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Fundraising Tuesday: How to Make Your Online Fundraising an Overnight Success

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GossipDid you ever wonder how to make an online fundraising campaign leap outside your little circle of friends and supporters and spread faster than a salacious rumor?

Did you ever watch something like the ALS challenge go viral on the internet and wish your nonprofit could do that?

Joe Garecht wants you to know a little secret: viral fundraising doesn’t happen by itself. You have to plan in advance to make it happen.

Here are the seven rules you need to follow, according to his post How to Launch a Viral Fundraising Campaign:

  1. Have a Plan in Place Before You Begin

  2. Start with Your Own Donors and Supporters

  3. Set Up a Hub and Spoke System for Your Viral Fundraising Campaign.  (In other words: everything points back to your website!)

  4. Never Call it “Viral Fundraising” *

  5. Treat it Like a Campaign

  6. Finding and Motivating Sneezers (people who spread it)

  7. Don’t Be Cheesy

*especially when people are worried about the coronavirus Covid-19!

If you read Joe’s full article, you will find fully detailed advice about how to set up and carry out your online campaign, including how to assemble your team and create and stick to a timeline.

Give me a couple of years, and I’ll make that actress an overnight success.

Samuel Goldwyn

If you want your online fundraising campaign to be an overnight success, you have to do a lot of good work before it starts.

 

Thank-You Thursday: A Sweet Gesture

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Central Square Theater TY

You pay for your tickets and you go to see the show, and an usher greets you and shows you to your seat. Before you can even sit down, you find a handwritten note on your seat. And chocolates! Sweet!

Are you in a good mood to watch the performance? Yes. Will you be coming back? Most probably!

That’s how Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA treats its subscribers. Are you treating your donors that well?

When a donor “buys the ticket” by making a donation, is your nonprofit letting them seat themselves, unnoticed? (In other words, letting your website send them an auto-acknowledgment and a form letter.)

Or are you welcoming them with a handwritten note?

Writing or personalizing thank-you notes will make you feel good. It will make your Board members feel they’re a part of the fundraising without having to ask for money.

Most important, personal attention will make your “subscribers” feel at home, so they can settle in to watch your nonprofit’s “performance.” If they’re glad they gave this time, they will tell other people…and give again next season.

P.S. Be a sweetheart to your supporters. Valentine’s Day is over, and chocolates are cheap!

Fundraising Tuesday: Ask My Name

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Hello my name is what?People’s names matter. Donors’ names matter to them. So, their names should matter to you too–especially when you are asking them for money!

But how do you know what to call them? Last week, I suggested that the simplest and most effective way to get the names right is just to ask.

You could ask online donors immediately, on the post-donation page of your website that thanks them for their donations.

You could also ask them when you call them to thank them for their donations. Or in a donor survey.

Keshet, the organization for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life, found another good way to ask which names to use. They checked how my wife and I would like to be listed in their annual report. Here’s the email:

Action Requested: How should we list you in our Annual Report?

Keshet banner

 

Dear Rona,

Thank you for being a supporter of our work for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life. In the next few months, we will be sharing Keshet’s 2019 Annual Report.

As a valued and appreciated donor, your name(s) will be listed in our Annual Report and will appear as: Dennis and Rona Fischman.

If you would like to request an edit or correction in how your name is listed, please click here.

L’Shalom,

James Cohen

Chief Development and Communications Officer

 

Pronouns: he/him/his

Notice how many things Keshet did right!

  1. The subject line told the donors why we should open the message–why it mattered to us.
  2. The name in the salutation matched the name in the email address.
  3. The closing was in Hebrew (“for peace”), affirming the Jewish connection.
  4. The signature included the name of a real person plus preferred pronouns–useful for all, but particularly important to the LGBTQ+ community.

Most important, however, was that Keshet asked what we wanted to be called. They saw the way the names were listed on the check we’d sent them, but they didn’t assume that was exactly how we wanted our names to appear.

They asked. You should too.

Because donors’ names matter to them. So, their names should matter to you too–especially when you are asking them for money!

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