Tag: appeals

Tips on Verb Tenses in Fundraising

Steven  |  Ask
verb

There’s a little thing I do when writing fundraising that people have found helpful. 

It’s about which verb tenses to use, and when to use them.  I use it to avoid the “eternal now-ness” of fundraising speak where the donor’s support has always been happening, yet is also always needed, and of course always accomplishing great things – all at the same time. 

You can learn it in a free video that Chris Davenport and I made over at the Storytelling Conference website.

It’s less than three minutes.  And really it’s less than that because the last 20 seconds or so is me making a pitch for the Storytelling Conference because there’s a sale on right now.  

But it’s a simple little trick that, whenever I share this at a conference, people grab their pens and write it down. 

Enjoy!

Mistakes in Fundraising that Work Out Well

Steven  |  Ask
mistake

Cross posted at www.FutureFundraisingNow.com.

What do you think when you see this direct mail fundraising envelope?

mistake

A mistake? The handwriting goes across the window… that can’t be on purpose, can it?

Turns out, this was a mistake.  A miscommunication between the designer and the printer.

Big problem?

Nope.  It worked great.

It’s the kind of “mistake” that usually improves fundraising.  An odd, out-of-place, not-the-done-thing that grabs your eye and makes you cringe.

More often than not, this kind of mistake works for you, not against you.

I was once involved in a direct mail piece that included a bounce back paper placemat. Donors were asked to sign the placemat and return it with their donation.  The placemat would be put on the table at a meal the donation helped fund.  It’s a good (and proven) way to increase response to meal-focused offers.

But here’s the error: on the reply coupon, there was a quick reminder about the placemat.  Despite many layers of quality proofreading, the printed final that went to out donors said:

Please sign the enclosed placenta and return it with your donation.

Are you cringing?

Whether you are or not, the piece broke records for response. A few donors wrote to point out the bizarre error – mostly along with their donation.

Why did this mistake seemingly boost response?

Our theory: Errors grab attention. And someone who’s paying attention is likely to read for a few more seconds, and therefore a lot more likely to donate.

So when an error happens, it may not be a problem.  It might even be great!  So great you’d consider making a mistake on purpose.

Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

Steven  |  Repeat
complain

I had three main goals when putting this series together. I want organizations to:

  1. Not fear complaints
  2. Know how to respond to the complainer
  3. Have a right-sized internal reaction to complaints

But that’s not easy. Complaints are a scary subject for many organizations.

An organization doesn’t usually just “flip a switch” and become comfortable with complaints. It’s a journey with a handful of ideas on the way:

I hope it’s obvious that I’m not saying you should attempt to get complaints. It’s just that, in my experience, every organization that’s reliant on individual donors is going to get a complaint now and again.

So it’s better to have an understanding of what causes complaints, and to know how sophisticated organizations deal with complainers and their complaints.

Furthermore, as organizations grow they begin to see that the better an appeal does, the more likely it is to also generate complaints.

That’s because a great appeal or e-appeal tends to tap into peoples’ emotions. Most people will respond by sending in a gift. But the more people whose emotions you stir, the more likely you are to receive a complaint.

My hope is that organizations will realize that complaints are a cost of doing business for a growing organization. And that receiving the occasional complaint (or even five complaints) is worth it in exchange for raising more money, retaining more donors, and doing more good.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints (this post)

“Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences

Steven  |  Ask
complain

Previously we’ve been focused on complaints from external audiences: donors and the occasional non-donor.

Today it’s time to talk about friendly fire: complaints from internal audiences. 

I’m using the term “complaints” as a catch-all for actual complaints and internal feedback/suggested changes like, “I don’t like this part because…” and “We can’t say that because…”

Just like complaints from external audiences, complaints from internal audiences happen for lots of different reasons. 

Let’s look at some common reasons Fundraisers receive complaints from internal stakeholders.  (In case it’s helpful, at the bottom of the post I’ve provided the beginning of a response to each complaint.)

Reasons for complaints:

  1. The fundraising letter or email “doesn’t sound like us”
  2. The fundraising shares a situation where a beneficiary needs help
  3. The fundraising shares a situation where the organization needs help
  4. The fundraising seems overly simplistic
  5. The fundraising only shares part of a beneficiary’s story, not all of it
  6. The fundraising only shares some of what the organization does
  7. The fundraising lacks data and statistics
  8. The fundraising does not talk about the quality or effectiveness of our programs

Complaints from internal audiences are complex because they come from stakeholders who wish for the fundraising to succeed, and they are actively trying to help.

However, they are also coming from people who often don’t have the domain knowledge about fundraising to individual donors to know what’s likely to work best, nor do they have the time to learn.  To make things even more difficult, what works best in fundraising often appears counter-intuitive

Add those things together and – even though everyone has good intentions – of course you get conflict and tension.

There is no easy way to help internal audiences begin to understand.  It usually takes a long-term approach.  And a real generosity of spirit, because you’re occasionally challenging peoples’ core values.

First – help internal audiences understand that the fundraising they are providing feedback on is purposefully created to be inclusive in order to grow the organization and its impact.  All the complaints above are made about fundraising that is intentionally crafted to be quickly understood by non-experts.   Almost by definition, fundraising materials that are created ‘to be quickly understood by non experts’ will not be attractive or motivational to internal experts.  Beginning the conversation with an internal stakeholder by showing them how the fundraising is created to be inclusive is successful because it appeals to a value the stakeholder has, instead of telling the stakeholder that they are incorrect and then asking them to learn a whole new way of thinking.

Second – warm, long-term fundraising education is needed.  Work with Board and program staff for an hour, every quarter, for at least two years.  Share what the experts share.  Teach the reasons behind the tactics (like this, for example).  Share stories you heard at conferences, and test results shared by experts. 

As with external complaints, there will always be internal complaints.  In my experience the organizations that live successfully in this tension allow comments on fundraising by anyone, and all comments are responded to.  But only a select few people (less than five) have final say about what’s included and what isn’t.

***

PS — The following is in no way meant to be comprehensive, but here are a few quick thoughts to have at the ready when one of these complaints comes in… 

  1. The fundraising letter or email “doesn’t sound like us”
    • In direct response fundraising, “directness” and “clarity of communication” give you a better chance at success that any particular voice.
  2. The fundraising shares a situation where a beneficiary needs help
    • One of the purposes of nonprofits is to bring awareness to the public of the need that exists.  If we only share successes, we are accidentally hiding the need.  Because some donors are motivated by need, and some donors are motivated by success, if we never mention need we are reducing how much money we can raise and how much good we can do.
  3. The fundraising shares a situation where the organization needs help
    • People understand that we are a nonprofit and that we need help sometimes.  If we never share that we need help, one of the consequences is that it sounds like we’re “taking care of everything” and less funding will come in.  It is good to be vulnerable.
  4. The fundraising seems overly simplistic
  5. The fundraising only shares part of a beneficiary’s story, not all of it
    • Staff and Board members are experts in our work, plus they have the time and interest to know and understand the whole picture.   Most of our donors and readers are non-experts who only look at our fundraising for a few moments.  If we require them to know the whole story before they donate, we’ve put up a barrier to them making a donation.
  6. The fundraising only shares some of what the organization does
    • Individual donors tend to have different values than foundations or grantors.  They are less interested in “all of our work” and tend to be more interested in “one part of our work.”  So our direct response fundraising to individual donors focuses on the parts of our work that they are most interested in. 
  7. The fundraising lacks data and statistics
    • Data and statistics are valuable to experts who have the context to quickly understand them.  The vast majority of individual donors don’t have the knowledge and expertise that we have.  That’s why a compelling story about a beneficiary is more likely to make an impact on a donor than a statistic.
  8. The fundraising does not talk about the quality or effectiveness of our programs
    • As a rule, fundraisers have found that individual donors are more likely to give gifts when their emotions are touched, as opposed to when they are told that an organization’s programs are effective.  (This is in contrast to Foundations or Grantors, who rightly pay lots of attention to the quality of an organization’s programs.)  So our fundraising to individual donors is purposely designed to engage a donor’s emotions more than it’s designed to communicate that our programs are effective.

***

PPS — I should mention that there are more and more people in the nonprofit world who do not like fundraising at all.  They believe that organizations should not have to fundraise. 

As you might imagine, people with this belief tend to dislike almost everything about fundraising because the whole operation offends them.  They can find something to change or complain about in any piece of fundraising.  Your organization could win a big award for having compassionate and effective fundraising… and a person with this belief would criticize the practice of giving out awards for fundraising.

While I sympathize with some of their thinking, I try to keep them as far away from the creation and evaluation of fundraising as possible. 

Here’s why, and it’s important: in my experience, people who do not like fundraising (and/or believe that it shouldn’t have to exist) tend to desire and create fundraising for the world they would like to be living in.

And fundraising that’s created for any world other than the world that donors are living in will not work very well. 

So, if they are working on your fundraising, the changes they will make will tend to make your fundraising raise less money. 

But what can you do about this?  Frankly, you have to remove them from the creation and evaluation of fundraising.

To illustrate, say you’re at a nonprofit that has two main programs, Program A and Program B.  If there’s a person on Program A who has a philosophical difference about how Program B’s work is done, that person is not invited to participate in program B’s activities.  That person should be valued and celebrated for their work on Program A.  They can be incredibly effective.  But they don’t help Program B do its thing so they aren’t invited to help.

In the same way, if there’s a person on a nonprofit’s team that has a philosophical difference about how the Fundraising team’s work is done, that person is not invited to participate in Fundraising’s activities. 

Easy for me to say – I’m a consultant.  I don’t have to deal with the friction and personal conflict this can cause.  But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how this situation causes organizations to create less effective fundraising and achieve less of their mission work.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences (this post)
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

The Harmful Big Assumption

Steven  |  Report
complain

When a nonprofit is discussing a complaint that’s come in, someone invariably says…

“…and if this person complained, there must be a lot of other donors who feel the same way but didn’t send anything in.”

This is a big assumption. And it’s made out of fear.

It’s a completely understandable assumption. It’s the same assumption I made at the beginning of my career.

I think people naturally assume that a complainer speaks for more people than themselves because fundraising can be awkward. Fundraising makes us feel vulnerable. Many people just plain don’t like it.

But if we’re going to make the assumption that every complaint indicates that there must be a lot of other donors who feel the same way but didn’t send anything in, I counsel organizations to make another similar assumption: that every gift indicates that there must be a lot of other donors who feel the same way but didn’t send anything in.

After all, it’s hard to argue that only one of those assumptions is true, no?

Put it this way: if you argue that each complainer speaks for other people, you also have to argue that each giver speaks for other people.

Say a complainer “speaks for” 5 people who didn’t send a complaint in. And a giver “speaks for” 5 people who didn’t send in a gift.

If you received 2 complaints, that’s 10 people who had a complaint but didn’t send it in. If you received 50 gifts, that’s 250 people who considered making a gift but didn’t send one in.

So, what’s best for the organization: making changes to the fundraising so that the 10 donors avoid thinking about making a complaint, or making changes to the fundraising so that the 250 people who were thinking about making a gift go ahead and make a gift?

Seems obvious, right?

What’s more, there are multiple proven tactics to help people who are looking at your fundraising to go ahead and make the gift:

  • Custom reply devices on each mailing and custom landing pages for each email
  • Custom gift ask amounts for each donor
  • Ensuring your online content echoes and reinforces your offline content, so that more donors will see the same message multiple times, which increases the likelihood of them giving a gift.

Now we’re in the realm of proven tactics instead of worry.

Big Picture

Complaints are going to happen to any growing organization that’s reliant on individual donors.

When a complaint comes in, don’t let a reasonable-but-fear-based assumption harm your fundraising efforts. Don’t focus on the negative.

Instead, choose to have an abundance mindset. Move from worry to making proven improvements.

The whole goal of this series of blog posts on complaints has been to help organizations get used to complaints, because complaints are a natural part of growth, and set up a system to handle complaints with the appropriate amount of energy.

When you do this, you’ll spend less time and energy on complaints. And you can spend that time doing concrete things that will help your organization raise more money in the future.

If you’re going to make an assumption about donor behavior, also look to see if the opposite assumption is true.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption (this post)
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.

Steven  |  Repeat
complaints

Donors complain for all sorts of reasons.

To illustrate, I’ve compiled a list of complaints that we at Better Fundraising have seen firsthand.

For context, all of these complaints were received by nonprofits that were growing, raising more money, and achieving more of their mission work than ever before.

Let’s get to the list. All of these are real complaints…

  • The donor whose spouse had passed away a couple days before and they couldn’t believe the organization would send them a letter at a time like this.
  • A donor did not like seeing pictures of what a particular disease did to the people who have it.
  • The donor whose name was spelled incorrectly.
  • The non-donor who did not like that the organization had their home address.
  • The donor (and Board member) who didn’t like being asked to provide matching funds.
  • The email subscriber but non-donor who felt the organization talked about the need for funding too often.
  • The female donor who was annoyed that the organization always put her husband’s name first.
  • The donor who received an appeal the day before from a different organization.
  • The longtime donor who didn’t like that the growing organization is doing more fundraising these days.
  • The donor who didn’t like the way the appeal letter made them feel, so they sent in a complaint and included a gift.
  • The donor who wished the organization would emphasize the positive more often.
  • The donor who complained that they receive too much email from all the charities they support
  • The legacy donor who complained that the organization published her name
  • The legacy donor who complained that the organization did not publish their name

This list could be a lot longer. You’ve almost certainly received a complaint of some kind that isn’t on this list.

Some of the complaints are legit. Some are unique to the complainer’s particular situation.

And remember, all these complaints were received by organizations that were applying fundraising’s virtuous circle to ask people for gifts, thank donors, and reporting back to donors on what their gift helped accomplish. Their overall fundraising was going great.

The Lesson

Once you see a list like this, you begin to realize that many of the complaints organizations receive are unique to the person making the complaint at that time and place in their life.

Their particular set of circumstances + that particular moment in time + your fundraising = their complaint.

In other words, the complainer is speaking only for themselves. They are not speaking for anyone else.

Of course, all complaints should be responded to warmly, and with the right “internal level of reaction.” And of course you want to fix data errors, use people’s preferred salutation, etc.

But too often organizations will receive a complaint, not ask any questions to learn more, and assume, “well if this person complained there must be loads of others who feel the same way.”

If your fundraising is going well, that’s a massive assumption.

Our advice: assume that a complainer is only speaking for themselves until proven otherwise.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain. (this post)
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

The Big Shift

Steven  |  Ask
shift

When most organizations write an appeal letter, they believe that the letter needs to convince the donor to support the organization. 

That approach results in appeals that don’t raise as much as they could. 

There’s a simple shift in thinking that results in appeals, e-appeals and newsletters that raise more money…

The Big Shift

The “shift” is this: moving from “trying to get the reader to support our organization” to “trying to get the reader to do one powerful thing for one beneficiary.”

That’s the Big Shift.

And when you write a letter that asks your reader to do one powerful thing for one beneficiary, you end up with a letter that raises more money.

It raises more money for a host of reasons, but here’s the main one: you’ve asked your donor to do something easier.  And when you ask your donors to do something easier (as opposed to something harder) you get more gifts.

Because asking a donor to support your organization is a Big Ask.  It means supporting your vision, your strategy, your cause, your accounting, your staffing structure, your… everything.

That’s a Big Ask because it asks your donor to do a lot.  That’s fine when you’re talking to a Foundation, or submitting a long application for a grant.

But not when you’re doing direct response fundraising and you have your donor’s attention for a few seconds.

You want to make it easier for them to say “yes,” not harder.  You need to make the shift.

To make this happen, customize the “one meaningful thing” for your organization.  Maybe it’s moving a piece of legislation forward by one small step.  Maybe it’s giving one person the tools they need to advocate for your cause.  Maybe it’s making the experience of a cancer patient just a little bit easier. 

You get the idea.

When you ask for something smaller, you’ll get more yesses.  And you’ll get more second yesses and third yesses.  Then you’ll raise more money. 

What Happens Next

Here’s what happens when you internalize this shift…

Your appeal letters become easier to write.  Because rather than trying to convince them to support your whole organization, you’re just trying to convince them to do one thing for one beneficiary. 

And you raise more money.  It’s a proven approach.

Pushback

As you make the Big Shift, you’ll notice something.

When you write appeals, you’ll find yourself (out of habit) inserting boilerplate copy about your organization – those phrases you’ve always used in the past.

And you immediately notice that those boilerplate phrases make your letter less interesting and less powerful. 

You’ll start to see how the way you used to communicate was boring to everyone but insiders and core donors. 

Additionally, when you circulate a draft of a letter that has made the shift, some well-meaning person will say “But we also have to mention our program that does X…”  And someone else will say, “We need to add a couple paragraphs about how effective we are…”

And you will see how neither of those things make your letter more likely to convince a donor to do one meaningful thing for one beneficiary. 

The Big Fear

The big fear that organizations tend to have around this approach is this: if I ask for something smaller, will my larger donors start giving smaller gifts?

In my experience (27 years and counting) this doesn’t happen.  In fact, what’s more likely to happen is that you’ll start getting second gifts from your major donors – gifts that are in addition to what they normally give!

The Leap

The “big shift” is one of the shifts in thinking that helps organizations make “the leap” to the next level of fundraising success. 

It helps them create fundraising that is attractive to more people than just insiders and core donors.  It helps them create fundraising that acquires more new donors.  It helps them grow.

The Time to Shift is Now

I hope you and your organization have made the Big Shift.  I believe in the extraordinary generosity of donors – we’ve seen it this year more than ever.  But I also believe this is going to be a competitive fundraising environment for at least the next several months.

Making it easier for your donors to say “yes” is a tool – a way of thinking – you should use to fund your mission.  So make the “big shift” and start raising more money!  

This post was originally published on October 27, 2020.

The Trend in Fundraising I’m Worried About

Steven  |  Ask
need

I saw a lot of fundraising at year-end.

Halfway through December I began to notice a trend:

Almost none of the year-end fundraising mentioned that any help was needed.

Specifically, I noticed two things:

  • The fundraising did not mention that the organization needed any help. It sounded like the organizations were helping everybody they came across and that everything was going great.
  • The fundraising did not mention that the beneficiaries or cause needed any help. It sounded like everyone was being helped and all the problems had been solved.

I don’t know if that’s a big trend. It’s just what I saw in the fundraising I received from organizations that my wife and I donate to that I’m not connected to.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing direct response fundraising for so long. Maybe it’s because I’ve watched so many organizations start raising more money immediately when they start saying that they need help. Maybe it’s because in all the testing I’ve done or been a part of, “sharing a need that the donor can help meet” is clearly one of the biggest keys to success.

But it just seems deeply weird that, during the biggest season of giving, all these nonprofits are communicating to their donors that everything is going great.

During the time of year when more people are going to read an organization’s fundraising than any other time, the donors are told that everything is going great. It’s implied that the donor’s help isn’t really needed today.

Talk about a missed opportunity!

So, if your organization’s year-end fundraising didn’t raise as much as you would have liked, review your appeals/emails/major donor asks. Check to see if:

  • Your fundraising told the donor that their help is needed?
  • Your fundraising told the donor that your beneficiaries or cause need help?

If neither of those two ideas are present in your year-end fundraising, add them in next year and you’ll raise more money.

And if you want to raise more money all year long, add them any time you’re Asking for support.

Help Your Donor Imagine Herself Making A Gift

Steven  |  Ask
imagine

This year for the holidays I’m sharing the thinking and stories behind my fundraising posts that got the most reactions on social media.

Here’s #7, #6, #5 and #4.

As we get closer to Christmas, here’s #3…

In direct response, ask donors to do something that’s doable by 1 donor. “Will you provide 1 new library book” will work better than “will you provide new library books to local children.”

Big Idea: if your donor can imagine herself giving a gift, and imagine that her gift will do what you say it will do, she’s more likely to give you a gift.

Say you’re a local library and you’re raising money to buy new children’s books. You write a letter to your donor telling her that her gift of $20 will provide one new library book.

It is EASY for your donor to imagine herself doing that. She can afford $20, so it’s easy for her to imagine herself giving that much. And $20 seems like it’s about what a library book might cost. And the organization is a library, so of course they are going to buy the books.

In that scenario, it was easy for the donor to imagine herself giving a gift. And it was easy for her to imagine that her gift would do what the organization said it would: provide one new library book.

Great, no problem, a gift is on the way!

But now, say you’re a local library and you’re raising money to buy new children’s books. You write a letter to your donor telling her that her gift will provide new library books.

It’s harder for a donor to imagine herself doing that. She doesn’t know how much one book costs, so she doesn’t know how much to give. And she knows that she can’t give enough to provide books for all of the local children, so how much help will she really be providing, anyway?

In that scenario, it’s harder for the donor to imagine herself giving a gift. She doesn’t know how much to give, and doesn’t specifically know what it will accomplish.

When it’s harder for a donor to imagine herself giving you a gift, you receive fewer gifts.

Plus, there’s another reason that asking donors to do one small thing (like providing a library book) works so well: it gives the donor the chance to completely solve one problem.

When a donor is asked to give one book, she can give a gift and solve that problem. She did what she was asked to do. She feels great.

But what if a donor is asked to “provide library books for all the local children”? The donor knows that unless she gives a massive gift, she won’t solve that problem.

In general, most individual donors prefer to feel like they’ve “solved a problem” more than “being part of the solution.”

Will you raise money either way? Of course. Donors are generous, and we live in a fundraising-friendly world.

But you’ll tend to raise more money if you give your donor a smaller problem that she can easily, completely solve.

The Next Question Everyone Asks

The next question everyone asks is whether all the donors (even the majors) will only give enough to “pay for one book.”

The short answer is no. Donors tend to give at the levels they are already giving at. And if the gift asks on your reply card are customized based on each donor’s giving history, then they will likely give the same or more than they gave last time.

What To Do

So in your fundraising for 2023, pay special attention to how you describe what your donor’s gift will accomplish. If you give her problems that are easy to solve and easy to say “yes” to, you’ll raise more money.

Think of it this way: don’t ask your donor to fund your organization’s mission. Instead, break up your mission into small “units” and ask your donor to fund one unit.

You’ll lower the barrier of entry for your donors. You’ll make it easier for them to imagine giving you a gift. You’ll raise more money. By breaking your mission down into smaller units, you’ll fund more of it!