Repeat Archives | The Better Fundraising Company

Fundraising Portfolio

Steven | December 12, 2024December 12, 2024Repeat

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:

What’s in your fundraising portfolio?
Is your portfolio diversified? Does it both insulate you from risk and give you a great chance at growth?
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 | December 10, 2024December 6, 2024Repeat

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 | October 17, 2024October 10, 2024Repeat

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 | October 10, 2024October 9, 2024Repeat

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 | October 3, 2024September 24, 2024Repeat

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 | September 26, 2024September 18, 2024Repeat

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 | September 24, 2024September 18, 2024Repeat

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!

Free Sample ‘Creative Brief’ [download]

Steven | September 19, 2024September 18, 2024Repeat

My last post gave you a helpful, proven process to follow to write and design direct mail fundraising.

One of the steps in that process is the writing of a Creative Brief – a step that’s unfamiliar to many smaller organizations.

If having an example creative brief would be helpful for your organization, at the end of this post I’ve included a link to an example Creative Brief you can download for free.

And if you’re not sure why you’d want to start making Creative Briefs for your projects yet, here’s why a Creative Brief is so helpful…

To review, a Creative Brief is a document that contains all the details for a piece of fundraising (and often for an entire fundraising campaign). These details include who the package will be mailed to, the mail date, the offer, the specs, the creative approach, which story to tell, which photo(s) to use, the production schedule for the project, etc.

Creative Briefs are so helpful because they work for you.

When you write and share a good Creative Brief, you instantly create what amounts to an “External Brain & Project Manager” whose only job is to save you time and help you succeed:

When the copywriter doesn’t remember what to do, they look at the brief.
When the data person wonders which donors to pull for this mailing, they look at the brief.
When the Boss wants to know what the plan is for the April Appeal, you show them the brief.
When you wonder what you did on this project last year, and what the thinking was, you look at the brief from last year.
When you’re teaching a new staff member what you do for fundraising and how you do it, you show them the briefs.

All of which gives you more time to get other stuff done.

And when everyone is working from a brief, you end up with fundraising that’s more cohesive and on-target. You also avoid out-of-left-field situations like “the brochure for the capital campaign looks like a video game” because the freelance designer thought that would be cool. (True story.)

We use briefs for direct mail, email, campaigns, events, radiothons, you name it.

So if it’s helpful to you, here’s a link to download a sample creative brief that I created years ago. I’ve been using some version of this document for over 25 years. Some are 6 pages, some are 1 page, depending on the project and the organization. I’m sure you’ll want to customize it for your needs.

There’s nothing magic about this particular format or the exact info it contains. But what is magic is “thinking it through in advance” and then letting the Creative Brief work for you!

Sample Direct Mail Process

Steven | September 17, 2024September 16, 2024Repeat

What’s your process like for creating direct mail fundraising? Does your process help or hinder your organization?

To (perhaps torturously) borrow from the famous first line from Anna Karenina,

“All organizations that have a successful process for creating direct mail are alike; each organization that has an unsuccessful process for creating direct mail is unsuccessful in its own way.”

After helping a couple organizations improve their process recently, I thought I’d share the process that I’ve seen be the most successful in case it’s helpful to you.

Creative Meeting: this is where the goals of the project are confirmed, the offer and audience decided, the creative approach is determined, and which story to tell is decided. The more details thought through at this stage, the better.
Creative Brief: all the details for the project are written down in the Creative Brief. The Brief then becomes the roadmap for the project.
Copywriting: the copywriter follows the Creative Brief and writes the copy. The resulting “copy package” includes everything needed to design the package, including suggested art direction as well as copy for things like the outer envelope and reply card.
Copy editing: the copy package is circulated, to as small a group as possible, for edits and feedback. One designated person makes the edits and resolves conflicting opinions. Additional rounds of edits are done only when necessary.
Copy approval: the Project Lead gives final approval on the copy and it is sent to be designed.
Design: the Designer designs the package, following the Creative Brief and the copy package.
Design Review: the package is circulated for edits and feedback. Again, one designated person decides which edits will be made. The Designer makes the changes.
Design approval: the Project Lead gives final approval on the design.

Then you’re off to the races…

Of course, there are all sorts of tweaks and changes that can be made. For instance, smaller organizations tend to have one person doing most or all of the steps, and the steps sometimes get combined. Larger organizations tend to have teams of specialists doing just one or two steps each.

But the most successful processes tend to follow the same principles:

Think it all the way through at the beginning
Follow the plan
Keep approval teams small
Empower one person (ideally someone who has experience with direct response fundraising) to make all final decisions, because decisions made by committees result in fundraising that doesn’t work well.

I hope this helps with your process. If you have any advice to share, or improvements to this process, mention them in a comment.

In my next post, I’ll show you the power of having a Creative Brief, and include a sample brief you can download.