Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: Put Your Donors in the Mood

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Giving to charity, word cloudOnce your appeal letter is in the mail, what can you do to help donors decide to give?

Reaching out directly through the phone or by email is a good idea… especially if you make your calls and emails warm and personal.

The Wrong Way to Use Social Media

For most organizations, asking directly for money through social media is not a good idea. Here’s why.

Picture yourself on Facebook. What are you doing there? You went online to catch up with your friends, and perhaps to see a meme that would amuse or outrage you. You didn’t go to Facebook to do business. And that includes giving away money.

There are exceptions. If you’ve tried asking online before and it worked for you, congratulations! If you want to experiment with fundraising via social media, ask for donations for a specific cause, with an immediate impact. Think of it as crowdfunding.

In general, though, “making the ask” is the wrong way to use social media to back up your end-of-year appeal. There is a better way.

Put Your Donors in the Mood for Giving

in a giving moodA donation is an act of love…and like other acts of love, it goes better if you set the mood. Too bad you can’t offer your donors a glass of wine, a fireplace, and romantic music on social media!

But here is what you can do to make them feel like giving:

    1. Give their pleasure your full attention. Between now and December 31, post pieces that will make donors feel good about themselves when they give.
    2. Tell stories. Create good memories that you and your donors share. It will bring you closer.
    3. Share the love. Post stories–or even better, videos–of donors like them saying why they love giving to your organization and how it makes them feel.

It Takes Two to Tango

For the donor to feel the love, you have to be feeling it too. And that’s difficult in December. You’re watching the numbers on the end-of-year appeal and worrying about what happens if you don’t meet your fundraising goal. Performance anxiety is making you tense.

May I make a suggestion? Before you write for social media this month, slow it down. Breathe. Think about why you care so much: the good results your organization bring about that makes you want it to succeed.

Now, think about the donor.  She cares about those good results too. You’re together in this. That’s what brought you together in the first place.

You just have to speak the language of love with your donors, and watch them respond.

How to Make Your Calendar Your Best Friend

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calendarNothing feels more awful than getting up in the morning and realizing you have no idea what to write.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Create a publication calendar and you’ll never have that feeling again.

Create a publication calendar in 5 easy steps

Step one: open up your favorite calendar tool. Outlook, Google Calendar, a specially designed piece of software or a paper calendar with pictures of puppies every month: it doesn’t matter, as long as it works for you.

Step two: think of seasonal topics.  Back-to-school, Fall, Winter, New Year, Spring, Summer. National holidays like Thanksgiving and Independence Day. If appropriate, religious holidays like Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashanah, or Ramadan. Heating season, if you provide heating assistance.  Camping season, if you do summer camps.  Mark each topic on your calendar at the right time to be talking about it.

Step three: find the hook that will make each topic a real story, one that’s interesting to your audience. Back-to-school is not a story in itself. “What you need to know about your child’s first day at our preschool” is a story! Mark that on your calendar.

Step four: now think of events your organization is holding. Fundraising events, friend-raising events, community forums, advocacy days at the statehouse.  Put those on your calendar too, and find the hook for each one.

Step five: think of campaigns your organization is launching at specific times of the year. Are you registering people to vote? Signing them up for low-cost bank accounts? Creating sports teams? Put those activities on the calendar, too, along with the hook that will make your audience want to read about each one.

Use your calendar to make communicating easy

Now, your calendar is full of ideas and specific ways to present them.  That means:

  • You can work on them in advance. Get photos, line up interviews, look up statistics…whatever you need for the post can be done ahead of time instead of at the last minute.
  • You can coordinate your messaging. Your blog, your social media postings, your newsletter, and even your face-to-face meetings with supporter can all reinforce the same message, so people are more likely to grasp it and retain it.
  • You can improvise.  It’s easier to improvise when you already have a plan in place. If a hurricane strikes, or one of your issues trends in the news, or if you receive a visit from Michelle Obama or the Pope, of course you can put that into your calendar. You’ll be in the perfect position to decide whether to delay a previously scheduled topic or just post more often.

What do you put on your publication calendar? Is there something that you post about that makes you stand out from most other organizations?

TY Thursday: The Ideal Thank-You Letter Went Out Today

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I have seen the ideal appeal letter.  I haven’t yet seen the ideal thank-you letter.  But it went out today.  Did you send it?

Thanks in many languages

Write the ideal thank-you letter

If you wrote the ideal thank-you letter, you:

  • Called me by name.
  • Confirmed how much I gave you.
  • Told me how my gift would make a difference.
  • Illustrated my impact with a story.  (Not the one you told me to persuade me to give.  Another story.  You have more than one, right?)
  • Included a photo or image to make my impact real.
  • Told me about how else I can help: by volunteering, or liking you on Facebook, or spreading the word to my friends.
  • Signed it by hand, and wrote something just for me.

Most important: it’s the ideal thank-you letter because it went out today. 

The sooner you acknowledge my gift, the more likely I am to remember it, and give again. Within 24 hours of your receiving my check is ideal.  Within a week is acceptable.  But no matter how long it’s been, don’t put it off any longer.  Send that letter today.

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