Category: Repeat

Fundraising to Individual Donors at Its Simplest

Steven  |  Repeat
Keep it simple.

In our experience, effective fundraising to individual donors comes down to two things:

#1 — Sharing why the work of your organization is needed.  What is it that’s going on in the world today that needs to be fixed?  Who is hurting that needs help?  What could we be doing better if only there were more support?

Share this and donors remember why your work is so important.

#2 — Sharing with donors the impact of their previous giving.  What change did the donor help make?  What’s better now because of their giving?

Do this and donors feel like their gift to your organization made a difference.

When an E.D. wonders why the fundraising isn’t working so well, the first thing to do is look to see whether the fundraising comms are effectively communicating these two ideas.

When a fundraising plan or fundraising communications are not working well, it’s usually because these two ideas have been crowded out by information about the organization itself.

But if you build your communications plan to share these ideas, multiple times per year, you’ll raise more money than you would ever expect.

The success of the simplicity will astound you.

Three Easy-to-Understand (but Hard-to-Do) Steps to Better Fundraising

Steven  |  Repeat
Three Steps.

This post is meant to be a primer for how to use measurement to improve your fundraising. 

The concepts are easy to understand, but it’s real work for smaller nonprofits to install the systems and track the results.

I’m sharing this because, at the beginning of the fundraising journey for a Fundraiser or nonprofit, these things are non-obvious.  When you’re starting off in fundraising, it can feel like a situation where you “send a few things out and see which way the wind blows this year!”

But the more you know, the more you realize this fundraising life is a deeply-understood system.

OK.  There are three main stages to this…

# 1 – Measure the Metrics

You want to measure the performance of each piece of fundraising you send out.  This means tracking metrics like: gross revenue, net revenue, percent response, ROI, click-through rates, conversion rates, etc. 

That list is not meant to be exhaustive.  The idea is that there are standard metrics for email, direct mail, major donor proposals, radiothons, etc., and you want to figure out and track the standard metrics for the types of fundraising you do.    

Organize your results.  (We offer a free spreadsheet to help you get started.)  You’ll quickly see that some fundraising activities are more effective than others. 

#2 – Measure the Results Annually

If you think of each year’s-worth of fundraising as an experiment, you want to know the results of each year’s experiment.

Your results can be measured with metrics like: donor retention rate (overall and by segment), revenue retention rate, the “cost to raise $1” for each of your primary income streams, your total net revenue available for programs, etc. 

Organize your results so you can see year-over-year trends.   

#3 – Learn the Levers

The next step feels like magic: you look at the info from the first two steps and quickly notice which fundraising activities make the biggest difference.

You see things like, “When we do more of X, less money comes in.”  Or, “When we do less Y, we keep more of our donors.”

Let me give you two real-life examples (both of which I’ve seen many times).  I’ll share what the organization noticed when they looked at their results, and then what they found when they looked back at their year:

  1. An organization noticed that they had raised about the same amount over the course of the year with what felt like less effort.  The looked back and noticed that they had cancelled their e-news early in the year.  Previously, they believed their e-news was a necessary part of their fundraising activities.  Today they’ve realized that the time they were spending on their e-news could be better spent in other areas. 

  2. An organization was pleased to find that they had raised more year-over-year, and that their donor retention rate had increased from 55% to 60%.  They looked back and saw that they had sent two more appeal letters, and four more e-appeals, than they’d sent in previous years.  The organization realized they could be asking their donors to help more often, and that doing so would have a positive effect on their fundraising. 

Once you track your fundraising activities, and review the effects of them each year, you see what works and what doesn’t.  Do that for a lot of nonprofits, for a lot of years, and you build a depth of knowledge about what levers work best in different situations.

I realize it’s tough for people at the beginning of their fundraising journey to know what to do, let alone actually find the time to do all of it. 

That’s exactly why this blog exists.  We’re trying to share everything we’ve learned over the years about which levers to pull, and which levers to stop pulling, so that your fundraising journey is a little faster and a little smoother.

(Fun Fact: the original name for Better Fundraising was “Better Fundraising For All.”  That’s because we believe that all of this information should be shared with all the small- and medium-sized nonprofits who can’t afford a big agency, instead of being kept as part of some “secret sauce.”)

For today, figure out which of these three steps your organization should be working on.  And figure out the next actionable step you could take.  Now, we’re all in the middle of year-end fundraising at the moment, so you might not get to it in the next couple of weeks.  But write it down and set aside some time in your calendar to make it part of your plan for 2024. 

Take just a few steps forward, and you’ll be surprised at how much more effective you’ll become.

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

Sarah Lundberg  |  Repeat
Hallmark

This post is back by popular demand in honor of Hallmark Christmas movies starting TOMORROW! — Sarah

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, they make 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 Christmas movie.

Here’s the basic formula:

  • Tell them why you’re 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 silly movies.

Then the snow starts to fall and there’s a magical kiss and I’m a puddle on the floor.

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 let me know how it goes!

Fundraising Assets > Fundraising Art Projects

Steven  |  Repeat
Assets

There’s a question you should ask about every piece of fundraising communication your organization makes:

“How and when, with as little work as possible, could we use this again?”

That’s what the savvy fundraising organizations are doing. For instance:

  • This year’s Fiscal Year End letter looks and reads almost exactly the same as last year’s Fiscal Year End letter.
  • This year’s event script follows the exact same flow and timing as last year’s event script.
  • This year’s Back to School e-appeal uses the exact same offer and copy as last year, only the story has been updated.

When you start doing this, you and your organization benefit.

You benefit because you can get things done faster. It’s a LOT easier to update last year’s successful appeal than it is to make a whole new one.

Your organization benefits because you tend to raise more money this way. Why? Because you start paying really close attention to what works and what doesn’t. And you end up doing more of what works. Which raises you more money.

True Story

We work with several organizations that mail their donors about 10 appeals per year.

On average, 7 of the 10 appeals are updated versions of the same mailing sent the year before. Same for the email versions of those impacts.

Think about how much time that saves them!

There’s another benefit – it makes their income much more predictable. For instance, say last year’s successful February appeal raised $50k. If you mail the same thing again next February, you can count on raising about $50k or more. But if you create a whole new piece from scratch, you might raise $50k, you might raise $25k. Which scenario would you prefer?

For Comparison…

Most organizations approach each piece of fundraising as an Art Project:

  1. They assume this year’s letter needs to be different than last year.
  2. They assume they need to say things differently than they’ve been said before.
  3. If something worked last year (or last month!) it’s assumed that it won’t work again.

Based on those assumptions, they create something new and different each time.

Which is unfortunate because all of those assumptions are incorrect.

Those assumptions lead to what we call “art projects” – unique pieces of fundraising that take more work to create and tend not to repeat the successes of the past.

At a nonprofit, where time and money are often scarce, why would you choose to take that approach?

So, What Assets Do You Already Have?

That’s a question you should ask yourself immediately. Especially since we’re entering the busy fundraising season!

As you think about your fall – what fundraising assets do you have from this spring, from last year, or from three years ago that you could simply update and use?

Because if that piece of fundraising worked, you know your donors liked it.

And I have 30 years of experience that says if your donors liked something once, they’ll like it again.

It will save you time.

And I promise – no donor is going to contact you and say, “Hey! Wait a minute. This letter/email is just like that one you sent 7 months ago!”

It just doesn’t happen.

So go find an asset you’ve created. Use it this fall to save yourself some time. and raise a bunch of money.

And for any fundraising you create in the future, always ask yourself how and when it can be used again.

This post was originally published on September 3, 2019.

Good News and Bad News, Part II

Steven  |  Repeat
Yin Yang.

Part I was about our belief that nonprofits are called to share the whole situation – the good news caused by their work and the bad news that causes their work to be needed.

But that’s a complex story. And do you think that today’s individual donors – who have shorter attention spans and are bombarded by more messages and information than any time in human history – are going to read and think about your complex story?

No. At least not many.

So here’s the fundraising maxim we live by:

When you only have a few moments of a person’s attention, focus your message on either the good news or the bad news.

Here’s how this works in practice:

  • You put the “bad news” in your appeals and e-appeals. These are your Asks.
  • You put the good news in your Thanks. These are your Thank You/Receipt letters and email receipts.
  • You put more good news in your Reports. These are your Newsletters.

This provides a series of messages that are easy to understand by individual donors who are moving fast. This communicates both the good news and the bad news about what’s going on, rather than hiding the news in communication pieces that attempt to tell the whole story every time.

It will also raise you more money, if the results of our customers are any indication.

And when you have more time with a donor – say at an event, or a coffee with a donor, or a grant application – then you can tell the whole complex story, sharing both the good news and the need for your work.

But in the meantime, focus each message to individual donors on either good news or bad news. By narrowing the focus, more of your message will make it through to donors, and to the world.

Good News and Bad News, Part I

Steven  |  Repeat
Yin Yang.

If a nonprofit isn’t sharing the good news caused by their work, the nonprofit is hiding something and isn’t doing all of its job.

And equally true, if a nonprofit isn’t sharing the bad news that causes their work to be needed, the nonprofit is hiding something and isn’t doing all of its job.

You can see both types of nonprofits today. Look around and you’ll see organizations that only use the doom-and-gloom sky-is-always-falling approach that diminishes the progress being made. And you can see organizations that focus completely on success and diminish the situation that causes their work to be needed.

It’s our belief that nonprofits are called to share the whole situation. If only one kind of news is shared, a nonprofit is not giving donors a true picture. Their fundraising becomes just as polarized as a news media outlet that only shares one side of the story.

This is why our fundraising system is built on Ask, Thank, Report. When you Ask donors for support, you share the bad news that causes the work of the nonprofit to be needed. When you Thank, you share the good news that will happen because of their gift and your work. And when you Report back to donors, you share the triumphs and amazing changes that happened.

It’s yin and yang. It’s the good and the bad. It’s the full picture. It has to be a mix of good news and bad news in order to be true.

New Competition from For-Profit Companies?!?

Steven  |  Repeat
for-profit

Last week after the fires in Hawaii I received four emails raising money to help. Two of the four emails were from for-profit companies.

One was from an outdoor clothing brand with ties to Hawaii. The other was from an eyeglass company that, as far as I can tell, has no strong connection to Hawaii.

Both brands have values that caused them to want to help. Both were clear that the money raised would be routed to foundations assisting in the recovery from the fires.

As more companies begin to figure out what you and I have known all along – that donors like to donate and they feel good when doing so – more and more companies are going to fundraise. Companies are going to see fundraising as a tool to exercise their values and create deeper connections with their customers.

I believe this is great for donors, but bad news for smaller nonprofits.

It’s great news for donors because they are going to be given more opportunities to support causes they believe in and beneficiaries they care about. And the emails from for-profit companies are going to raise awareness for whatever issue is being talked about. These are both good, and will cause an overall increase in giving; more people are going to donate, and it’s going to increase the number of younger donors.

To put it another way, the size of the pie is going to increase.

That said, there’s more competition for the pie. This is bad news for smaller nonprofits because they are now in competition with these companies:

  • People’s inboxes are going to be full of more options to give
  • Some of these companies have teams to create and send emails – they are going to send more emails faster than a one-person fundraising shop can.

The good news for smaller nonprofits is that these companies are going to quickly return to selling shirts (or whatever). They probably aren’t going to “Report back” on the difference the donor’s gift helped make. And their fundraising will most likely focus on big, disaster/systemic issues, and less on local issues.

The other good news is that you can build trust in your organization by talking all year long about your cause and your donors – not just when there’s a disaster.

But it’s good to know that an era of increased competition in donors’ inboxes is arriving.

Things That Happen When You Don’t Really Like Fundraising

Steven  |  Repeat
Below the surface.

We love fundraising around here.

But we have discovered, through deep observation, that some people do not like to fundraise.

(Theatrical Gasp!)

Please know that there’s absolutely no judgment here. The nonprofit world is overflowing with people who got into nonprofit work to do something else… and found themselves doing fundraising for one reason or another.

But a person’s dislike or discomfort with fundraising almost always manifests itself in ways that cause their fundraising to raise less money.

Here are four of the top recurring behaviors of people who don’t really like to fundraise, and how those behaviors manifest in fundraising to individual donors (appeals, e-appeals, newsletters, etc.). And how the behaviors reduce the amount of money people raise.

  1. They do most fundraising tasks at the last minute. Looking at my own life, I do this when I’m trying to avoid something or am afraid I’m going to fail. I think the same thing is true of some people when they do fundraising functions; they would prefer to avoid it, and they fear failing. They avoid writing the Ask at the big event until the day before the event. They delay writing the year-end appeal until December. And when words matter, writing fundraising at the last minute rarely raises as much as it could.
    2.  
  2. They do far more “education” than fundraising. Rather than doing the emotionally vulnerable work of boldly asking for money, people instead educate donors about the cause and the work. They create fundraising materials that go far deeper into the details than most individual donors would be interested in. They achieve the very real “good” of a few donors being more educated, but don’t realize that education-focused fundraising creates a barrier that keeps most casual donors away. Almost no individual donor wants to have to learn a bunch of things before they give a gift.
    3.  
  3. The fundraising they create never actually communicates that help is needed. Some people don’t like to communicate that negative things are happening to their beneficiaries. So they create fundraising that makes it look like everything is going great and no one needs help today. This is a great message when an organization is Reporting back on donors’ previous giving. But when “things are going great” is consistently the primary message, the organization is raising less money than it could be.
    4.  
  4. They don’t ask donors to send in money. Many people who don’t like fundraising will avoid the discomfort of asking directly for a gift. Instead, they’ll ask for things like “partnership” and “support.” Or they’ll insert wiggle-room words like, “Would you consider making a gift today.” By beating around the bush, they avoid the discomfort of asking for financial gifts… but raise less money.

If you see any of these behaviors in yourself or another person, be kind.

These behaviors are usually symptoms of a discomfort or a dislike of fundraising. Help them see how embracing vulnerability is key, and how it will deepen their connection with donors.

Once they understand more about donors, and about how donors process the fundraising they receive, you can’t help but drop some of these behaviors. They’ll start raising more money and become a happier fundraiser!

Consistency

Steven  |  Repeat
consistency

As you grow in fundraising experience, you understand that consistency is often more important than sincerity.

In any particular moment, sincerity (like authenticity) is a byproduct of feelings at that moment. And feelings change all the time.

This makes “sincerity” not the best foundation for a fundraising program.

What if, on the day you write your year-end appeal, you’re sincerely thinking about another job opportunity?

What if, when the time to deliver your speech at the event finally arrives, you’d sincerely rather be in bed?

Now “consistency,” on the other hand, is reliable. Steadfast on behalf of the beneficiaries and cause – no matter how you’re feeling that day. Willing to be vulnerable enough to ask boldly, no matter the day. Willing to show up in donors’ inboxes even though you feel like you’ve said everything before.

That sounds like a great foundation for a fundraising program.

Sincerity and authenticity are, of course, needed in a fundraising program. But for your mass donors, if you want to grow, fundraising done consistently will outraise sincere fundraising done occasionally.