Tag: Asking

Share Stories That Support Your Ask

Sarah Lundberg  |  Ask
What's your story?

Before my time at The Better Fundraising Co, I used to be a Director of Marketing and Communications for a nonprofit. But then the nonprofit I was working at needed me to create their fundraising materials from scratch, and I discovered a whole new world of expertise — it challenged the beliefs that my nonprofit and I had for how fundraising worked.

But we started raising a LOT more money. 

When we learned more about the role of stories in our fundraising, it helped us shape our fundraising pieces to perform better.

Our organization had GREAT stories, but we didn’t always share them in a way that worked effectively for fundraising.

Sometimes we would share a long story that would be full of details and symbolism and references to historical happenings. We loved these stories, but they didn’t seem to work when we were asking donors to give in direct response fundraising.

When we learned to use the right story for the right fundraising piece, our fundraising results increased.

Based on expert advice, we gave each fundraising piece ONE purpose, either asking donors to give or reporting back on what their giving had done.

We started sharing incomplete stories in our fundraising appeals, to show the donors the need that existed. These stories featured someone facing a problem that hadn’t yet been solved. This was an effective part of a piece where we were asking donors to give.

We shared completed stories in our newsletters, to show the donors what their giving had accomplished. These stories featured someone who had been facing a problem and also how the donor’s gift helped to solve the problem. This helped us report back to the donor and show that they made a difference.

This felt different to us internally.

For one thing, our stories were shorter and simpler.  But once we got the hang of it, finding and sharing stories was easier. We knew exactly what kind of stories we were looking for, depending on whether we were asking in an appeal or reporting back in a newsletter.

Something that makes me chuckle… back in the day when I was on staff at a nonprofit, the more I learned about best practices for direct response and email fundraising, the more I realized we’d been doing things the hard way.

Once we learned the fundamentals of what worked, everything became easier, including sharing stories. We knew what to do and how to do it.

When we started doing something that was easier AND raised more money – that was a win for us!

Read the whole series:

Make Your Copy Clear and Easy to Understand to Raise More Money

Sarah Lundberg  |  Ask
Make it easy.

Before my time at The Better Fundraising Co, I used to be a Director of Marketing and Communications for a nonprofit. But then the nonprofit I was working at needed me to create their fundraising materials, and I discovered a whole new world of expertise — it challenged the beliefs that my nonprofit and I had for how fundraising worked.

But we started raising a LOT more money.  Let me share my journey…

Something that made a big difference for my organization was creating fundraising materials that people could easily understand by writing at a lower reading level, using simpler sentences, and eliminating jargon.

As we started communicating differently, a whole host of worries came up. We worried donors would think we were talking down to them. We worried we wouldn’t come across as the “experts” we were.

We decided to try it anyway.

And none of the things we worried about actually happened.

We started to treat donors like the busy, caring people they were, and they appreciated it. We did the work to make our fundraising writing clear, so THEY didn’t have to do the work to read something dense and full of jargon.

Here are the main issues we focused on to make our writing clear and easy to understand:

  • Using short sentences and short paragraphs
  • Not using internal jargon that our donors wouldn’t easily understand
  • Writing at a reading level between 6th and 8th grade so donors could understand our fundraising writing quickly

It didn’t take a lot to make our materials easier to understand. It didn’t cost any more money or take that much more time. It just took working through some discomfort internally.

But changing these three things to make our copy clear and easy to understand helped us raise more money for our mission!


Read the whole series:

Get to the Point FAST to Raise More Money with Your Appeals and E-Appeals

Sarah Lundberg  |  Ask
Get to the point.

Before my time at The Better Fundraising Co, I used to be a Director of Marketing and Communications for a nonprofit. But then the nonprofit I was working at needed me to create their fundraising materials, and I discovered a whole new world of expertise — it challenged the beliefs that my nonprofit and I had for how fundraising worked.

But we started raising a LOT more money.  Here’s a bit about my organization’s journey…

One thing that made a huge difference in our direct mail and email fundraising efforts was getting to the point fast in our communications.

First, a funny (slightly mortifying) story.

When I started learning about direct mail fundraising, I had to face an uncomfortable reality that nearly every instinct I had as a marketing and communications professional was wrong for fundraising.

I remember telling Steven Screen (co-founder of The Better Fundraising Co. and now my boss) that I used to include the fundraising “ask” at the end of the appeal as a reward for the people who read to the end.

I wish I could include a snapshot of the look on Steven’s face.

What I didn’t know at that point was that almost nobody reads to the end to an appeal.

So almost nobody had been SEEING the fundraising ask in our appeals.

Gulp.

We adapted our appeal and e-appeal format to get right to the point in the first four paragraphs. We shared the problem and the solution right away. AND we asked the donor to give in the first four paragraphs.

It was bold. It was uncomfortable. Internal staff didn’t like it as much. Wasn’t it —impolite — to get right to the point like that?

But it worked.

More donors started to respond to our appeals. And the average gift went up.

Over time, it felt less uncomfortable internally. The team started to appreciate the new approach to appeals and e-appeals. It’s amazing how raising more money can help a team get over discomfort.

If your team is struggling with trying a new fundraising tactic, it helps to acknowledge with your team that change is uncomfortable and be willing to try it anyway. Raising more for your mission is worth it!


Read the whole series:

How a Strong Fundraising Offer Changes Everything

Sarah Lundberg  |  Repeat
Can you help?

I used to be a Director of Marketing and Communications for a nonprofit where I had minimal involvement with fundraising.

But then the nonprofit I was working at needed me to start writing their direct response fundraising, and I discovered a whole new world of expertise. This experience challenged the beliefs that my nonprofit and I had for how fundraising worked. But we started raising a LOT more money.  Let me share my journey…

The first thing that made an impact was developing strong fundraising offers for our direct mail appeals.

This meant we started being clearer about what the donor’s gift would do or promising what would happen when they made a gift, like “your gift of $50 will provide a food basket for a child while they are on school break.”

For years, we had been sending out appeals asking people to give but we weren’t that specific about what their gift would do. We asked people to give to help children in a certain country get an education. Or give to help support a church planter.

It sort of worked. The donors who were close to the organization and the mission would respond. But people who didn’t know the organization as well just didn’t seem to respond to our direct mail appeals.

“If they understood how important this is, they would give,” was a common phrase.

But how to get donors to understand?

When I started to learn more about fundraising offers, I brought back some new ideas, and we started approaching our appeals differently.

We started digging into the line items of budgets.

We started asking our program team detailed questions about how many people were participating in different programs, and every last detail they could give us.

This research meant we could put a dollar amount to doing a specific thing. And we could ask the donor to give to do that thing.

Instead of “give to help children in (country name)” we now had “give $35 to provide a backpack full of school supplies for one child in (country name).”

Instead of “give to support a church planter” we now had “give $5 so a church planter can reach one person.”

And suddenly our appeals started to raise more money.

The main change was that we were showing donors the difference they could make for one person with a specific gift.

I remember the first appeal we sent out with one of our newly developed offers. It was year-end — not a time of year you want to fumble things. I was… worried.

I remember saying to my boss, “What if this doesn’t work?”

“You know… it’s possible it won’t work,” he said. “But let’s still try it.”

Having a boss who was open to trying things differently was a gift. (I know bosses don’t always respond like that!)

But what it came down to was this… we could keep doing things the way we had always done them and get similar results. Or we could take a calculated risk based on best practice recommendations from an expert and raise more money for our mission.

And when things are only “sort-of” working, taking a calculated risk based on expert recommendations is a smart thing to do.

My organization went from raising around $10,000 from our direct mail fundraising appeals to raising $30,000, 40,000, and even $50,000 from our direct mail fundraising appeals.

Change can be scary, especially when you’ve been doing something the same way for years. But if you can work through the fear with your team, Better Fundraising can happen for your organization as well (see what I did there?).

You Optimize What You Measure

Steven  |  Repeat
Measure.

What you decide to measure is important, because it determines what you tend to optimize.

Take email fundraising.  One of the metrics that small- to medium-sized nonprofits tend to obsess over is how many unsubscribes they get.  For organizations like this, one of the core principles of their email strategy becomes “minimize unsubscribes.”

That’s absolutely fine IF the nonprofit is also measuring and prioritizing “the number of new donors acquired via our email list” and “revenue from fundraising emails.”

All three of those metrics work in concert to produce an effective email fundraising program.

But if the main operating principle is to minimize unsubscribes, you end up with an email program that asks for support less often than it could, raises less money than it could, yet is pleased with its performance because of how few unsubscribes they have.  Ouch.

Situations where organizations over-prioritize one metric happen all the time in fundraising:

  • Nonprofits that are constantly Asking for support raise lots of money in the short term… but have lousy donor retention rates
  • Nonprofits that relentlessly focus on ROI will see their ROI increase… and watch their impact shrink
  • Nonprofits who over-steward their donors out of fears around asking “too much”… will raise far less money than they could be raising

It’s easy to come up with a fundraising platform or strategy that just prioritizes one metric… but it never works in the long term. 

Sustainable, growing fundraising is all about getting your mix right: Asking and Reporting, high-ROI major donor relationships and low-ROI donor acquisition, a few more unsubscribes and more email revenue.

So the next time you’re in a conversation that’s focused on just one metric, ask yourself and your colleagues what other metrics you should be considering. 

Because if you’re optimizing for just one metric, there’s usually a dark side that’s being missed.

***

Related note: experienced Fundraisers are so valuable because they have the knowledge to help nonprofits “get their mix right” for short-term revenue and long-term growth. 

So we’re excited to share that if you’d like one of Better Fundraising’s experienced experts to help you “get the mix right” for your donor communications strategy and messaging this year, get in touch before this Friday night.

This page will show you how, for less than the price of an employee, Better Fundraising can write & design your print & email fundraising for you.  (We’ll get your mix right, I promise.)  🙂

And if you fill out the form on the bottom of the page before Friday night, we’ll honor last year’s pricing if you decide to hire us.  That’s a savings of $3,500.

Filling out the form by this Friday doesn’t commit you to anything.  But we love fundraising, and we’d love to help you!

Weird but True (and Important)

Steven  |  Ask
Strange but true.

Here’s something weird but true:

Your Staff and Board receive more of your fundraising communications than your donors do.

That might not seem possible, but here’s how it works:

The Staff and Board of a nonprofit tend to open and read everything the organization sends out… but donors don’t. 

Let me give you an example, and then I’ll share why this is so important.

For example, if you send out a fundraising email, almost everyone on your Staff and Board notice and look at it.  But if your email open rate is 30%, then 70% of the people on your email list did not see the email.

So your Staff and Board received an email, but effectively 70% of your donors did not.

And if you send out an appeal letter, everyone on your staff and Board will notice and take look at it.  But maybe 50%* of donors opened the letter.

So your Staff and Board received an appeal letter, but about half of your donors didn’t.

Play this out over the course of a year and your Staff and Board have received a lot more of your fundraising than your donors have.  Put another way, the Staff and Board understand how many pieces the organization is sending to donors, but they don’t understand how few pieces the donors are receiving.

Consequently, most nonprofits have an over-inflated sense of how much they are communicating with their donors. 

The Consequence

When Staff and Board don’t know this truth, they often inadvertently keep an organization smaller than it could be.

The Staff and Board base their advice on “how much communication is enough” on their own inflated perception, NOT on their donors’ lived experience.

Consequently, nonprofit Staff and Boards consistantly advocate for less communication than the organization could be sending out, which results in less money raised from individual donors.

At Better Fundraising, our general rule of thumb is that most individual donors see a little less than half of the fundraising an organization sends out.  Keep that in mind as you build annual plans and campaigns, and you’ll communicate more effectively and raise more money.

And if you’re at a smaller nonprofit where your Staff or Board are handicapping your fundraising because of a mistaken understanding of “how much we’re communicating with our donors,” please share this post with them.

Getting Staff and Board to recognize the situation, and then moving past the stage where “my Board/boss won’t let us send out any more fundraising because s/he thinks we send too much,” is a step made by every organization with a thriving individual donor fundraising program.

***

* This is an educated guess.  The published data on direct mail open rates is self-reported data, which is notoriously inaccurate.    

***

Hey, I’m giving a free webinar next Wednesday on how to make your most effective annual plan ever.

There are two main things I’m going to teach:

  1. How to know the times when your donors are most likely to give you a gift, so that you can plan your asks during those times
  2. How to tweak your “communication mix” so that you get more response from the same number of letters and emails

The free webinar is next Wednesday, January 29, at 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific.

There’s limited availability so that we can have a conversation.  This is NOT me talking for 55 minutes.  There will be lots of time for questions.

For more info, here’s the link:

https://betterfundraising.com/annual-planning-webinar/

I hope to see you next Wednesday!

Need an emergency fundraising email because of the LA fires?

Steven  |  Ask
Fires.

We’re replacing today’s blog post with a special announcement:

If you’re at a small nonprofit, and the fires in LA have caused you to need extra/emergency funds, we’d like to help: we will write an emergency fundraising email for you.

<< If you don’t work in/around LA, but know someone who does, please feel free to forward this post to them. >>

Watching the fires unfold this week has been heartbreaking.  We work with people who have lost their homes. 

Knowing how the nonprofit community jumps into action at times like this, there are hundreds (thousands?) of smaller nonprofits in LA who could use some emergency cash.  And they don’t have the time or expertise or budget to get out an emergency email. 

So we’d like to help.

If you’re at a small nonprofit and would like us to write a free emergency fundraising email for you, here’s what to do:

  1. Send an email to info@betterfundraising.com
  2. Give us a brief snapshot of what’s happening for your beneficiaries or organization
  3. Tell us if your organization is too small to afford to do this on your own, or if you’ve just never really known how

We’ll reply with a few detail questions about your exact situation so we know what to say in the email.  Once you send us the answers, we’ll write an emergency email for you within a day or two.  We’ll also send a handful of tips that will help you with emergency fundraising in general.

We made this offer after hurricanes Helene and Milton last fall, and it was a joy to meaningfully help the organizations who took us up on our offer. 

We are inspired by all that nonprofits in the LA area are doing right now.  This is the way we can help, and just like you, we’ll help as much as we can.

If you or your organization need an email, please get in touch!

Approach to Appeals

Steven  |  Ask
Appeal.

This month we’re sharing the ideas and strategies that had an outsized positive impact on the nonprofits we serve. 

Today’s idea is that there’s an approach to appeals (appeal letters and e-appeals) that, in our experience, tend to work the best.

Here’s the simplest summary of what the performance data leads us to believe:

  • The most successful appeals tend to be about the help that your beneficiaries or cause needs now, and how the donor’s gift will provide that help.
  • The less successful appeals tend to be about help that the organization has already provided, and request support for the organization.

When organizations change their appeals to be about the help that’s needed, and how the donor’s gift will help provide it, two things happen.  First, each appeal raises more money.  Second, the organization retains more donors year-over year.

Put another way, they start raising more money in the short term and in the long term.

Of course, appeals like this are only one element in an effective donor communications plan.  And they take a lot of thought to create.  For instance, appeals like this only describe part of an organization’s work.  You have to choose which part of your work to talk about, and you have to talk about it in an accessible way.

But if you create appeals that follow this approach, you’ll start raising more money immediately.

***

If you’re interested in what it would look like to have Better Fundraising write and design your fundraising, fill out the “get in touch” form on this page.  We’ll reach out to schedule a chat. 

And if you fill out the form before the end of the month, we’ll give you our 2024 pricing for all of 2025, a savings of $3,500.

For Overcoming the Resistance, We Thank You

Steven  |  Ask
Overcome.

There are a LOT of reasons not to ask for money.

At a conference earlier this year, we asked people to share what their biggest challenge in fundraising was.  The following list is just a small sample of the resistance that many fundraisers must overcome in order to ask for support…

  • “I’ve worked from age 10 to pay my way in life so it’s hard to ask for money”
  • “Being very new and not knowing where to start and expecting people to say no”
  • “My boss and his ideas”
  • “Fear about making a direct ask”
  • “Knowing how much to share due to the traumatic nature of our work”
  • “We have a private community that doesn’t want their photos taken or their story touted due to cultural tradition”
  • “Being too timid or just being intimidated by asking”
  • “Being new and don’t want to do something wrong”
  • “Managing all the tasks grants, major gifts, events etc. all by myself”
  • “Amount of permission / reviewers of fundraising pieces”
  • “I am a quiet person”
  • “Having the courage to talk about emotional stakes of children dying”
  • “Lack of any personal connection with our audience”
  • “My organization has a general unspoken theory of don’t ask”

There’s a lot that holds people and organizations back from asking for support.

So if you and your organization sent out fundraising this year-end, you overcame the resistance.  You overcame the fears, the bosses, and the hurdles.

You showed vulnerability and courage.

You served your beneficiaries or cause, and you served your donors.

Thank you.