Category: Uncategorized

 5 Reasons Donors Leave

ASK THANK REPORT REPEAT

Our good friends at www.moviemondays.com created this simple 4-minute video that summarizes the Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat fundraising system.  Organizations that leveraged this thinking last year raised 22% more money than they did the year before.  Check it out.  http://nonprofitbestpractices.com/blogs/news/10051357-how-to-raise-22-more-money-with-ask-thank-report-repeat

We recently completed three training events that focused on maximizing your year-end fundraising.  The evens were a big success. Over 80 people learned the secrets to leveraging the urgency behind year-end giving.  To help you move your work forward we have posted some of the content from this training here on the blog.

This chart below shows you the typical fundraising cycle during the calendar year.  See the big spike in fundraising during November and December!

Click this link to see a short slide deck that shows the importance of the last few days of December Online Giving.

Lastly, when you click this link you will be able to download 6+ pages of notes from the training course. Year-End Fundraising Class Notes

If you want to receive additional “insider” information, be sure to subscribe using the form on the right side of this page.

Keep up your good work!

 

You are entering the most fruitful time of year for fundraising. Don’t get left behind. We know how important the income is to your organization and we’d like to help.

The next couple of months of fundraising are super important to your organization. Do you need to raise a bunch of money and would love to know how the most successful fundraisers do it?  Attend either the virtual or a live events in Seattle, Washington.  this free

Why is it free? The mission of Better Fundraising For All is to spread fundraising best-practices to as many nonprofits as we can, and do it at little or no cost.  The big national nonprofits have spent years testing what works and doesn’t work this time of year. But, chances are, if you work at a small- to medium-sized nonprofit you have no way of knowing what the big guys know.

We’re here to share it with you so you can raise more money. It really is that simple.

To register for one or all of the free Ignite Your Year-End Fundraising training events, click here!

Do you have a lapsed donors strategy?  Do you reach out to your donors if they haven’t made a gift to your work in the last 12 months?  If you don’t have a lapsed donors strategy, I hope this story motivates you to create and implement one.

A long-time friend and donor to Western Seminary had stopped giving to the school.  As part of Western’s lapsed donor strategy she received a letter from the President inviting her to make another gift to the students of Western.  Her initial response was that she was giving to other organizations and Western no longer was part of her giving plan.

The President encouraged his Advancement Director to reach out to learn more about this donor and why she had stopped giving.  After a friendly and lengthy personal visit with the donor, the Advancement Director was happy to report a monthly pledge had been committed.

If Western hadn’t sent the lapsed donor letter to the donor, had a President that cared enough to listen and respond, and an Advancement Director who wasn’t willing to reach out to a lower level donor, Western would have lost this donor for good.  Now they have a revived relationship, more money to support their students and a renewed sense of mission and purpose.

All it took was one letter to start this amazing turnaround.

 

Steven is in India and Bangladesh gathering stories, photos and video for a client. While there, he was asked to teach the Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat fundraising system to two hospitals, on in Calcutta and one in the northern part of the country. He tells me, “Fundraising in India is just getting started. It was fantastic to get to help two hospitals base their fundraising programs on what really matters to donors. I know it’s going to start slowly, but I know they’re going to do great.”

If you want to know more about the Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat methodology and why it works so well, get in touch!

Our friends and Fundraising is Beautiful had this great post and podcast about direct mail fundraising.  Our very own Better Fundraising For All expert Steven Screen co-hosts this blog.  Check it out here!  Listen to the podcast and come away with a better understand of direct mail fundraising.

This is a follow-up to our last blog post.  Below you will see the other two elements of a successful direct appeal letter.

1. The letter now has an Ask in the first few paragraphs. Earlier versions didn’t have an ask until the top of the second page. And the eye-tracking studies show that the top half of the second page is the least-read sections of the letter. The earlier letter was effectively hiding the ask — and that’s no way to raise money!
2. Finally, the letter uses design to help the donor know the most important parts of the letter. The underlining and the call-outs highlight the Ask and the Need. Earlier versions highlighted the success and other information. We have to assume that most donors scan the letter. So we used underlining and call-outs to highlight the letter in it’s simplest form: there is a problem that needs to be solved, and the donor’s gift will solve it if they send in a gift today.

Now that you know the four elements of a a successful direct appeal letter, make sure you apply them to your appeals this next fiscal year.

We recently had the opportunity to help a Better Fundraising For All follower that works for a world relief organization.  The goal was to improve their fundraising direct appeal letter.  They tested our suggestions and since then have seen a dramatic increase in their direct appeal fundraising letter results.  There were four basic elements in the letter that we believe caused it to outperform previous letters.  Below you will see two of those elements.

1. The letter shared a story of Need, of someone who needs help. Earlier drafts shared a story that was a Success. We know from experience that when the story in an appeal letter is a story of success the letter will raise less money. Why? Because the most compelling part of the letter (the story) communicates to the donors that the problem has already been solved so the donor doesn’t need to send in a gift. The best letters present the donor with a Problem and then ask them to solve that problem with a gift.
2. The letter featured one story about one person. An earlier draft had two stories about two people. If at all possible the story in an appeal letter should only have one person.

Try implementing these simple, yet powerful elements in your next fundraising direct appeal.