Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

When Multiple Photos are Better than One

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Thanks for coming along for the ride as I learn how to get more visual in nonprofit communications!

Let’s say you have a bunch of photos from a nonprofit event. How do you use them to tell your story?

Often, the best thing to do is to find just one photo, of one person, that says what you want to say. Your audience will focus in on one person better than two, three, or a hundred.

(That’s especially important when you’re trying to raise money. One story will win donations. Many? They’re likely to be forgotten.)

When is it better to use multiple photos? When you can combine them to tell a story.

What Makes a Story a Story?

A story is not just one darn thing after another. It’s not a timeline or a list of events.

A real story has a character you care about, who wants or needs something and can’t get it. They try and try. They get into trouble, and maybe they get help. And at last, you find out whether they succeed.

Here’s a very simple story about someone I care about. His name is Rocket J, and he’s a cat.

The Cat and the Closed Door

One morning, Rocket J wanted to go out. It was a very cold morning, and his concerned person, Dennis, thought that Rocket J would be better off inside. “No!” the cat said. “I want to go out!”

He came up to me with an earnest expression. He went over to the door. He turned round and round until his silly human finally got the idea and let him out. Then he ran to the street, just to show he could.

Indoors, his blonde brother, Sunshine, looked out the window quizzically. “I don’t think that was very bright of Rocky,” he said. “Look how cold it is out there! I’m just going to sit on the furniture and look out at the world.”

Your Visuals Can Do Better than Mine!

I took these photos on my iPhone, selected them, and uploaded them to Facebook with the comment, “Outdoor cat and indoor cat.” I’m not the world’s greatest photographer, as you can plainly see, but my Facebook audience loved the story.

Besides taking better photos, I know you can improve on what I did. You can:

  • Edit photos you have stored on your computer or phone.
  • Change the sequence, if you need to, so the action becomes more clear.
  • Pick the right number of photos so all of them are shown at one glance. (You can create an album on Facebook if you want to let your most interested viewers go look at them all.)

What are your  tips for better visual storytelling?

(They don’t have to involve cat pictures.)

Fundraising Tuesday: What Does Your Nonprofit Do in the Off Season?

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patriots photoCongratulations to the New England Patriots, who will play in the Super Bowl this Sunday, February 3, for the fourth time in the last five years. What can nonprofits learn by studying the Patriots?

Different Plans for Different Platforms

The Patriots have many ways to win, as Jackie McMullan pointed out. Her colleague Ben Volin said in the Boston Globe:

No team mixes up its game plan from week to week, or even quarter to quarter, better than the Patriots. The only thing opposing defenses know is to expect the unexpected.

Are you posting the same language on Facebook as you are on Twitter? The same links on LinkedIn as on your website?

If you want to “win” your audience, don’t be predictable. Design your content for the field you’re playing on.

Game Plan Your Posts in Advance

By planning, you can make sure you won’t drop the ball and leave your fans wondering what you were thinking (because you didn’t post anything for a while!)  Instead, you can save time on the clock and use it for communication with others on the field: reply to email, respond to comments and tweets.

When you’re not posting your messages at the last minute, you can huddle up with people you want on your team: customers, donors, colleagues.  Becoming known as a team player will help you win.

You can schedule Facebook posts by going to the pull-down arrow in the bottom right corner of your post, and from the menu, choosing “Schedule.”  For Twitter, a tool like Hootsuite is a great way to call a series of plays–er, schedule a series of tweets–so they will just run by themselves.

The Patriots are great at come-from-behind victories (28-3!), but that’s not the easiest way to win. When the team has fallen short, it’s usually because they had to play from behind.

Learn from the Patriots. Get ahead of your game.

Win the Off Season

For many nonprofits, the winter is the time after the End of Year fundraising appeal and before the Spring appeal and the fundraising events. It’s a quiet time. Should it be?

Learn from the Patriots. Win the off season.

The Patriots have created a great reputation, and the reputation itself helps them win. They have been able to attract great players for less because the players expected that if they joined the team, they would have the chance to compete for a championship every year.

Through great donor communications, your nonprofit can thank donors, tell them the impact of their gifts, make them glad they gave this time, and put them in the mood to give again.

hearts

Put your key supporters on the team. Communicate!

new England Patriots

Fundraising Tuesday: Say Hello to More Donations

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you had me at helloAt the end of the movie Jerry Maguire, Jerry tries to tell Dorothy that he loves her. He’s ready for a long-winded speech, but Dorothy shuts him up. “You had me at hello,” she confesses.

It’s a pretty sure bet Dorothy wouldn’t have said that if Jerry called her “Dear friend”!

There’s a lesson here for your nonprofit.

The Salutation in Your Appeal Letter

This past November and December, the Fischman household received 102 appeal letters from 72 different organizations. I’m happy to say that almost half of them personalized their letters. They said “Dear Dennis,” or “Dear Dennis and Rona.”

Another 11 were slightly more formal, with a salutation of “Dear Mr. Fischman. A handful went for accuracy and gender neutrality, greeting me as “Dear Dennis Fischman” and us as “Dear  Dennis and Rona Fischman.”

I prefer the informal version, and I’ll bet most people under the age of 70 do. But the important thing is that, formal, or informal, these organizations called donors by their names.

When you don’t use a personal name in your appeal letter, it starts your donor thinking. “I gave them money, and they don’t even know who I am? How important can my donation be?” And that’s a deadly train of thought for your nonprofit–especially when you are trying to renew donors.

Which is Worse, “Dear Friend” or Nothing?

Of the appeals that came to our mailbox, eleven of them didn’t use any salutation at all. That sounds surprising until you consider that some of them were not letters. They were impact statements or faux telegrams, with a reply vehicle enclosed.

I can understand that a greeting wouldn’t fit with those formats. I still don’t like it. Even if that particular mailing raised money, what does it do to create the loyal donors your nonprofit can rely on from year to year? Nothing–and that’s a missed opportunity.

But I still liked it better than the letters that began “Dear friend” (or “supporter,” or “member”). A letter is supposed to be personal, and these letters were not.

The One Thing Your Small Nonprofit Can Do that Will Raise More Money

Maybe the Southern Law Policy Center can get away with “Dear Friend.” They have a huge mailing list and an established brand.

Maybe the Arthritis Foundation can do it. They have a built-in constituency of people with arthritis pain.

But if your small nonprofit goes with “Dear Friend,” you are giving away your biggest advantage in fundraising: your ability to add a personal touch. Make the size of your list work for you.

Call your donors by name and you can have them at hello.

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