Tag: emotions

Write scenes, not an article

Julie Cooper  |  Ask
Set the scene.

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

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Want donors to feel your mission? Stop writing articles. Start setting scenes instead.​

Tom Ahern once said to me, “Most copywriters are frustrated novelists.”

I was intrigued.

Tom went on to explain that at a conference some years ago, he met up with several other world-class fundraising copywriters at a bar, and they compared notes and stories over drinks.

That’s when they found they had one thing in common: they’d all written novels. (I guess the “frustrated” part of “frustrated novelist” came from not hitting Stephen King- or J.K. Rowling-level jackpot literary success.)

Huh. Interesting.

Brett has written novels…

And I’ve helped revise and edit them…

It struck me: this common denominator is not a mere coincidence. It’s essential to fundraising writing success.

You have to know how to put your donors right in the middle of a scene. That way, they’ll really FEEL the urgency, really SEE the need, really WANT to help.

Turns out, you don’t actually have to write a novel. You just have to understand what novelists know in their bones…

People are storytelling creatures.

Our lives are stories. We can never get enough.

This is why:

  • Stories bind us over the dinner table.
  • Stories connect us over social media.
  • Stories glue us to our screens (and books and…).
  • Stories help us “live a thousand lifetimes.”
  • Stories guide us away from bad futures and toward good ones.
  • Stories change the world.

A good story is immersive. You feel like you’re there.

So how can you put your donors “on the scene,” where the need is, where they can help?

First, set the scene. ​

Put your donors in a place and time.​
​
​Like this:

Scene 1.

Second, add sensory details. ​

Put your donors in a “body” that experiences the world. ​​

​Like this:

Third, add interior thoughts.

Put your donors in a mental space.​
​
​Like this:

Fourth, add emotions. ​

Put your donors in an emotional place.​
​
​Like this:

Fifth, add dialogue. ​

Put your donors in the middle of an exchange.​
​
​Like this:

If you do all this – if you write vivid scenes worthy of a novel, not dry articles worthy of The Wall Street Journal – you’ll put your donors in the middle of your story.

Your story will become your donors’ story.

Your donors will have a visceral connection to your mission.

They’ll get it.
They’ll feel what you feel.
They’ll want what you want.
They’ll be with you for the long haul.

Now that’s a happy ending.

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Steven says, “This guest post is from Julie Cooper, the ‘fundraising copywriter and donor communications specialist’ who I’m THRILLED to share with you.  Julie’s (and her partner Brett’s ) newsletter and blog are full of fun, practical advice.”

The Regular Kind, or ‘How to Break Through the Noise’

Steven Screen  |  Ask

There’s a “regular” kind of fundraising.

You’ve seen it before:

  1. Letters and emails that begin with a thank you, then tell a story of something good that the organization has already done, then a request for support that’s not particularly strong.
  2. The details of what the donor’s gift will help accomplish are often hidden behind abstractions like “you’ll deliver hope” or “please help their dreams come true.”

This “regular” kind of fundraising works OK when there are a lot of people are interested in your cause. Think top-ten subjects like hospitals, cancer, feeding children, higher education, you get it.

But if fewer people are interested in or affected by your cause, “regular” fundraising just doesn’t work that well.

In that situation, if you want to break through, your fundraising must be better. Sharper. Bolder. Clearer.

You’re going to have to make fundraising that leads, fundraising that’s different from the “regular way.”

Here are two pieces of advice to help you create fundraising that breaks through the noise and makes people care more about what you do.

#1 – Figure Out What It Is About Your Cause That Makes People Emotional

Notice I said your cause, not the specifics of your work. What is it about the underlying need for the work you do that makes people emotional? Talk about that when you’re asking for support.

To illustrate, I know of a Men’s Choir that figured this out. They used to do their fundraising the “regular way.” They highlighted how good their singers were, how technical their arrangements were, how impressive they sounded.

They raised a regular amount of money.

But their fundraising took off when they started talking to their donors’ emotions about the music. Turned out that many donors got emotional about preserving and sharing old songs. Other donors got emotional because the music reminded them of their parents.

Can you feel the difference between “Your gift will make the choir’s impressive sound possible” and “Your gift will preserve your musical heritage, and you’ll hear music that will take you right back to listening to it with your parents”?

#2 – Talk About the Consequences of Your Work

What’s the change your work causes that makes people emotional?

When you’re Reporting back to donors on what their gift accomplished, talk about that change. Not about your organization itself, or about what your organization does to make the change.

Your donors care more about the change than they care about how you make it.

When you Report back to donors and share stories that illustrate the change they’ve helped make, your donors will be thrilled they gave and more likely to give again.

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The “regular way” doesn’t work very well for small nonprofits.

If few people care about your cause or issue, does it make sense to spend your fundraising talking about the details of your programs? (Think about it – do you want to hear the details about a subject you’re not interested in?)

Instead, find out what makes your current donors emotional about your issue or cause. Get good at talking about that, and you’ll raise more money.

And you’ll have the added benefit of being more attractive to potential donors. Why? Because many of your potential donors have those same emotions that you’ll be talking about. This enables your conversations with potential donors to start on common ground. And that’s a much more inviting place for a donor than having to hear about the details of your programs.

It’s the difference between a potential donor receiving your fundraising and thinking, “I don’t really care about that” and them thinking, “huh, that’s more powerful than I realized.”

Connect With What Your Donors ALREADY Feel

Steven Screen  |  Ask
emotion

When organizations create their fundraising for individual donors, they usually have a goal that goes something like this:

Get donors emotionally connected to our work.

That’s a good goal – but it’s almost impossible to achieve in a letter or an email.

So I’d like to suggest a different goal for your mail and email:

Connect with the emotions that donors already feel.

Here’s why…

It’s easy to tap into a donor’s existing emotions. On the other hand, it’s hard work to teach donors about your work and then convince them to emotionally connect with it.

That’s too much to ask of a letter or email that most people will only spend a few seconds with.

So, construct your next letter or email to tap into the emotions about your beneficiaries or cause that you know your donors already have. You might know that they are angry about the injustice. Or that they are compassionate about the pain. Or that they get joy out of making the world a better place.

Whatever the emotions of your donors, name them for yourself and your team. Then build your fundraising to tap into them.

The result will be more engagement and more giving.

It’s the engagement and giving that will, over the years, result in your donors emotionally connecting with your work.