Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

TY Thursday: 10 Best-Loved Posts of 2018

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Thank youCongratulations on all the end-of-year donations that have started to roll in! You look forward to them all year long…but do you thank your donors all year long?

Here are the ten Thank-You Thursday posts on this blog that my readers have liked best. Please take the time to make a thank-you plan for 2019, while the glow of 2018 is still bright.

The Ideal Thank-You Letter Went Out Today! (It’s the ideal thank-you letter because it went out today.  Don’t wait!)

TY Thursday: I Wrote This Poem Just for You. Can you declare your #donorlove in verse?

TY Thursday: Are You Annoying Donors? Here’s how to find out–and how to stop.

TY Thursday: 4 Do’s & Don’ts For Donor Acknowledgment. Laura Rhodes of Third Sector Consulting made a dozen donations in 24 hours. Here’s what she found–you can learn from it.

TY Thursday: Four Weeks, No Thanks? Don’t let January end with your thank-you’s left to do!

TY Thursday: When You Say Thanks, Steal from the Best! (A grab bag of good thank-you ideas.)

TY Thursday: You Never Call? Please Start. Because the phone is your friend, and it helps make your donors your friends, too.

TY Thursday: Thank Like a Human Being, Even When You Automate There are good, better, and best ways to personalize your donor acknowledgments.

Thank-You Thursday: This Marriage Can Be Saved. Don’t watch your donor walk out the door. Show the love!

TY Thursday: Nonprofits, Time to do a Thank-a-thon? A thank-a-thon is like a phone-a-thon. Only instead of dialing for dollars, you have a room full of people calling people who have already given…just to say thanks.

Fundraising Tuesday: Nonprofits Aren’t Bill Collectors!

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Your donors don’t owe you anything. Don’t treat them like they do.

bill collectionA nonprofit colleague of mine recently shared this story.

My mother-in-law received a letter this week from a national charity that had “Past Due” on it in red, “second notice” in black, and a bar code on the envelope. The nonprofit’s name was only in 8-point font, on the back, on the flap.

She’s been dealing with significant medical bills from a recent illness, and this straight-up scared her. Then made her mad.

I went straight to mad.

Can you blame her? I am angry too. Not only because that organization scared the bejeebies out of a sick woman, but because they made all the rest of us in the nonprofit sector look bad, too.

Responsible organizations want our donors to know, like, and trust us. We want them to understand the impact their donations are making. We want to win them as loyal donors.

I’m sure you work for a responsible nonprofit organization. Please join me to make sure the bad example in the story is shunned and not repeated.

Fundraising Tuesday: How I Read Your GivingTuesday Email

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I confess, I’m not a big fan of Giving Tuesday. Easily, I can think of ten things your organization should do before you pour time and energy into this hyped “holiday.”

If you are going to do Giving Tuesday, however, you want to do it right. So, I saved all the emails I got about Giving Tuesday 2018 and I just read through them for you. Here are the takeaways.

The Best Ideas I Saw (Steal Them for Next Year!)

Kids4Peace emailed supporters over the Thanksgiving weekend. Create a fundraiser on Facebook, the organization urged. They got a head start on Giving Tuesday, and they made it easy for followers to fundraise for them: a two-fer!

A couple of other organizations sent a “Giving Tuesday is tomorrow” email.

On the day itself:

  • One out of four organizations who emailed, told me my gift would go further that day, because of matching funds. That created urgency.
  • A few organizations sent a follow-up email, counting down toward the number of dollars or the number of donors that would unlock the match. That created intensity.
  • Some groups explained what Giving Tuesday is, and how it’s a values-laden response to the commercialism of Black Friday, etc. That created solidarity. (We’re better than that!)
  • Quite a few organizations used vivid, colorful photos to create excitement.

The Worst Ways to Email Your Donors on Giving Tuesday (Please Don’t Do These!)

  1. Don’t start your email with “It’s Giving Tuesday.” That’s not a reason for me to give, let alone give to you. Start with a reason to give.
  2. Don’t make “Giving Tuesday is Here!” the subject line of your email either. I’m not going to open it. I’ll probably delete it.
  3. Don’t copy and paste a letter on paper into your email. Take advantage of what email does. Use photos and provide links.
  4. Don’t say “You can help us do our great work.” The donor wants to be the one to do great work. (Your nonprofit is just the means to get the work done.)  So, make the donor the hero. That’s great advice every day, not just Giving Tuesday!

 

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