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In a hurry? Want the best of the best – fast?

Here are the top five Better Fundraising blog posts of 2017, as voted on by savvy internet viewers like you:

1. Five Tips For The First Sentence of Your Next Appeal Letter
2. How (and Why) to Tell Unfinished Stories
3. Remind, Don’t Persuade
4. The False Assumption That Does Massive Damage To Your Fundraising
5. Simple Outline For Appeals That Raise Money

Plus the most-listened to podcast of the year, an interview with Scott Harrison of Charity Water. I was a better fundraiser, immediately, for having listened to Scott

There are also three other posts that we personally loved and think everyone should read:

• Why Your Donor Will Give Again from the Veritus Group
• Is Donor-Centricity Even A Debate Any More? from Tom Ahern. Long read. Incredible.
• Say One Thing At A Time from Seth Godin. Short. Powerful. 9 out of 10 nonprofits need to follow this advice.

That’s it. A little curated reading for you over the holidays. THANK YOU for being a fundraiser and making the world a better place – enjoy your holidays!

Short, powerful post for today.

You have one more week to make your online year-end fundraising great. And we’ve written a recent series of posts designed to help you.

I think these posts answer all the main questions that nonprofit fundraisers still working on their year-end emails, web and social would have:

• How to get matching funds from a Major Donor
• Lessons from 25 year-end fundraising seasons
• 5 tips for a successful online year-end campaign
• For small nonprofits; what to do after you’ve sent your letter
• Your fundraising should be more repetitive

There’s probably some repetition of core ideas in there. But you know that repetition is a fundraiser’s best friend, right?

It’s our hope that this is set of information is helpful to you. Or that it’s helpful in convincing your boss that the approach you want to take is tested and proven, not just something you made up or some yahoo on the internet said.

If you don’t have time to read all the posts, and just need what’s basically a template you can follow, check out our Year-End Digital Fundraising Toolkit.

As you make the most of your last few days, go boldly. YOU are the sacred connector between your donors and your beneficiaries or your cause. Because of you and your work, your donors get to experience the joy of giving. Because of you and your work, more people are helped and the world is a better place!

And stay tuned to the blog, we’re about to publish a sort of Benediction For Fundraisers for 2017. You’re going to love it!

Growing up, my next-door neighbor was an old guy named Mr. Barnett. He was kind, avuncular attorney. Great neighbor.

It wasn’t until later that I learned he was a hero. And it wasn’t until a long time after that I learned that you are, too.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I grew up on an island outside of Seattle. It has the unfortunate distinction of being the very first place during World War II that Japanese Americans were forcibly rounded up and relocated to internment camps.

Not the brightest moment in our history.

I learned later that Mr. Barnett was the attorney for the only Japanese American to challenge, through the legal system, the forced removal of Japanese Americans from their homes. Mr. Barnett took the course all the way to the Supreme Court, and was not a popular guy for doing so.

But he stood up for the men, women and children who were interred. And for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I was thinking about how I had no idea my next-door neighbor had done something so incredible. And my next thought was that most fundraisers have no idea they do something so incredible.

The deeper into my career I get (25 years!) the more I see that most fundraisers — and maybe even you — only barely grasp the important role you play.

You stand up for your beneficiaries. Who often have no voice.

You are their voice to people who have the resources to help.

Without fundraisers like you, how would they get help?

Like Mr. Barnett, you stand up for a person who needs justice.

And maybe the cause you work on isn’t one of the sexy ones, like “social justice.” Maybe it’s foundational like “supplemental math skills for elementary school kids.” Maybe you’re one of the few standing up for your cause. Maybe you’re the only one – like Mr. Barnett.

But you stand up.

Thank you.

As a fundraiser, you do fight for justice. Whether it’s for food or math skills. For immigrant rights or for a museum that preserves Quilting Arts. Over these next couple busy months, in the middle of this crazy year-end, remember this . . .

You are standing up for your beneficiaries or cause. Who often have no voice.

You are their voice to people who have the resources to help.

Thank you!

You already know that fundraising is so much more than writing your next appeal, or prepping for your next event, or talking to your Board.

But let me put words to how much more you do.

I think fundraising is creating a sacred connection between people who have resources and people who need help.

And that sacred connection is made by you and your fellow fundraisers. Which is amazing because less than 1 in 10 fundraisers actually likes asking for money. (That stat is based on my impromptu polls at conferences.)

I mention this today because it’s the busiest time of year. “Fundraising” seems like a series of tasks. Each day feels like a long list of things to do but not enough time to do all of them.

The difference between a fundraiser and a Fundraiser

I wish there was a difference in our field between “fundraiser” and “Fundraiser.” I think a person should only get the capital “F” if they know that fundraising isn’t ultimately about the money.

With training, it’s not that hard to be an effective fundraiser. Right? You can learn to be donor-centric. You can learn segmentation, and how you should spend more time (and money) on your Major donors than your Mass donors. You can learn to speak and write effectively. You can learn the difference between marketing and fundraising.

None of this is rocket science. There’s a set of accumulated wisdom our sector has created over the past 60 years, and it’s available to anyone with the drive to learn it.

But a person who knows all that AND knows — in their bones — that it’s not about the money? That’s a Fundraiser. That’s a person who is aware of, and loving, creating connections between donors and beneficiaries.

Notice I didn’t say ‘between donors and organizations.’ But that’s a post for another day.

But again, why take the time to write about and then send this to you today?

Because this is a call, to you, to be a Fundraiser

To know, in the midst of the year-end crazy, that you’re creating sacred connections. To know that your job is SO MUCH MORE than sending emails and pulling mailing lists. To feel — in your bones — the joy your donors have when they make a gift through your organization.

Do you feel that joy? Will you choose to feel it for the next few weeks? For every donor who gives a gift between now and midnight on the 31st? That’s a lot of joy!

Because if you do that, you’re going to LOVE the next few weeks. You’re going to write differently. You’re going to talk to donors differently.

And you’re going to raise a lot more money!

So please, when it gets hectic next week (or later today), remember the joy your work gives to donors. Remember the joy your beneficiaries get when they receive help. You’re doing that. That’s you. You’re a Fundraiser.

The “S” word that I’m talking about is “Segmentation.”

It’s the art and science of not treating all of the people in your database the same. Instead, you want to break them into smaller “segments.”

Here’s why this is important: good segmentation will let you save money on what you’re currently doing while raising more money. Segmentation is a 2-for-1 improvement to your organization.

Here’s what I want to provide:

A super-simple guide to segmentation for smaller nonprofits.

And here’s why I want to do it: most of the small nonprofits I get to work with don’t do enough segmentation. They tend to treat every person in their database the same. They waste money and miss opportunities.

Here’s a simple summary. It’s not perfect for everyone, but it’s a good start:

• Send your appeal letters to all donors who have given a gift in the last 18 months. (Don’t send them to non-donors, or to volunteers, or to in-kind donors, or to donors who last gave years ago – it’s not worth the money.)
• Send your newsletters to all donors who have given a gift in the last 18 months. (Same as above — as a rule, you will spend more money on printing and postage than you will receive in gifts.)
• However, send your Christmas/Holiday/Year-end letters to all donors who have given a gift in the last 36 months. This is the time to include your non-donors and your volunteers.
• Send your e-appeals to everyone on your email list.
• Send your e-newsletters or e-updates to everyone on your email list.

That’s it. There are about 15 ways that it quickly becomes complex. But the main thing to remember is that the people most likely to give you gifts are your donors. And organizations that really analyze their results quickly figure out that it’s not worth their money to send mail to people who haven’t donated in a while.

And here’s how you can use segmentation to raise more money . . .

Identify your “segment” of major donors and send them special versions of your direct mail.

Because your major donors can give you such large gifts, it is worth spending extra money on your mailings to them. Here’s what to spend your money on:

1. Larger envelopes
2. Nicer paper
3. Customized proposals in the mailing

The purpose of spending the extra money is pretty simple: it’s to increase the chance that a major donor will OPEN your mailing. And if you do that with your major donors, you will raise more money!

We made a free ebook to help you raise more money!

Here’s what Tom Ahern said about it: “Get it. Read it. Implement it. Make way more money.”

If that’s not enough, here’s a sample of what you’ll get. This is our “Story Type Matrix” — it’s 20 years of hard-won storytelling advice about what types of stories to tell and when to tell them, condensed into a single powerful page.

And that’s just page 13. There are 40 other pages.

I mentioned this is free, right?

Why would we give away this level of information? Two reasons:

1. There’s a lot of un-tested information about storytelling out there. Just “being good at storytelling” or “telling stories well” isn’t the magical fundraising tool it’s made out to be. What stories you tell, and when you tell them, matters a TON.
2. We’re sharing this because our goal at Better Fundraising is to radically improve the fundraising capacity of small to medium-sized nonprofits. That’s why we’re here. We’re constantly looking for ways, for free or at very low cost, that we can share what we’ve found (through vigorous testing) works best in fundraising.

Download your free ebook today!

“It’s like you have been in our office!”

We hear this every once in a while from new clients. It usually happens near the end of summer when we’re helping them create their year-end fundraising plan.

We make a plan and everyone is excited. Then we say to them, “This is great. But now let’s talk about what could derail the plan.” Here’s the list:

• A board member or program staff is going to object to the way a letter is written. At the last minute. Multiple times.
• Someone will get excited about a new opportunity. They’ll want you to drop what you’re doing and do their (untested, unproven) thing.
• You won’t actually start early enough. Things will take longer than you expect or (more likely) there are some parts of the job that you don’t like as much as others.
• Someone will run late. Your website doesn’t get updated or you don’t get the info you need when you need it.
• You’ll simply run out of time, unable to get everything done because there’s too much on your plate.

It happens to everyone. We all say we want a great plan. But then we don’t actually follow the plan and it never gets completed.

It happens to us, too. As I write this, we’re about to launch an online store with products like a tested year-end fundraising calendar proven to raise the most money. The plan was to launch a month ago!

Because we know your reality, we’re not going to give you trite advice like, “Have a plan and work your plan.” You know that already.

What you (and I) really need is practical advice on how to do our best fall and year-end fundraising when you know there are going to be a ton of distractions.

Here are the three things that have helped our clients. They aren’t “tips” or “weird tricks” — think of them as accumulated wisdom from the fundraisers that have gone before us:

1. Know how much money is at stake, and what percentage it is of your income.

In a word, this is the “why” your plan exists. You need to be able to say to someone, “We have a plan to raise $3.2 million before December 31st. That’s 40% of our total revenue.” Sharing the big picture quickly — and how important it is for your organization — is a very effective way to get things done. You’ll love how people will say, “Oh, you’re right, we can try my new idea in February.” Or, “That’s right, I’ll get that to you right away.” But if it’s just business as usual, we’re busy because that’s the way it always is, say, “bye-bye” to your plan.

2. Prioritize your priorities.

In addition to knowing how much money you expect to raise, know how much you expect to raise through your major donors, your mail, your email, your website, Giving Tuesday, etc. Then prioritize your time and attention on the actions that bring in the most money. That way when something comes up (which it will) or you run out of time (which you will), you can make a smart choice about what not to do. We’ve watched organizations focus on an email that will bring in $15k but neglect following up with a major donor who always gave them $50k. These types of things happen all the time — but not as much when you and your team have a list, on your desk, of which efforts produce the most revenue for your organization.

3. Publish your plan.

By this we mean, make your plan public. Post it on your door. Show the board at your October meeting. Talk about it in your first November staff meeting. Tell people what you’re working on and what’s at stake. They will be far more likely to be helpful in November and December when they know that there’s a really good reason why you’re so busy!

So, you still need to make a great plan. But use these three practical ideas to help you stick as closely to your plan as you can during the most important (and distraction filled) time of the year!

Gail Perry wisely encourages you to build up a strong and effective organization by investing wisely in your fundraising infrastructure. It’s a choice, but a very important one. In her blog she lists a few examples of how you can invest in your infrastructure. Here are the suggestions I’d like to highlight and I put my own twist on why I think these are important.

• Hire and keep competent staff. Your people make your fundraising plan go. You need to be willing to spend money to hire and retain great people. It is worth the investment.
• Now that you have great people on your team, you should invest in their professional development. Even a seasoned fundraiser will benefit from additional training and education.
• Purchase, use and leverage cutting-edge technology to manage and deliver your fundraising content. I’m writing this very blog post using an online software program that helps my team draft, edit and post content! How up to date is your donor database, email delivery program, social media management platforms, internal communication tools? Investing in new resources and training can create great efficiencies.

The big takeaway for me after reading Gail’s blog is that if you want to grow your fundraising results year after year, you should invest heavily in your people, systems, programs and technology.

Click here to read Gail’s blog. It is worth it.