Tag: writing

Quick ‘AI & Fundraising’ Thought

Steven Screen  |  Ask

Quick reminder: vanilla ChatGPT (or any AI platform) is not good at writing direct response fundraising.  Here’s why…

ChatGPT learned from a massive amount of publicly- and digitally-available fundraising content, but does not know how well each piece of fundraising performed.

AI sees zero difference between the e-appeal that raised 3x what you expected and the e-appeal that generated 3 gifts and $57.  It will draw from both appeals equally as it works on your appeal.

But sooner or later, someone in your organization or on your Board will say, “Hey, I ran your proposed appeal through AI and here are some improvements it suggests” or “Hey, can we have AI write our fundraising?”

Here’s what I want to say, but probably never would:  “Thank you.  We know that AI was trained on fundraising, but doesn’t know which pieces worked and which pieces didn’t.  So, roughly half of the advice it’s giving is going to make our fundraising worse.  Would you please figure out which half of the advice you’re passing along is going to cause us to raise less than we’re raising now, and let me know?  Thank you!”

All kidding aside, here’s the other true thing: AI is really helpful.  AI will have a good suggestion or two.  AI will complete a first draft for you, so you don’t have to face the empty document and blinking cursor. 

AI, when expertly trained and well-prompted, can write a pretty great appeal.

But if you’re using vanilla, untrained AI to create or evaluate fundraising, half of what it’s telling you will make your fundraising worse.  And it doesn’t know which half.

Overuse of Emphasis

Steven Screen  |  Ask

Here’s a portion of an email I received from a nonprofit last year.  I’ve changed the name of the organization and its location.

What I want you to notice Is how many things are visually emphasized using bolding:

There’s an old adage that says, “when you emphasize everything, you’ve emphasized nothing.”  I think that’s true here.  So many things are important that I don’t know what’s important!

Here’s the thing: when you choose what to emphasize, choose carefully.  Here are the rules I live by.

And remember that, when you choose what to highlight for readers, you are giving your beneficiaries a gift.  By generously curating the two or three most important ideas for your readers, you make your fundraising more accessible and easy to understand quickly.

And by making your fundraising more accessible and easy to understand quickly, you increase how many people donate – which means you can do more of your mission work to help your beneficiaries.

Make It Easy

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Make it easy.

If you look at the detailed results of a lot of fundraising campaigns, a simple pattern emerges:

If you make it easier, more people will donate.

Look at these data-driven examples:

  • If you remove links to your social media feeds from your website’s donation page, more people will give.  Why?  It’s easier to fill out the form and make the gift if you don’t distract people with other activities.
  • If you ask a major donor for a gift and you give them a deadline for when you need their response by, you’ll get more responses and more gifts.  Why?  It’s easier for donors to answer the question “can I give by the deadline” than it is when the ask is timeless.
  • In a direct mail appeal letter, if you include a reply card and reply envelope, you will generally raise more money than if you don’t include a reply card and reply envelope. Why? For a donor who wants to give by check, it is easier if they don’t have to find and address an envelope.
  • When asking for money, when you use a specific offer (e.g., “$57 provides an hour of therapy” or “$41 helps on child learn to read”) you generally raise more money than a more generic “will you support our work” or “will you join us.”  Why?  Using an offer makes it easier for a donor to understand what their gift will make possible.  Offers also make it easier for donors to know how much they need to give in order to make a difference.
  • When you write fundraising materials, you raise more money when you use everyday language instead of jargon.  Why?  Everyday language makes it easier for donors to understand, as opposed to making them learn your vocabulary.

Look through your fundraising messages and tactics.  Are there any places you can remove distractions, or make it easier to understand, or easier to take action right now?

Simple Test

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Simple test.

Here’s a simple test to run on your next piece of fundraising before you send it:

Glance at it and ask yourself: if you only had a few seconds to scan it and didn’t know your organization, would you know concretely how the world would be a better place if you gave a gift?

Because you’ll raise more money if your readers can quickly tell why their gift is needed and what it will make possible.

If you want to keep your organization around the size it is now, send out fundraising that takes readers a long time to learn what is being asked of them and what their gift will do.  Because the only people who will read long enough to find out are your “true believers.”

But if you want to grow, a different approach is needed.  To make your organization more accessible to people who aren’t “true believers,” you need to make it easy for a reader to understand, in around 5 to 7 seconds, why their gift is needed today and what their gift will make happen.

We have a tactic called “two letters in one” that we use to make the main idea accessible to anyone who glances at your fundraising and to give more of the details that a “true believer” might want, when they read more.

Because your ability to grow your mail and email revenue – and ultimately your organization’s impact – is unlocked when you send fundraising that activates everyone on your list.

What If Apple Advertised Like a Nonprofit?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Smart phone ad.

Here’s a fun thought exercise for you.

What if the companies that make phones (Samsung, Apple, Motorola) had to make TV commercials selling phones using the same messaging approach that many nonprofits use?

First of all, there would be no 30-second commercials.  All the commercials would be 5 minutes long because someone at the company would say “we need to tell people everything about us before they will buy a phone from us.”

All the commercials would start by sharing what year the company was founded in.

The commercials would not talk about phones you could buy right now.  They would only talk about phones they already sold a few months ago.

Each commercial would painstakingly detail how the phone was made and list any subcontractors.  “Our previous model was so effective because we thoroughly vet our high-quality partners; the display was made by Samsung, the camera module was made by Sony, the display was made by LG, and our supply chain delivered all components to be lovingly assembled by Foxconn, our Chinese assembly partner.”

The ads would avoid naming any specific features of their phones, and would instead use concepts like “your purchase, like a pebble thrown into a pond, will cause ripples in your communicating power.”

There definitely wouldn’t be any urgency, because the CEO thinks urgency makes him look needy.

And at the end of these long commercials, the company would mention that their phones were available, but certainly not ask you to buy one today, that would be rude.

If that’s what commercials for phones were like, when a phone ad came on TV, people would switch shows or leave to go to the bathroom.

But, weirdly, that’s the approach fundraising letters take all the time!    

My hope is that this thought exercise helps people see how deeply flawed the standard nonprofit approach is.  When looked at in another context, when our fears around money and vulnerability aren’t part of the equation any longer, the standard approach just looks silly.

This blog, and Better Fundraising, have been growing for more than 10 years because our data-driven approach works far better than the standard approach.

If you’re reading this, and any of the fictional phone company approach resembled your organization’s approach, click here and say hi.  Your donors have what we call “pent up giving” and you can be raising more money from them starting next month!

Writing for TV and Writing for Fundraising

Connor Owen  |  Repeat
Editing.

Working in television would likely be a writer’s dream… and probably a nightmare. Tight deadlines.  Limited budgets.  Constant revisions.  Wait – that sounds like life in a nonprofit, too! 

Maybe you have more in common with a writer in Hollywood than you realized.  You’re both up against a deadline.  You’re both dealing with executives speaking into your copy.  So, what else could we learn from our fellow writers in Southern California?

For some television shows, after their first few episodes, there is a quick realization that they are focusing on the wrong characters.

Let me tell you two quick stories where this happened.  

First, let’s look at The West Wing.  This show was originally intended to focus on the staff who worked inside the West Wing, not the President.  Main characters were set to be the Chief of Staff, Communications Director, Press Secretary, and everyone who makes the White House work.  They did not plan to have the President as a prominent character with lots of storylines.

But something happened after the first episode.  At the tail-end of the Pilot, Martin Sheen stepped in front of the camera as the President of the United States and delivered a handful of lines.  Soon after, his role in the show grew! 

Why? 

Because the writers and producers of the show were smart enough to realize that when the President showed up, viewers loved it!  So, story lines for the supporting cast were decreased, and the President’s story lines increased.

The same is true of the show Family Ties.  Michael J. Fox’s character was supposed to be a supporting actor to the lead actors who played his parents.  But after a few episodes, executives realized that Fox was why people tuned into watch.

So they made a shift, and Family Ties became centered around Fox’s character.

Now, how does this relate to your fundraising?

Think of your programming like characters in a television show.  You likely have one or two programs you focus on (these are your lead actors).  And then you have a few other programs (or supporting actors) you feature here and there.

As you write about different programming in your fundraising, your audience responds differently.  The really smart orgs that are growing are listening to that data, just like successful television executives, writers, and producers.  They might even shift what was once a supporting actor into a lead actor role because of how well it performs!

So, as you send your appeals and newsletters, be sure you’re tracking your data to see which programs your audience loves responding to.  And if the data says you need to feature one more than another – do it!  You’ll love the results. 

PS: If a show like Family Ties missed the fact that they had a star in Michael J. Fox who needed more story lines, maybe you have a program out there that needs featured in more of your appeals and newsletters!  Follow the data, and watch your fundraising results increase!

PPS: Not tracking your data?  You could start now.  Download our proforma so that you can know exactly how every fundraising communication you send is performing, helping you raise even more money.

‘Front Load’ Key Words

Steven Screen  |  Ask
First things first!

When you think about how to capture donor attention when there are so many things competing for your donors’ attention, here’s a tactic for you: “front-load” the most important ideas for your readers or listeners.

Sketchplanations recently published the following graphic that does a brilliant job describing what “front-loading” is and how to do it.  The author is talking about writing for the web, but it’s 100% applicable to any fundraising writing that’s going to individual donors, from a direct response email to a major donor proposal…

Our donors are moving quickly, and this is a great way to get your point across more quickly.  Because it’s a non-starter to make people wade through a bunch of content to figure out what you’re talking about if you want to grow.

Front-loading applies to sentences, but it also applies to your fundraising in general.  For example, front-load the ask in your appeals in the first few paragaphs.  If you’re meeting with a major donor to thank them for their gift and report back to them, front-load the idea that you are not going to ask them for a gift today.

You’ll see the same idea expressed in my posts Three Editing Principles and Put The Most Important Information First, but it’s great to have the official name for this tactic.

Now, the next time someone asks you why you’re writing in this slightly strange way, you can tell them that you’re front-loading, that you’re placing the words with the most signal right at the start – instead of buried in the middle or at the end.

What Should Your P.S. Do?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
PS.

A thoughtful reader recently wrote in with a question.  I’ve edited it lightly for brevity:

“Talk to me about the use of postscripts in asks. We currently use the P.S. as an extension of the core ask – for example, in our next appeal the P.S. asks donors to consider becoming a monthly donor. One of your podcasts suggested the P.S. should be a reiteration of the core ask. I would love to hear more about this.”

This is a great question, and one that vexes many nonprofits. 

At one level, our answer is really simple: we recommend that the P.S. repeat/reiterate the core ask because that is the approach that, according to all the head-to-head testing that I’ve done or seen, is most likely to increase the chance the reader sends in a gift.  *

So the question becomes, “Well, why does the ‘reiterate approach’ tend to out-raise other approaches?”

Here are the core ideas that are helpful to know:

  • According to eye-tracking studies, when most people first look at a direct mail letter, they do not read it.  They scan the whole thing first.
  • Often, after they finish their scan at the end of the letter, the P.S. is the first part of the letter they actually read.  When I started doing direct mail in 1993, I was taught that for the majority of readers, the P.S. is the first part of the letter that’s read.
  • So if the P.S. is about one idea, and the person goes back to the top and starts reading the letter and finds that the letter is about a different idea, we’ve immediately caused confusion in the reader’s mind.
    • In the example where the P.S. is about becoming a monthly donor, and the rest of the letter is about whatever the need is for a single gift, then the donor might think, “Wait, I thought this was about becoming a monthly donor, but that’s not what this letter is about at all.”  Confusion increases abandonment, abandonment reduces readership, reduced readership = lower giving.
  • Finally, a good P.S. taps into the power of repetition.  Brain science shows us that when something is repeated often, we become more familiar with it and we’re more likely to believe that it’s true.  This is why the best-performing direct response fundraising is often a little repetitive – and why you want to use the P.S. to repeat the core ask that’s in the letter.

In a nutshell, you never want to give your reader a second thing to consider doing before they have fully committed to doing the first thing. 

So, keep the whole letter about whatever the letter is focused on.  Keep the headline of the reply device about whatever the letter is focused on.  Keep the action copy on the reply device about whatever the letter is focused on.  Keep the descriptions behind each giving amount about whatever the letter is focused on.

Then, only after the reader has decided to give a gift and has ticked the check box next to the amount they are going to donate, then you can give them an option to do something additional – like make their gift monthly, or send in a prayer request, or contact you about an estate gift.

To borrow from the Dos Equis advertising campaign, Stay focused, my friend.

***

* I have both written and seen P.S.’s that take other approaches, and suspect that some of them have worked great.  That’s because there are contextually dependent times when a different type of P.S. is called for.  But those times are few and far between.  The model is the model for a good reason.

Want More People Interested in Your Organization?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Interested.

This is oversimplified, but still true…

At the beginning of a nonprofit’s fundraising journey, when deciding what its fundraising should be about, the nonprofit wonders,

“How can we describe our work to be as inspirational as possible?” 

Farther along on their fundraising journey, when deciding what its fundraising should be about, the nonprofit wonders,

“What do humans tend to be motivated by, and how can we talk about our work in a way that taps in to what motivates people?”

The second question results in creating fundraising that’s more interesting and relevant to drastically more people, which increases the amount of money the organization can raise. 

Why?  Because there aren’t that many people interested in your work itself, no matter how inspirationally you describe it.

But there are millions of people who are engaged by emotions, who want to see justice done, who want to right wrongs, and who want their gift to make a meaningful difference.  Focus your fundraising on how those elements are part of your work, and your organization becomes a lot more interesting to a lot more people.