they’ve practiced so much that their fundraising works great.

They don’t have different donors than you.  They don’t have a better cause than you.  They’ve just practiced more.

At some point in the past, someone at those organizations said, “Let’s figure out a way to make and send more fundraising.”

If your organization needs someone to say that, you can be that someone.

Don’t be afraid of making & sending more fundraising.  The more steps you take, the better you get at taking steps.

Fundraising Portfolio

Steven  |  Repeat
Diversification.

When investing, one of the first principles is to have a diversified portfolio. 

  • You want to have some bonds because they are incredibly stable, which insulates you from risk if something bad happens in the stock market.
  • You want to have some stocks so that if the economy takes off, you can make serious money.
  • You want to have some international investments so that, if things go sideways in your country, you’re insulated.

You get the idea.

Now, have you ever thought that your fundraising program is essentially your “fundraising portfolio”?  Because the same principle is true in fundraising – you want to be diversified:

  • You want to have a good in-person relationships with major donors because that’s where most of the money is.
  • You also want to be good at direct response fundraising (mail, email and phone) because not every major donor will want to meet with you, and because you can inexpensively talk to lots of donors at the same time. 
  • You want to be good at events because there are some donors who will only go to events.

So, now that you’re thinking of your fundraising program as your “fundraising portfolio,” I have three questions for you today:

  1. What’s in your fundraising portfolio?
  2. Is your portfolio diversified?  Does it both insulate you from risk and give you a great chance at growth?
  3. Is your portfolio appropriate for your size?  (For instance, spending money on “awareness” is appropriate for a $25m organization, but ill-advised for a $1m organization.)

Two Quick Stories

Here are two real-life examples of how a lack of diversification can be harmful…

Example #1 — Five months into the pandemic, a large national organization called us.  They were already $20,000,000 behind budget for the year because they primarily raised money at events… but couldn’t do events because of the pandemic.  Their organization didn’t know how to raise money through the mail and email, and were hair-on-fire-scrambling to learn how.    

Example #2 — Up in Canada right now, because of the Canadian Post strike, it’s tough for nonprofits who rely on the mail because they can’t send letters to their donors!  So the organizations who don’t have strong relationships with individual major donors, and/or strong email fundraising, are in real trouble. 

Now, if you’re a smaller nonprofit, most of us don’t have large enough budgets to just say “Let’s diversify our revenue streams” and go do it the next year.  Diversifications takes both time and money. 

But as you plot your growth, diversification of revenue streams should absolutely be a goal.

Nelson Mandela

Steven  |  Repeat
Nelson Mandela.

When Nelson Mandela was in prison (for 27 years!) he studied the language of the Afrikaner people who put him in prison.  

Mandela shared that “the way to understand people is speak and understand their language.”

Mandela credited his understanding the Afrikaans language with his ability to establish good relationships first with the prison wardens, and later with the Afrikaners who ran South Africa.

Mandela understood the language of the Afrikaners, spoke the language of the Afrikaners, yet advocated for his people.

The same principle is true for highly effective Fundraisers: they understand the language of their donors, speak the language of their donors, yet advocate for the organization’s beneficiaries or cause.

Any time you’re responsible for bridging a gap – whether it’s between different races or between nonprofits and donors – the bridge is more likely to get built if you understand and use the language of the person you’re trying to build it with.

Why your direct response fundraising should be like a Hallmark Christmas movie

Sarah Lundberg  |  Repeat
Hallmark

Something strange happens to me at the end of October.

I’m a smart, logical, educated person who appreciates arts and culture.

But at the end of October when Hallmark Christmas movies start playing 24/7, I turn into… someone else. Someone who will watch movie after movie with essentially the same characters and the same plot. Someone who tears up at the end of the movie when the lovers FINALLY kiss and then a gentle snow begins to fall.

Sigh. It’s so sappy.

But I’m a direct response fundraiser, so I notice something else.

A Hallmark Christmas movie reminds me of effective direct response fundraising. It’s formulaic. You know what’s coming next. The plot is easy to follow. And you may tear up because, gosh dang it, it’s emotional!

And it works.

Every year, the Hallmark Channel makes more of these movies because people – like me – are watching them!

Sometimes we try to make our direct mail fundraising appeals into something more like a Cannes Film Festival entry. Complex. Ironic. Edgy. Different.

But that just doesn’t work as well.

If you want to appeal to the highest number of donors, your direct mail fundraising should be more like a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie.

Here’s the basic formula:

  • Tell them why you are writing to them
  • Share the problem that needs to be solved
  • Tell how the problem could be solved
  • Ask the donor to give a gift to solve the problem
  • Go into more detail about the problem and solution
  • Include a story that illustrates the problem (optional)
  • Ask them to give again
  • Signature and title
  • P.S. Ask them to give again and include the deadline.

Listen. I get it. Near the end of every single Hallmark Christmas movie, I grumble and complain and wonder why I watch these sappy movies.

Then the snow starts to fall and there’s a magical kiss and I’m dabbing my eyes with a tissue.

There’s something about that feeling…

The direct response formula isn’t a secret. Simple. Easy to follow. Emotional. Maybe a little bit of magic… These things help donors get to the point where they will write a check to make something good happen.

Follow the formula with your next direct response fundraising appeal or email and see how it goes!

Mr. Rogers and Fundraising After a Hurricane

Steven  |  Repeat
Helpers.

Mr. Rogers used to tell a story about something his mother would say:

“When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.’”

That little story always comes to mind after disasters like Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. In the pictures and videos you’ll see rescue workers and volunteers who are helping.

It’s also when we Fundraisers play a small role in thousands and thousands of regular people who become “Helpers” – the people who see the news or read our appeals, stop what they are doing, and help by making a gift.

The way humans generously respond to needs will never cease to thrill me.  I hope you have the same experience.

Of course, I would prefer that there never be another disaster, large or small.

But when they happen, I’ll appreciate and rejoice in the generosity every time.

PS — If you’re a small nonprofit, and you need extra/emergency money due to hurricanes Helene or Milton, please read this post for our offer to (for free) write an emergency email for you.

It’s The Ones Who Keep Going

Steven  |  Repeat
Keep pushing forward.

You know all those big charities you know by name?  The ones raising tens and hundreds of millions of dollars?

At one point they were all raising exactly as much as you are now.

They had the same struggles you have, the same doubts, the same looming fears about year-end.

And they kept going.

Sometimes it was all they could do just to make it through the end of the year.  Sometimes they added one more small thing.  Or tried a new offer.  Or focused on a core strategy.

Your beneficiaries and your donors need what you’re doing.

Keep going.

What Neil DeGrasse Tyson Can Teach Us About Fundraising

Steven  |  Repeat
Solar system.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a famous astrophysicist.  Millions of people love him for his ability to explain complex scientific ideas in ways that non-experts can understand.

But you know what?  At any given time there are hundreds of scientists who are deeply annoyed at Tyson.  Why?  Because his explanations oversimplify the complex realities of astrophysics, or the space-time continuum, you name it.

But the videos and TV appearances that Neil makes aren’t for those experts.  The videos and appearances are for you and me.  The job of those appearances is to get more people interested and involved in the sciences.

In order to do that job, Neil has taken the occasional potshot from an annoyed expert. 

The exact same thing is true of individual donor fundraising: in order to get more people interested and involved in a nonprofit, the leader of the organization has to simplify complex realities.  This makes the organization more accessible and raises more money, and results in potshots from friends at sister organizations, Board members, and program staff who are experts.

The Red Cross oversimplifies the complex realities of disaster relief.  World Vision oversimplifies the complex realities of childhood poverty.  St. Jude’s oversimplifies the complex realities of pediatric cancer research and treatment.

The experts in those fields are deeply annoyed at the oversimplification going on in the fundraising done by those organizations.

But the fundraising is not for those experts.  And the fundraising done by those organizations has resulted in millions of people being more involved, and billions of dollars raised to make the world a better place.

So this is a call to all the creators and approvers of fundraising out there.  If Neil will take a few potshots in order to get more people interested and involved in the sciences, will you take a few potshots to get more people interested and involved in your cause and helping your beneficiaries?

New eBook Released! [download]

Steven  |  Repeat
Core Four.

We’ve excited to share the launch of our new free eBook!

You can download it right here.

Here’s the story behind what you’ll see…

The eBook contains the answer to a question we asked ourselves:

“What strategies & actions made the biggest impact helping our clients raise more than $1,000,000 annually from their individual donors for the first time?”

We wrote this eBook to share the four main strategies that helped organizations leave “six figures” behind and make the leap to raising “seven figures.”

One thing that was encouraging to see: this approach is accessible to even the smallest organizations.  None of the organizations we looked at had everything buttoned up in the first couple of years.  It was always a phased/iterative approach where they would get a little better each year.  And then the improvements they’d make in one area would reinforce the improvements they’d make in other areas.

And for the people we’ve shared this with who have yet to break the $1m barrier, they love having a roadmap and seeing how everything works together.

Download your free copy today, we know it will be helpful for you!