Tag: appeals

How I Learned to Give Directions

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Give directions.

Back in the 90’s I received a lesson in giving directions, and I use that lesson in fundraising every day…

I was writing and producing radio commercials for a national chain of bookstores.  At the end of each ad, there were 8 seconds to describe the location of one of their stores.  And I was responsible for writing the description of each store’s location.

When I started writing these, my instinct was to start the description in the context of the store.  This resulted in descriptions like, “you’ll find us at the NW corner of Harlow and Prescott, across from the museum, in Byron Center.”

This approach puts significant cognitive load on the listener because they must remember a lot of details (which corner? what streets? across from which landmark?) before they even know what town the store is in.  And if the town turns out to be close by, the listener then has to “go backwards” and remember the details from before. 

Thankfully my boss corrected me and said something like, “don’t start the description from the store, start the description from a place the listener knows.  Always write from the known to the unknown.”

This advice changed how I give directions, and how I write.

My revised store directions were much more helpful to people: “You’ll find us South of Grand Rapids, in Byron Center, across from the museum, on the corner of Harlow and Prescott.”

My fundraising writing was better.  Before, I tended to write from the context of the nonprofit: “We have 4 programs to help people in our community.  And all our programs take a holistic approach to addressing the needs of junior high students who are behind in math.”  Today, I start with something the listener knows or understands; “There are local junior high students who are behind in math.  Our approach is holistic, and we serve them with 4 different programs.”

Going “from the known to the unknown” makes your fundraising easier to understand quickly because it reduces the cognitive load on your readers. 

This ability to meet donors on common ground – to write fundraising that they understand that then helps them see what their gift will make possible through you, is gold.

If you do this, more people will read your fundraising.  And when more people read your fundraising, more people tend to give to your nonprofit.

Ingredients vs. Main Dishes

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Jeff Brooks blog

Today I want to point you to a fantastic blog post by Jeff Brooks over at the Moceanic blog. 

Jeff writes about one particular letter…

I’m going to show you a four-page direct mail appeal I wrote awhile back. I had an unusually strong story to work with, and I was tempted to over-focus on it by using the techniques of creative writing and journalism. Fortunately, I caught myself in time and turned it back into a fundraising message.

I’m encouraging you to read this because the letter is very good, and it’s always good to be exposed to effective fundraising.  And because, as Jeff walks you through the letter, he also shares helpful lessons about how to tell stories that move people to give. 

Give it a read!

Appeal vs Appealing

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Cry for help.

If you feel like your appeal letters and e-appeals could be raising more money, let me ask you a question.

Are you appealing for help, or are you trying to make your nonprofit appealing?

I ask because, somewhere along the way, nonprofits stopped writing appeals that actually appeal for help. 

Our industry calls these things “appeals” because that’s what they used to be — an “earnest request for aid” — a cry for help.  They were letters about a negative situation and an “appeal” for the reader to send in a gift.  (And later, in a newsletter, donors were given updates on what their gift accomplished.)

I see a LOT of appeals, and not many organizations follow the original model any longer.  Instead of saying, “Right now, people are being trafficked through our local airport, and your gift will help put a stop to it,” they write, “Our holistic approach to training airport workers has successfully interrupted the trafficking of hundreds of people, please support this inspiring work!”

Which is a shame, because appeals that are cries for help raise materially more money.

So next time you’re sending out an appeal or e-appeal, read it out loud and ask yourself: would a stranger reading this letter know exactly who needs help and how their gift will provide that help?

If not, you’re probably trying to make your organization appealing instead of appealing for help.

‘But We Don’t Actually Do the Work’

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Middleman.

Earlier this week I wrote about focusing your fundraising to individual donors on what their gift will make possible, not on how your organization does its work. 

This advice immediately causes consternation for some organizations, particularly community foundations and what we might call “middleman organizations” that raise funds primarily to help other organizations.

For instance, I recently emailed with a woman who works for a local nonprofit that a) raises money to pay for the admin costs and staffing of a national program that runs in her state, and b) that national program engages the local community to c) utilize support provided by other nonprofits. 

Local foundations and organizations like the one above will say things like, “Well, we can’t tell donors that their gift will do anything specific because we don’t do the work.  We just make it possible for other nonprofits to provide their services.” 

However, I believe community foundations and middleman organizations can absolutely tell donors that their gift will make specific services happen.

I think what happens is that these nonprofits get too caught up in the difference between “what we do” and “what we make possible.”

As I wrote last week, individual donors are much more interested in what your organization makes happen than they are in exactly how your organization makes it happen.

There are lots of instances of this being true and completely above board.  For instance, international relief & development organizations usually have local/indigenous partners who “do the work” of feeding children, providing education, digging wells, etc. 

Medical research charities often outsource significant portions of their work, from bloodwork to testing to actually working with patients. 

My recommendation: don’t artificially limit what you say in your fundraising based on a belief that donors only fund your activities (how you do your work).  In our experience, donors tend to be more motivated by the outcomes your organization creates – what your work makes possible.

Your organization can absolutely make clear asks around providing specific services, even if those services are provided by another nonprofit/entity, as long as the donor’s gift provides funding that makes those services possible.

The Amount of the Match

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Matching dollars.

Here’s a super tactical, deep-cut of a post for you.  Save or bookmark this for the next time you have a matching grant to use in email or the mail.

Specifically, this post is about how to communicate the amount of matching funds you have. 

Most pieces of fundraising always mention “there is a match” and the “amount of the match” in the same breath throughout the letter.  You don’t want to do that. 

The fact that you have a match, and the amount of the match, are two distinct pieces of information.  And one of them is far more important than the other.

Here are the rules of thumb that we try to live by…

Guiding Principles

  • It’s the match itself that makes people respond, not the amount of the match.  Therefore, the amount of the match is not a piece of information we want to over-communicate or over-emphasize.  
  • The amount of the matching funds only needs to be mentioned once in the email or letter.  Sharing the amount honors the provider of the match, and lets donors know that the funds are limited. 
  • Include the amount of the match on the landing page and/or the reply card.   Do this so that donors who don’t have the letter or email will still see that the funds are limited.  But remember that other copy points like “the donor’s gift doubles” and “what the gift will do/fund” and “the deadline” are more important for creating a response than the amount itself.

Specific Guidelines

  • Even though you should mention the match itself early and often, mention the amount of the match just once in the email or letter.
  • Specifically, mention the amount of the match the second time the match is mentioned in the body of the email or letter.
    • For example, in the context of a letter I will highlight that there is a match on the outer envelope, in the upper right corner/johnson box, and in the first three or four paragraphs of the letter.  Then, the second time the match is mentioned in the letter, I include the amount of the match.  (This usually happens 1/2 or 3/4 the way down the first page of the letter.)
  • If you want to mention the amount again on the second page, fine.  But do it at least three paragraphs before the end of the letter.  Don’t mention the amount in the PS.

Edge Cases

  • If the amount of the match is so large that it’s almost a news item of its own, mention the amount of the match more often.  For instance, say you’re a small organization and you’re given $500,000 in matching funds.  By all means, mention it more than once.
    • But remember – for the donors reading your letter or email, it’s still usually more important that “their gift will be doubled” than “how big your match is.”
  • When using email or social to promote a match, mention the amount more often when the matching funds are almost gone.  As in, “There are only $570 in matching funds left, give now to have your gift doubled!” 
  • Sometimes the amount of the match is very important to the person / Foundation / Organization that has given it.  If you need to mention that amount more often for them, no problem. 

I hope these rules of thumb help you raise even more money the next time you have a matching grant!

Why You Shouldn’t Use the Word “Vulnerable” in Your Appeals

Steven Screen  |  Ask
vulnerable

Though I’m a great believer in being vulnerable when you create your fundraising, I never use the word “vulnerable” when writing fundraising.

And when organizations that I work with use the word “vulnerable” or the phrase “the most vulnerable,” I delete it.

Here’s Why

When you’re Asking for support in your appeals and e-appeals, what usually works best is to present donors with a problem that is happening right now, one that the donor can solve with a gift today.

The problem with the word “vulnerable” is it accidently tells donors that there is not a problem today.

According to Webster’s, Vulnerable means:

  1. Capable of being physically or emotionally wounded.
  2. Open to attack or damage

Look at those definitions again. In both of those cases there is nothing wrong right now. A person is “capable” of being hurt. Or is “open to attack.”

Think about it this way. Say you received two simple e-appeals right next to each other in your inbox. One e-appeal asked you to give a gift to help a person who is in need today. The other e-appeal asked you to help a person who might be in need sometime soon. All things being equal, most donors will give to help the person who is in need today.

By describing your beneficiaries as “vulnerable,” you’re focusing donors’ attention on the fact that there’s nothing wrong yet. You’re telling donors that there might be a problem in the future. So there’s less of a reason for a donor to give a gift right now.

By using the word “vulnerable” you’ve caused fewer people to send in a gift today.

Here’s What I Replace “Vulnerable” With

Instead of focusing on what might happen, focus on what’s happening right now.

What this usually means is that instead of focusing your fundraising on all the people who might need help, you focus it on the people who need help right now.

Here are a couple of examples…

“Your gift to help vulnerable children in our schools learn to read will…” becomes, “Your gift to help a child who is a grade behind in reading level will…”

“Your gift to protect people who are vulnerable to this disease will…” becomes, “Your gift will help people who have this disease by… “

“Your gift will help the most vulnerable…” becomes, “Your gift will help the people who need it most right now…”

If your organization uses “vulnerable” or “the most vulnerable,” edit your future fundraising to talk about the people (or a person) who needs help now. You’ll start to raise more money.

The Big Picture

If you stop using “vulnerable,” will your next appeal raise twice as much money? No.

But if my experience is any indication, I think you’ll raise more money than you’re raising now.

Two reasons.

First, even though your use of “vulnerable” is a small thing, successful appeals and newsletters are made up of a hundred of small things. The better you get at noticing and improving the small things, the more money you raise.

Second, not using “vulnerable” is a very real step on the way towards a powerful principle to operate by. The principle is that you’ll raise more money with your direct response fundraising (appeals, e-appeals, radio, TV, etc.) if you share the most compelling problems your organization and/or beneficiaries are experiencing right now.

Sharing a current problem (not a potential future problem) with donors is one of the ways you can break through all the noise and increase the number of people who send you gifts.

And anything you can do to break through all the noise right now will help, don’t you think?

This post was originally published on June 18, 2020.

Thermometers Still Work!

John Lepp  |  Ask
Fundraising goal.

The following is a hand-picked guest post from John Lepp.  Enjoy, and you can read more about John below.

* * *

I want to share a little story with you – with a point. Obviously.

There is one little phrase, that even to this day, takes me way back to the early days of my career.

“Let’s use a thermometer…”

I would silently groan.

We were coming into the holiday season of mail packs around the Stephen Thomas offices, where I was the main creative working with all of the various account teams. We would gather in the boardroom or in the smaller creative room and talk about the pack, and eventually, sometimes sooner rather than later, Steve (Thomas of Stephen Thomas) would suggest…

“Let’s use a thermometer…”

A visual of a thermometer says – we need to get here (with a goal, usually near the top) and we are only here (sometimes near the middle or at 2/3rds).

He liked to use them on everything since – “they worked”. And he wasn’t wrong.

They did what they need to do. “We are here but we need to be here!”

So my job was to try to find out what else I could visually turn into a thermometer… and through the years I discovered that everything and anything could be visually used the same way with some dots or shading or whatever.

“We are here but we need to be here.” This past fall we were working with our friends at Friends of Indy Animals for their holiday pack and this was the outer I designed for it.

The client, Becky, was uncertain. ”This doesn’t look very festive, does it?”

“No,” I explained, “but it speaks to what the appeal is about – which is a shortfall for your program.”

“‘We are here but we need to be here.” With cats and dogs.

The appeal went on to raise 200% more than the year previous. (Let’s acknowledge it wasn’t ONLY because of the thermometer.)

Thermometers in fundraising have worked in the past; they still work and will likely always work since they so quickly visually say “we are here but we need to be here.”

Agent John, over and out.

PS: Using a thermometer from a decision science perspective also taps into a number of cognitive and behavioral science principles:

  1. the goal gradient effect: people are more motivated to take action as they approach a goal
  2. social proof/herd mentality: when you have a partial filled thermometer, it sends a signal that others have already taken this action to give and we naturally want to follow the crowd
  3. incompleteness effect: a partially filled thermometer triggers unease since incomplete tasks (or containers) are psychologically troubling
  4. anchoring effect: an almost full thermometer signals that just a little more is needed, making donating seem like an easy win
  5. scarcity and urgency: as the thermometer is almost to the top, it visually signals that the goal is in reach, which creates this “last chance” effect that encourages us to give before it’s too late.

Cool eh?

* * *

Steven says: “The following is a guest post from John Lepp, the co-founder of Agents of Good in Toronto.   John has the best understanding of how fundraising actually works that I’ve ever met, and then he ‘turns it up to 11’ by being a great guy to hang out with.  You should subscribe to his blog here.”

Fundraising Strategy Session

Lisa Sargent  |  Repeat

The following is a hand-picked guest post from Lisa Sargent.  Enjoy, and you can read more about Lisa below.

* * *

As a fundraising copywriter I get asked a lot about strategy.

“How often should we communicate with supporters?”
“Is mail really better – or email?”
“What if our nonprofit can’t do the thing you suggest?”

For all the advice around strategy, you still have foundational questions. And you’re hoping for actionable, achievable answers. Fear not! Today we’ll get real-world answers to my most asked questions – sized for every organization – to help you grow your donor fundraising and retention communications.

Let’s dig in.

Question 1: What should an effective donor communications calendar look like for my nonprofit?

Answer:

First, let me say: I get what you’re facing. Everywhere you look, it feels like someone is telling you that you’re mailing too much or not enough, or the wrong stuff. But no one is sharing what a working (and workable), effective, sustainable, real-life fundraising calendar looks like. It’s time we change that.

I call this basic strategy the “dead simple donor comms calendar.”

Yes, there are variations. (After the basic plan, below, you’ll find two alternatives.) Yes, you may need to adapt these plans depending on the maturity of your donor communications program, the timing of milestone dates/events in your nonprofit, and the capacity/skillset of your fundraising team.

But this entry strategy is a great goal to work towards and, for the record, one of the plans my clients often use.

Basic 3X3 Donor Comms Calendar: [3 newsletters/3 appeals + reminder]
Approx. size of organization working this plan: $3 million+; 2-3 person team (**see Note2) 

Jan/Feb: Donor newsletter
Apr/May: Appeal
June: Donor newsletter
Sept: Appeal
Oct: Donor newsletter
Nov: Holiday Appeal
Dec: Holiday Reminder
Extra Mailings (*see Note1)

My design partner Sandie (aka Designer Sandie) and I have used variations of this to help clients achieve successes such as:

  • an organization that grew its active donors from 2,000 to over 20,000 (increasing to a nearly 70% retention rate), 
  • a nonprofit that grew its direct marketing income six-fold,
  • another that routinely saw 10+ percent response rates to newsletters,
  • another that cross-purposes its comms to attract new supporters, encourage legacy gifts, and promote new services.

*Note1: You will have other pieces happening at the same time. You may be modifying your calendar to incorporate other, special appeals. Bespoke TYs – custom-crafted to each appeal and newsletter – are built into these plans. For today, you’ll see these “extra” pieces labeled as Satellite Mailings at the end of each calendar.

**Note2: When I talk about the team, I mean on the client side. In my case, the other part of the team is me and Designer Sandie, plus the printer of choice [or print management company, etc.] our clients work with.

Here’s a second donor comms plan, one of the variations I mentioned a moment ago, a slightly expanded calendar…

4X4 Donor Communications Calendar: [4 newsletters/4 appeals + reminder]
Approx size of organization working this plan: Approx $8mil organization; 3+ person fundraising team (+ temp helpers for holiday) 

Early Feb: Thank-You Newsletter
March: Special Services Appeal
April: Spring Newsletter
June: Summer Appeal
July: Newsletter [includes special gratitude premium]
September: Autumn Appeal
October: Autumn Newsletter
November: Holiday Appeal
December: Holiday Reminder
Extra Mailings (*see Note1 at basic plan above)

And here’s another for a larger organization, that incorporates multiple special mailings and replaces one of the newsletters with a stewardship mailing:

Expanded Donor Communications Calendar: [3 newsletters/Specialized packs and multiple appeals]
Approx size of organization working this plan: Approx $20mil+ organization; 6+ person fundraising team 

Jan: Winter Newsletter
Feb: Tax Mailing
Mar:  Special Appeal
Apr/May: Spring Newsletter
June: Summer Appeal
July: Supporter Survey Pack and Survey Follow-Ups
August: Summer Newsletter
September: Autumn Appeal
October: Special Stewardship Mailing
October: Tax Reminders
November: Holiday Appeal
December: Holiday Reminder

Extra Mailings (*see Note1 at basic plan above)

Hopefully this glimpse into real-life communications plans shines a light for you on how to chart your own donor communications strategy – and feel confident doing so! 

Question 2: Which is better – email or mail? (The answer everyone wants to know!)

Fast answer: tl;dr – The answer is both, whenever you can.

Full answer [with side story and statistics]:

Not long ago in response to my LinkedIn post about print and older eyes, a nonprofit consultant who is over age 50 – they said so, fyi – wanted me to know “older givers” are tech savvy too. So why was I STILL talking about print? They wanted me to know they immediately throw away everything that comes from nonprofits in the mail!

The answer I gave became a feature article called How to Write for Older Donors, in my newsletter. And, so you know, I also use tech and am over age 50… and I advocate for print (direct mail) because results prove me right.

For today I want to share an excerpt from Chapter 4 of my book Thankology,which looks at why the answer to the email vs. mail question is always “Do both, whenever you can.” (fyi: all nonprofits described in the previous section on donor comms calendars do digital and direct mail, even the smaller nonprofits).

>> Statistic 1:  The effect of adding a communications channel***

Read as: What can happen when you add mail to an email-only program; or add email to a mail-only program:

A study of 2,000 nonprofits that ran from 2016 to 2019 and published in the Network for Good whitepaper, Our Digital Dilemma, found “a strong relationship between donor retention and consistent multi-channel engagement,” including:

“Nonprofits that increased the number of channels used to engage donors [from one channel to 2+] retained 11.89% donors year-over-year.”

>> Statistic 2: The effect of removing a communications channel***

Read as: What can happen when, for example, a decision is made that “no one wants print” and nonprofit moves from a mail/email combo program to only email:

“Conversely, nonprofits who were using a multi-channel framework but reverted to single-channel saw their median year-over-year retention drop by 31.32%. (A join Virtuous/NextAfter study of 119 nonprofits showed mult-channel donors give 3X more, too.)”

***Note for Statistics 1 and 2:
Network for Good is now Bonterra. I’ve searched for a new link to the Digital Dilemma whitepaper and can’t locate one. If I find it, I’ll update everyone in a future Loyalty Letter. You can, however, get the 2021 Virtuous/Next After study on free sign-up, here: https://www.multichannelnonprofit.com. The study also found that for “donors who give both offline and online…their first-year donor retention rate is two times higher.” 

To sum up?

Based on the research, and results we’ve seen over the years, the best answer is that if you want to keep your donors connected and giving, you’ll do both: digital and mail.

Question 3: For email vs. mail, what about thank-you letters? Do I send both? (What I told L.)

Below is the full text of the question that L. – a reader from a small nonprofit in the UK – wrote me about what to do if she can’t afford to mail everyone thank-yous, and needs to use email-only for some:

L. wrote:

As a small charity, with no real advice to hand, I am really focussing, at the moment, on creating and writing top notch Thank You letters to our donors. The one thing that perplexes me most is whether to email or write a letter and at what level of giving a letter is more appropriate or whether it is entirely acceptable to just send emails (bearing in mind the cost of postage in the UK is absurd).

Here’s my answer to L.:

If donors come to you via online donations, remember you need some kind of disclaimer that mentions you’ll communicate with them by post. (You want the option to do this.)

Gift acknowledgment may fall into the ‘administrative communications’ gray zone for charity regulations, but I’d check those rules first if you haven’t. It’s super easy to add a notice to your donation page, by including a variation of this wording below your opt-in boxes online (again run past your legal team or check charity regs first):

We’ll also keep you updated by post. You can update your communication preferences any time at [link to full email of donor care for your org here]. And for more information you can see our privacy statement here.

Then, for each appeal and newsletter, you can craft one version of a thank-you (TY) for post (mail), and one for email. All of my nonprofit clients send post and email TYs to every supporter who gives (and has given permission to contact). The reason for this is gratitude and acknowledgment firstly, and secondly because we know when donors give by more than one channel (online/post e.g.) they give longer and stronger (see data in Question 2).

With that said, knowing your charity is still small and growing, you could tier who receives both post and email TYs, and who receives email-only.

You’ll know your donors best. But for example, you might consider:

  • all new donors get both,
  • all monthly givers get both when they sign up
  • repeat givers (so, second gift especially which is huge in importance, and beyond if you can)
  • donors who give over a certain threshold/and loyal givers
  • tax-efficient givers
  • in memoriam/tribute givers, in-mems especially who we know have a connection to legacy.

Have a think on thanking these donors with an eye towards stewardship and retention, then as your organization grows, you can consider bringing more people into the double-thank-you strategy.

I went on to refer L. to my thank-you clinic on SOFII, free, no sign-up needed, gateway article here: https://sofii.org/article/how-to-write-a-better-thank-you-letter-and-why-it-matters   

Question 4: My head is spinning. Can you leave me with one suggestion to act on for today?

Answer: Yes! Spool up on – and start drip feeding across your communications – the opportunity to give through legacy donations.

By this I mean:  Help show donors how they can leave a gift to your organization in their will.

You’ll find tips on overcoming common bequest giving barriers – plus super easy ways you can start to incorporate legacy giving in your messaging, right here in my blog post, Legacy Logjams and How to Free Them.

The simplest of all? Get a legacy checkbox on your reply form (donation slip, reply device, etc.) It has not, for us, suppressed response to appeals, just so you know.

You can keep it simple:
[   ] Please send me details on how I can remember the work of [your charity’s name here] in my Will.

OR add emotion:
[   ]   I’d like to leave a legacy of love – please post free details to me on how I can leave a gift in my Will to [remember homeless pets, advance breast cancer research, etc].

One of our clients saw their first legacy donation about 18 months after we added these. We can’t prove this made the difference, but they had never mentioned legacy giving to their donors before that. 

* * *

© Lisa Sargent and Lisa Sargent Communications, used with permission. If you adapt or repurpose this content in any format, please be a guardian of good karma and get your proper permissions. And, of course, remember that this information is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered as legal advice on any subject matter.

Steven says: “Lisa Sargent is a fundraising expert and the author of Thankology, the best book on thanking donors that I’ve ever read.  You can (and should!) subscribe to her newsletter here.”

Lisa says: “If this mini-strategy session helped you, you can:

Subscribe to my Loyalty Letter newsletter for fundraisers
Connect/follow/say hello on LinkedIn
Check out Thankology (on Amazon or Bookshop)
Find free fundraising resources at lisasargent.com

“Thank you for reading today, and big thanks to Steven, Jim, and The Better Fundraising Co. for sharing a place on their blog.“

How Long is Too Long?

Lisa Sargent  |  Ask
How long is too long.

The following is a hand-picked guest post from Lisa Sargent. Enjoy, and you can read more about Lisa below.

* * *

My job is fundraising copywriting.

So if people don’t read the direct mail appeals I write, you better believe I know it. Revenue, response, retention, those things are going to go down.

Which means I also know – firsthand – that when someone tells you, “No one reads long letters anymore” – it’s rubbish.

But we’re not here to be combative.

Instead, I want you to think about your letters like a working fundraising writer.

So today we’re going to take that “No long letters ever” myth (because it IS a myth) and run with it…

Let’s assume you one day decide your fundraising appeals will not… must NEVER… exceed 1 sheet of paper. (DO NOT decree this in real-life please. It’s a huge mistake. Keep reading.)

Let’s also assume you want to format your letter for maximum readability (readability boosts response fyi). This means:

  • You need 1-1.5” for your nonprofit logo/letterhead
  • You want 1” margins left and right
  • You want ~1” for bottom page margin
  • You need type size set at 12-14 points, in a font that isn’t condensed
  • You need to tab (indent) your paragraphs
  • You need 1-2 lines for a page turn reminder (e.g., ‘continues on other side’; watch my YouTube video w/ John Lepp on this)
  • You need 1-1.5” for your signature block and side 2 sign-off
  • You may (or may not) need an add’l .5 -.75” for footer with your charity number, tax ID, disclaimer, etc.
  • You may (or may not) need a 2” address block.

I am NOT saying you can’t successfully write short. You can. I have. Lots of others, too.

What I AM saying is that after the above, you have about 750 words to get the job done.

Add a paragraph on both sides to ask for a gift, and you’re at, what, 650 words?

In the wrong hands these letters get real boilerplate, real quick. In real-life, this works so much better:

Make your fundraising appeals as long as they need to be to:

  • Tell your story with emotion, clarity, resonance, truth, and urgency, present a strong offer, and provide repeated calls to action.
  • Format for readability.
  • If you use photos (Designer Sandie and I often do), you also need space for photo captions.

From nearly two decades of measured results like conversions, click-throughs, average gifts, and response rates, I can tell you this:

Many of my best-performing appeals are 6-page letters. (Yup. Recently, too.) Many others are 4-page letters.

Several of these include multi-year control packs (a.k.a. banker’s packs, that have yet to be surpassed in terms of results and response).

Some are 2-pagers. None are postcards. And again, all of this is based on actual results.

Top emails? 450 to 750+ words. (More on that in a minute.)

So if your team is agonizing over short letter vs. long, have them focus instead on what no one really wants:

Inline
Credit: Photo (c) Lisa Sargent, Thankology [design: S. Collette]

No one wants a 4-page letter crammed onto 1-page/2-sides;

No one wants 8-point type with yawning wide line measures that skyrocket eye fatigue and create an Impenetrable Wall of Text (what do I mean? see above);

No supporter wants boilerplate EVER. They want emotion, a strong offer, life, authenticity, connection, urgency, love. 

Write the above into all your creative briefs before you mandate letter length, and watch your fundraising appeals improve.

For your emails? 

You can absolutely write longer (as in 450-750 words). But remember to keep it top-heavy: 

  • You have 1-2 lines to get to the point. 
  • Make your first call to action (i.e., Ask) within 140 words. (My best-performing emails do this in the first 90 words or so.)
  • Front-load your subject line (best parts first)
  • Below first call to action you can expand your story, and add repeated calls to action after that
  • Check out NextAfter’s research around plain-text emails (and, really, their entire Digital Research Library: great for experimenting with format) 

Now here’s one last tip, exclusively for Better Fundraising Co. blog readers (that’s you!)… just to really shake things up… one last letter that should really be just one page long.

Meet the one letter that’s really one page: Your donation thank-you letter.

In my book Thankology (on Amazon or Bookshop) there’s an entire chapter called “Clear thinking on the format fog: The core pieces your thank-you pack needs.”

The nutshell version is this:

Almost all the time, your donation thank-you letter should be a 1-page, 1-sided letter, specific to the appeal or newsletter or occasion that prompted it.

Why? Two reasons.

First, because you want the whole, wonderful thing to be visible when your reader opens the letter. Your longer appeal letter, remember, did the long-as-it-needs-to be job.

THIS letter, your thank-you letter, gets the short and sweet spotlight: All the love and gratitude magic right there on one page.

Second, because if it’s longer, you run the risk of it looking like an appeal. Want to add a photo? Why not pop in a little photo card? (Added benefit: your supporter has a mantle-worthy keepsake to remind them of their connection to your cause, and your lovely thank-you.)

Remember: Appeal letters are longer. Thank-you letters, almost always, are not.

Now the next time someone tells you, “Your letter always has to be one page or else,” you have a smarter, results-based way to look at things.

Go forth and write that appeal with great heart… as long as it needs to be!

* * *

Steven says: Lisa Sargent is a fundraising expert and the author of Thankology, the best book on thanking donors that I’ve ever read.  You can (and should!) subscribe to her newsletter here.

Did this post on letter length help you? If yes, you can:

Thank you for reading today, and big thanks to Steven, Jim, and The Better Fundraising Co. for sharing a place on their blog. J

© Lisa Sargent and Lisa Sargent Communications, used with permission. If you adapt or repurpose this content in any format, please be a guardian of good karma and get your proper permissions. And, of course, remember that this information is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered as legal advice on any subject matter.