Tag: appeals

Want to See Expertise in Action – and Steal Ideas for Your Organization?

Steven  |  Ask
Direct mail fundraising.

The following is a guest post from John Lepp of Agents of Good in Toronto.

It’s a tour (de force) through a successful direct mail package. John calls out 26 different ideas that you can use for your organization’s direct mail appeals. (Many can be used for e-appeals as well.)

John and his business partner, Jen Love, know their stuff. This is well worth your time!

The summer (in North America anyhow) tends to be a quiet time for sending out mail appeals.

They can be a little hit or miss.

Late this spring, we were working on a June mailing for STEGH Foundation (who I wrote about this past January and their YE appeal).

And like the mailings before it, we applaud Amanda Campbell and the whole team at STEGH for going the extra mile for their appeals and their donors.

I worked with Rachel Zant on this appeal and we wanted to share the 26 ideas that you can steal right now to make your next appeal more successful.

I’ll go first!

Outer Envelope

  1. Was a 9”x6” envelope. Testing tells us that almost anything other than a white #10 will do better in the mail.
  2. It was closed face. It didn’t have a window. Makes it look more like personal mail than using a window.
  3. We asked the letter signer, Jacqueline Bloom, to hand write her name and return address for us and we scanned that in and put it on the outer. No logo, no focus on this PMS colour or this specific font. This makes the outer look more personal from Jacqueline to the donor. Which is the point. Obviously.
  4. We used a personalized mail indicia. Testing has shown us that a commemorative stamp > first class generic stamp > visual indicia > standard indicia > meter postage…
  5. We used an image of lilacs in the indicia. Anyone in southern Ontario would know what that is and instantly be able to smell them since they are everywhere and gorgeous at this time of year. All of these things add up to a highly engaging and ‘openable’ envelope.

All of these things add up to a highly engaging and ‘openable’ envelope.

Next is the letter.

  1. It was designed to look like a personal letter from Jacqueline to me, the donor. Personalized, indented, lots of white space, hardly any ‘design’ and used a large serif font.
  2. Emphasis. Look at what is bolded and underlined. Some donors will only read or look at these things and make a decision to give or not. Make sure everything that you highlight will keep them engaged or move them to give.
  3. We cut off the last paragraph on page one. I know a lot of people who HATE this. Think it’s a mistake. It isn’t. It’s done so the donor will flip the letter over to keep reading.
  4. We also used a helpful “Please turn over…” written by Jacqueline as well.
  5. We included a photo of Jacqueline by her signature so donors could envision who was talking to them in the appeal. Humans give to humans and we are constantly trying to remind donors that they are talking to other humans.
  6. Jacqueline’s signature is very clear. You can see she took the time to write it out cleanly so it is readable. This very small thing does send visual clues to your donor – that you CEO or ED isn’t so important that they don’t have the time to ensure that their name is written cleanly.

The reply form.

  1. It is full size. 8.5” x 11”.
  2. It is personalized for me. The donor.
  3. The gift array was also personalized to my previous giving.
  4. We included an option for giving $198,000 – which is what we needed to raise. Doing this might seem a bit cheeky (and it is) but there have been instances where donors have checked that box or at the very least give a little more than what they tend to since they actually know what you are going to do with their gift.
  5. It has a ton of white space.
  6. If a donor wanted to give online or by phone, we made it easy to figure out how to do that or who to talk to!

Finally, we added a lift note.

  1. Lift notes of almost any type tend to do just that – lift response. Try adding something that rounds out the case or adds a little more detail to the appeal in some way.
  2. We decided to add a photo of the thing we were raising funds for.
  3. We had Jacqueline write out the message, which makes it feel far more personal than just type setting it.
  4. We also included a business reply envelope, postage paid, for the donor to send their gift back in.

Rachel’s perspective and 5 bonus tips:

This letter started off as a bit of a struggle for me, I have to admit. I’d already written a great letter for this appeal – asking donors to fund a new ventilator. It was a slam-dunk, highly emotional, compelling letter about the most basic of all human needs: the need to breathe.

But then we found out the ventilator had already been funded. Back to square one.

We learned the hospital urgently needed to fund a new C-Arm. It didn’t sound all that exciting at first – not after a letter about a new ventilator during COVID. However, our amazing contact, Amanda, hooked me up to an interview with a wonderful hospital staff person who was able to tell me in great detail just how vital this piece of equipment actually was.

The ever-talented John Lepp suggested I imagine the sounds this machine might make (or not be making). And from there, it was pretty easy to start writing.

Here are my top five tips and takeaways:

  1. Start with YOU! You’ll notice I started the first sentence off with a “you”. Sure, the lead would still have been compelling without it – but the “you” draws the reader in to become a part of the scene. The next few sentences set that scene up in vivid detail.
  2. Short and sweet. I purposely started off with short sentences that are easy to read and scan. You want your donor to keep on reading until they get to the ask! You’ll also notice the lift note copy is very short too – just a handwritten note on the back of a photo.
  3. Ask for one thing. The ask is very direct, urgent and for one thing only! It clearly explains the machine and the need, and that’s it.
  4. Tangibility. I did the math and divided the cost of the machine by the number of donors receiving this appeal and it worked out to a nice ‘affordable’ amount for your average person, so that became our first ask amount. I’ve used this approach in other letters and it’s worked out well.
  5. Be consistent. The “Yes-line” or CTA on the reply form reiterates the ask in the letter. It’s not the same generic line used in every single reply form sent out. All the pieces in this package are related to the same subject.

We decided to share this appeal since on the surface, it’s one of those not too sexy, a bit boring and standard appeals you all should be doing but don’t take the time to since you are in a rush to get to whatever is next in your schedule or focusing on the shiny other thing someone in the office is waving around.

This appeal only dropped a few weeks ago but is performing very well and strangely, is reactivating some long lapsed donors at a surprising rate. (Donors who haven’t given in 6 to 7 years are responding at 4.2%!!!!)

If you want to talk about this appeal more or how we can make your appeals stronger this fall, please reach out anytime to chat!

John has a book coming out soon (which I will absolutely be reading). Sign up for their newsletter on their website if you’d like to hear when it releases!

Two Letters in One

Steven  |  Ask
Write a letter.

The previous post introduced readers to a big idea:

Successful direct mail appeals tend to be written to communicate the main message in a) just the areas a donor is likely to see as they glance at your letter, and b) in the letter as a whole.

Why? Because a large percentage of your donors will just glance at your letter and make a decision for whether to give – or not. And you want your letter to be effective for both “Glancers” and for people who read the whole thing.

So how do you write a letter that works for Glancers and Readers?

It looks something like this:

  • The top-center or top-right corner of the letter contains a short blurb about the Need or about what the donor’s gift will do to help.
  • The first three-ish paragraphs tend to summarize the whole letter. They share why the donor’s gift is needed, what the donor’s gift will accomplish, and ask the reader to send in a gift today.
  • The middle section of the letter tends to go more in-depth. It shares more details about why the letter is being written, perhaps shares a story that illustrates the need for the donor to take action, and shares a bit more about what the organization does in situations like this.
  • The last couple of paragraphs tend to repeat what was said in the first three paraphs.

The Result

This results in a letter that “makes the whole case” in just the first few paragraphs. This ensures that almost anyone who picks up the letter will know what it’s about – which results in more gifts. Think of it as making half of your donors understand more about what their gifts help do – who wouldn’t want to make that improvement?!?

This results in a letter that can sound repetitive to internal audiences because it repeats the main ideas in a couple places. But the vast majority of donors (the audience for the letter!) don’t experience the letter this way. To donors, it sounds like a focused letter about something they care about.

This results in a letter that doesn’t “sound like us” – because if you’re going to summarize the whole case in three short paragraphs you don’t have time to talk the way the experts in your organization normally talk. But remember, if your letter doesn’t “sound like you” I think you should experience “not sounding like you” as a positive, not a negative.

Your Next Letter

The next time you write and design a letter, first go look at the heat map. Remind yourself (and anyone involved with approving the letter) that you’re writing two letters in one.

If you can make your letter work for both Glancers and Readers, you’ve done a great service to your organization and beneficiaries.

How? Because you’ve lowered the barrier to giving a gift. Instead of requiring a person to read the whole letter to know what you’re writing about, you’ve made it possible for Glancers to know – in just a heartbeat or two – why you’re writing them today and what they can do about it.

Do that and a surprising number of Glancers will send you a gift.

And your regular Readers will still send you their gifts.

You will raise more money and do more good.

You will have sent 2 letters in 1.

Lessons from a “Heat Map”

Steven  |  Ask
Heat map.

The graphic above is what’s called a “heat map.” It tracks where reader’s eyes looked as they read this piece of direct mail fundraising. It also tracks the order in which the reader looked at each area.

There’s a LOT this can teach an organization about how to succeed in fundraising through the mail and email…

The “Heat Map” Lessons

Not all heat maps look exactly the same. But they generally look like this one, and they all teach the same lessons:

  • Most donors don’t read the whole thing
  • Most donors don’t read your letters in order – they “skip around”
  • Large type, and type in the upper right corner, will get more attention
  • They tend to focus on the beginning and the end
  • They are more likely to read words on the left side of the page than on the right side of the page

Many people at nonprofits find this news distressing.

I find it powerful.

Because once you know how direct mail works, you can use it to raise more money for your cause than you’re currently raising.

The Big Takeaway

So what do you do with this information?

Write your next appeal with the knowledge that you’re writing two letters in one:

  • One complete fundraising appeal needs to fit in the green areas (more or less). Because most people will scan your letter and decide whether to give a gift – or not – only by looking at the green areas. Your ‘letter in the green areas’ needs to contain everything a donor needs to know to decide whether to give you a gift today.
  • And the entire letter, from start to finish, needs to make sense for the minority of people who will read the whole letter and decide whether to give a gift or not.

The big idea here is that even though you only write one letter, it’s written and designed to work for BOTH groups of your donors.

The most effective direct mail appeals are written and designed to get the main message across in both the green areas and in the rest of the letter.

To do this well requires a particular style of writing. It’s a style that can be learned.

The tricky part – in my opinion – is to get people who don’t prefer that style of writing to see the reason for it and the benefits of it.

What To Do Now

So here’s the question: are your organization’s letters written and designed to get the main message across to both groups?

If your organization is writing and designing only for donors who read the whole thing, you can be raising a LOT more money.

If that’s you, here are the steps I’d follow. Make sure that the “powers that be” at your organization know about:

  1. Heat maps and the lessons they teach
  2. How you have two groups of readers
  3. How it’s more inclusive to write letters that work for both groups
  4. And how writing for both groups will raise you more money because you’re multiplying how many people receive your message.

In the next post, I’ll talk about how to write an appeal that works for both groups.

If this were a normal post, I’d go ahead right now and share how to write this type of appeal. But I find that it’s not the “tactic” of writing for both groups that holds organizations back from doing it.

What holds them back is either the belief that it doesn’t apply to their organization, or that they don’t like that style of fundraising letter (or email).

So let’s just sit for a couple of days with the idea that there’s a style of fundraising appeal that’s written only for people who will read the whole thing. And if that’s the style your organization is using, in my experience your message is not reaching a very large percentage of your donors, and you’re not raising as much money (and doing as much good) as you could be.

Don’t Limit Your Donors

Steven  |  Ask
Don't limit your donors.

Thought you’d like to see some advice that Jonathan Steck shared recently around the ol’ Better Fundraising water cooler. 

We serve a bunch of organizations who – perhaps like people at your organization – are worried about the increased amount of fundraising they plan to send out during the last few weeks of the year.

Jonathan is our Creative Director, and he sent the following email to our team:

Hey gang,

We’re getting a handful of clients lately who are pushing back on the amount of fundraising content we’re recommending be sent at this time of year. 

This is not unusual. 

I mentioned this in our traffic meeting yesterday, but one of the better responses you can provide clients who are concerned with volume at year-end is this:

We shouldn’t decide when the donor gives, or how they should spend their money.  Let the donor make that decision.  

The moment we (as fundraisers) stop sending appeals, we immediately limit a donor’s opportunity to give.  Organizations think they are being considerate of their donors, but they’re really robbing them of the chance to make a difference in the world.  

So, if the objection comes up, just encourage your clients not to cancel their year-end content.  Let the donor make the decision to give or not.  

Happy fundraising! 

I love this.  It treats donors like adults.

Don’t let fear set your boundaries for how much fundraising you do in the next few weeks.  (Or ever, for that matter!)

Quick Example

And here’s a quick example for you.  Jonathan and I just got out of a meeting with a nonprofit who followed our advice.  They just completed a campaign where they sent 18 emails in 18 days. 

They are thrilled with how much money they raised.  They raised 60% more than they did last year.  And they didn’t see any of the negative consequences that some of their staff feared: no mass amounts of unsubscribes, no angry calls from major donors. 

Just money coming in, day after day for 18 days.  Money they can use to do more of their mission.

Our Job as Fundraisers

Our job as Fundraisers is to be “sold out” for our beneficiaries or cause – and NOT to limit how much or how often a donor can give.

If you’re thinking it won’t work for your donors, or that your donors are special for some reason, read this.

This year-end, use optimism as a tool. 

And as Jonathan says, Happy Fundraising!

Getting Boundary-Stretching Fundraising Approved

Steven  |  Ask
Exceed expectation.

I’m fresh off the plane from last week’s Storytelling Conference, and there’s something I forgot to share.

It’s a simple, story-based tool for anyone who wants to try a fundraising approach that’s new to their organization… and needs to get their boss to approve it.

This tool doesn’t make it easy – a fundraising approach that’s new can challenge beliefs people have about how fundraising works. And beliefs don’t easily change. But it’s a start, so here goes…

Step 1 – Share What You Learned

Share the new strategy, tactic or approach that you learned at the conference.

Step 2 – Tell Your Story

Share how the knowledge of new strategy or tactic changed how you think. Give examples if you can, saying things like, “I used to think that it worked like X, but now I see that it can work like Y.”

Share how you think that the approach could help your organization raise more money and achieve more of your mission.

Step 3 – Share Why You Can’t Believe

Confess that you now wonder if the previous approach you took is really the best approach. You’re not “proclaiming” here – that can put people on the defensive because the meta is that “you’re right and they’re wrong” – and we don’t want that.

Confess that you’re wondering if the current way of doing things is raising less money than you could be and holding your organization back from doing more.

Step 4 – Share Your Conflict

Acknowledge that by sharing this you’re aware that it upsets the status quo, and that you don’t enjoy doing that.

Step 5 – “What Should I Do About This?”

Ask a simple, direct question: “What should I do about this?”

Be a good listener.

You may get shut down. You may find that there’s a possibility of trying the new approach.

Regardless, be solutions-oriented. Offer to look for a low stakes place to try the idea. Perhaps you can try it in an e-appeal during a dead time of the year? If people are worried about the Board’s reaction, take the Board off the send list.

Step 6 – Remember That You Are On The Same Team

If your organization is completely against the new approach, now you know.

But you will have honored the organization by introducing a new idea in a sensitive, thoughtful way. Their reaction is up to them.

What comes next is up to you. Some people in this situation will bring the idea up again a few months later. Some people will leave the organization. Whatever your approach is, remember that you’re on the same team right now.

Step 7 – You Can Always Ask For A Do-Over

If there’s no tolerance for failure, there’s no innovation.

That goes for your organization; if your organization isn’t willing to fail, they won’t be willing to try your idea.

But in this moment it also goes for you – you tried a new approach to get a new idea approved. And kudos to you; you took the vulnerable approach, tried to innovate, and were willing to fail. Good on you.

If it didn’t work, you can thank the person for listening, and in most cases you can ask if you can try again later.

In My Experience…

If you present a challenging idea in a sensitive, thoughtful way, you have a better chance of getting in a conversation about it.

If you get in a conversation about it, you have a better chance of it getting approved.

So whether you’re back from the conference and have a head full of new ideas that conflict with “the stories your organization tells itself about fundraising,” or just read about an idea that you want to try, give this approach a go.

Top 5 Appeal Tips

Steven  |  Ask
Top 5 Appeal Tips.

I’ve reviewed a LOT of appeal letters.

Recently someone thought to ask, “What’s the advice you give most often?”

What a great question! I immediately wanted to know because it seemed like the top 5 pieces of feedback would make a great “checklist” to share with organizations who want their appeals to raise more money. So we did the research.

From hundreds of reviews, here are the Top 5 pieces of advice I give most often when reviewing an appeal or e-appeal…

#5 – Avoid using pronouns in underlined or bolded copy

The main reason to highlight specific sentences and sentence fragments in appeals is to pre-select what you want most people to read.

Here’s what I mean by “pre-select.” Most people will scan, not read, an appeal letter. As they scan, their eyes are most likely to stop on emphasized copy. So by bolding and underlining, you are in effect choosing for the scanner the parts of your appeal they are more likely to read.

And if you’re going to take the time to choose a sentence for a person to read, make sure they can understand that sentence without having read the rest of the letter. Which brings us to underlining pronouns and why not to do it.

If you underline a sentence that reads, “He needs it today” the person scanning your letter does not know who “he” is and doesn’t know what “it” is. The person’s limited attention has just been taken by something they can’t understand. Not good.

Whatever you highlight in your letter should be able to be easily understood without the context provided by the rest of the letter. It needs to make sense if it’s the only thing the person reads.

#4 – Ask donors to help one beneficiary, not to help all the beneficiaries

Appeals and e-appeals tend to work better when the donor is asked to help one person – one beneficiary – instead of asked to help all the beneficiaries.

To give you an example, a foundation that supports a hospital would likely write, “Your gift today will help cancer patients.” But the appeal or e-appeal would raise more money if the ask was, “Your gift today will help a cancer patient.”

Why? Because when a donor is asked to help just one beneficiary, it’s easier for her to say “yes” then when she’s asked to help an unknown, larger number of beneficiaries.

Additionally, it’s more believable. Say I’m a $1,000 donor to an organization that helps kids. Do I really believe them when they say, “Your gift will help all the children we serve”? I know the organization helps thousands of children, and I’m pretty sure my gift isn’t going to help all of them.

There’s a rule I have in mind as I create or review any piece of fundraising: I need to convince the donor to help one person before they will be interested in helping more than one person.

#3 – Include no more than 1 or 2 numbers in an appeal

Most numbers in appeals need context and thought before the donor recognizes why those numbers are important.

But because most donors don’t have the context, and are unlikely to put in the thought, the numbers become a part of the appeal that the donor doesn’t really understand.

Think about that for a second; the organization is using numbers to establish credibility and expertise… but is pushing donors away. The numbers have the opposite effect than the organization intends.

The numbers can be GREAT for Foundations, Partner organizations, Government grants, etc. But not for mass donor appeal letters and e-appeals.

And of course there are some numbers that are good to have in your appeals – you can read about those here.

#2 – Avoid “we” and “our” language

Your fundraising appeals and e-appeals should sound as if they were written by one person, for one person.

It should not sound as if an organization is writing a donor. It should sound as if a person is writing a donor.

Are there times with the editorial “we” makes sense? Sure. Some parts of annual reports come to mind. Your website. Blog posts, too.

But in your direct response fundraising, sounding 1-to1 is the way to go.

#1 – The only good news in an appeal should be that the donor’s gift today will help

Here’s something we see again and again – it’s like clockwork.

We’ll start working with an organization. Their previous approach to appeals was to “share a story of something they’ve already done, then ask the donor to do more of that thing.”

We change their approach to appeals that “share what’s needed today and how the donor can help.”

Their appeals begin to raise more money immediately.

Note: you should absolutely share past successes. That’s how your donors see that their gift to your organization was a good decision. But share the successes in separate publications; your newsletters, your blog posts, stories on your website, in e-stories, and your annual report.

Focus your appeals on something the donor cares about but that needs help, and the fantastic news that she can make a difference with her gift today.

This is hard because it’s counter-intuitive. But it works like crazy.

Four Times You Can ‘Break the Rules Like an Artist’

Steven  |  Ask
Break the rules.

There are best practices for direct response fundraising for a reason.

Smart Fundraisers and organizations, looking at patterns over the last 70 years, have noticed that some tactics in appeals and e-appeals work better than others.

But there are absolutely times you can “break the rules” and succeed. Sometimes succeed wildly.

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
— Pablo Picasso

Here are four instances when you can break the rules…

The Story, or Storyteller, is Incredible

My general rule of thumb is to ask the donor to give a gift, and tell her what her gift will accomplish, no later than the third or fourth paragraph.

But if the story in the letter is so dramatic and powerful that it’s a good bet the reader will keep reading, you can absolutely work the ask in later.

Also, some nonprofit leaders are so good at storytelling that their letters just draw people in. In that case it’s also OK to delay the ask. But that happens in perhaps 5 out of 100 organizations, in my experience.

Fiscal Year-End

I’m always banging on about how it always works better to ask donors to “help beneficiaries” than it does to ask donors to “support the organization.”

That said, a “Fiscal Year-End Appeal” is as close to a sure thing as you can get.

Each year I’m a little doubtful because asking donors to “help us end our fiscal year strong with a gift today” feels like it violates my core understanding of how fundraising works… and each year it works great.

As an aside, a “shortfall letter” that asks donors to “erase the shortfall” will also always work well. And you can do them more often than you think.

Writing to major donors

As a rule, a major donor is more likely to read more of what you send them than a mass donor is.

So you can take longer to get to the point. You can be more relational. Your letter or email can be more personal.

Don’t ignore the foundational truth that a significant percentage of people will scan, not read, whatever you send them. But major donors are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt and read more.

The Situation is Extraordinary

The pandemic is a good example of this. The situation was so extra-ordinary that organizations simply could explain how their beneficiaries were being negatively affected, ask donors to help, and money poured in.

The asks didn’t need to be specific. Exactly what the donor’s gift would do sometimes didn’t even get explained.

But any time donors know that a situation is extraordinary and harmful, you don’t need to “follow the rules” as closely to get them to respond. This goes for most natural disasters, whether they are news globally or local in scale.

The Rest of the Time

In the meantime – when you’re not in one of the above situations – develop a practice. Learn as much as you can. Don’t treat any one piece of fundraising as precious.

Learn the “rules” like a pro, and you’ll know when to break them like a fundraising artist.

Creating Tension or Revealing Tension?

Steven  |  Ask
Tension.

I was speaking with a founder of a nonprofit recently, and she said something that was so good I knew I had to share it with you…

We were talking about sharing the needs of beneficiaries in appeals and e-appeals. I shared that we believed in sharing those needs, even though sometimes doing so made donors uncomfortable. Her reply was fantastic:

She knew those stories sometime caused tension in donors, she said.

Then she continued…

“When we nonprofits tell a story that shares the needs of a beneficiary, we don’t create the tension that the donor feels. The story just reveals the internal tension the donor holds between how the world is and how they believe the world should be.”

I love that! It jives with how I’ve always felt: great-performing appeals remind a donor that “something’s not right in the world, but it could be if you help.”

And it hints at why sharing the need is so effective in appeals and e-appeals: it taps into something the donor already knows and feels.

No education is needed. No programs or processes need to be discussed.

It’s like a shortcut to the donor’s heart. To what she cares about most.

Your donors want to make the world a better place. So share “stories of need” in your appeals and newsletters. (Save your “stories of triumph” for your newsletters and other Reporting tactics.)

Use a story to remind your busy donors that the problem your organization is addressing is affecting people right now, today. And that their gift will make a meaningful difference.

When you do, more donors will exercise their values by giving a gift through your organization.

And later – in separate communications – be sure to remind your donors of the good that their gift and your organization has done. Because if you’re going to reveal the tension, you should also reveal the triumph.

Organizations that only do one or the other aren’t raising as much money and doing as much good as they could be.

The Recipe for Recall

Steven  |  Repeat
Recipe.

My last post was a formula for how (and why) to get on your donor’s “automatic recall” list.

A formula is a concept – a helpful idea… but it’s not specific and actionable. And our goal here is to be specific and actionable.

So let’s get tactical. Here’s a “recipe” for smaller nonprofits for how to get on your donor’s automatic recall list.

The Classic Recipe

There’s a tried-and-true fundraising communications recipe used by nonprofits for 70 years that really works:

  • Regular relevant appeal letters
  • Regular relevant newsletters

The key here is the “regular” part. I’d say “regular” means at least six mailings over the course of the year, with more appeals than newsletters.

Today, organizations are layering in email fundraising in addition to their direct mail:

  • Regular relevant e-appeals
  • Regular relevant reporting stories

(Notice I’m not mentioning e-news. E-newsletters tend to be organization-focused and, while not negative, tend to be less helpful than Asks and Reports at helping donors reach automatic recall.)

The key, again, is the “regular” part. I’d say “regular” means about eight e-appeals and twelve reporting stories per year.

If you’re at a smaller nonprofit and those numbers seem overwhelming, please don’t worry. You can succeed with fewer communications. Plus, direct mail and email are only a part of your overall fundraising strategy.

That said, those numbers should give you a sense of what’s possible. Larger nonprofits communicate far more often than that, and they:

  • Raise a remarkable amount of money
  • Effectively identify new major donors
  • Experience the opposite of the mythical “donor fatigue” – they see high levels of donor loyalty

Every one of those bullet points is available to your organization. (Your donors aren’t any different from theirs.)

And if you’re sold on the idea of communicating more often, but doing so is a capacity / human resources issue, check out Work Less, Raise More. There are trainings that will help you create effective fundraising in 30 minutes.

Finally, know that the “recipe” mentioned above is a proven system in use today because it’s effective at helping organizations do two things:

  1. Raising money with each mailing (or email) so that you can do more of your mission
  2. Building “automatic recall” over time, which increases revenue over time by increasing your number of major donors and legacy gifts

You can communicate with your donors more than you think you can. It’s a habit you must build.

But it’s a habit you want to build, because donors in motion tend to stay in motion, and donors at rest tend to stay at rest.