Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Navigation Bar

  • About
  • Services
  • What Clients Say
  • Contact

Goldilocks and the Three Nonprofits

March 7, 2016 by Dennis Fischman 4 Comments

just right

When are your communications just right?

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks.  She liked to give away money.

One day Goldilocks went exploring the forest of letters, email, and online posts she received.  She found herself in the house of three nonprofits.  She sat down at their table and sampled what they were offering.

She tasted the first nonprofit.  “Oh, this is too hot!” she exclaimed.  The nonprofit was sending her something every day, and all of it was peppered with funding appeals.

She tasted the second nonprofit.  “This is far too cold,” she realized.  The nonprofit was communicating with her only when it was asking for money.  And by the time she received a thank-you letter, she’d reached the bottom of the bowl.  She had no appetite for any more donations.

Goldilocks tasted the third nonprofit.  “Ahhh,” she breathed.  “This is just right!” Here was the porridge she’d been looking for.  The main ingredient was content that pleased her palate, spiced with a healthy dash of humor and with nuggets of information to chew on.  The funding appeals had absorbed the flavor of the dish and went down smoothly.

“Someone’s been eating my porridge,” Goldilocks heard a voice say.  There was the Communications Director of the third nonprofit, smiling.  And behind her was the Development Director, asking “Would someone like to sit in my chair at my next event?”

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

TY Thursday: Great TY Letters

March 3, 2016 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

thank-you letter

We’ve been talking about “creative” ways to thank your donors using videos, phone calls, poetry, and gifts. But who says a traditional thank-you letter can’t be creative too?

What You Need to Know Before You Thank

First, get the basics right. As Allison Gauss reminds us:

For a truly meaningful thank you, there are a few things you should know about the person you’re thanking.

  1. Who is the donor?
  2. Which campaign or program did they give to?
  3. How will you turn their gift into impact?

Great Advice on How to Start

Once you know your donor and you can state how their donation will make a difference, you can start writing. Where do you start? You’re in luck! Generous experts have given us all great advice on to write letters our donors will treasure.

  • Beth Ann Locke advises us, “Start with appreciation. End with thanks. And liberally sprinkle gratitude in between.” Find out how in this great article.
  • Caryn Stein of Network for Good gives us 5 Rules for Thanking Donors.
  • Pamela Grow shares A free thank you letter template you can swipe!
  • Gail Perry of Fired-up Fundraising tells us How to Craft a Killer Thank-You Letter.

Writing the Ideal Thank-You Letter

I’d be silly not to mention my own article, The Ideal Thank-You Letter Went Out Today. 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.  Another story, besides the one in your appeal.
  • 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. (The famous “call to action.”)
  • Signed it by hand, and wrote something just for me.

It’s Never Too Late

Are you looking back at that perfunctory piece of paper you mailed in January and wishing you had taken the time to write a better letter? It’s never too late!

Pick some first-time donors, some loyal donors, and some major donors from your list.

Write to them, “I was thinking of you again today because something happened today that only happened because you gave.”

Tell them a story. Show them a photo. Give them the details. And give them the credit.

Your donors will thank you!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Fundraising Tuesday: Bank Your Stories

March 1, 2016 by Dennis Fischman 3 Comments

storybankThe judge shook his head in disbelief. Before him stood a bank robber, arrested for the fifth time. “Why do you do it?” he asked. “Why do you keep on robbing banks?”

The robber looked at him in pity. “Because that’s where they keep the money!”

Where does your nonprofit keep its stories?

If you want to tell stories that will touch your donors’ hearts and move them to give money, you need a place to keep the stories. You need a story bank.

Collect Your Nonprofit Stories

You get to work in the morning and realize it’s time to send out an appeal letter. Naturally, since you know it will dramatically increase the number of people who read your letter and give, you want to include a story.

What do you do? Do you start emailing and leaving voicemail for your frontline staff? How long does it take for them to get back to you? How much of what you hear from them is actually a story (as versus a dry timeline)?

Collecting your stories as you go solves all these problems. When you need one, it’s right there–and you’ve already figured out the story arc that will make it stick in the reader’s mind.

What is a Storybank?

“A storybank is a mechanism for capturing and sharing stories in a variety of media,” says Wendy Levy of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture.

  • Written–by the person who knows the story
  • Oral–notes from the story’s source, or a recording of them telling it
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Quotable quotes

Elizabeth Prescott has good advice for how to start your story bank. Begin by

collecting the low-hanging fruit–those stories that your colleagues already know well and routinely share with each other (or with donors) to illustrate the
importance of what you do.
Then, ask (or even require!) staff, Board members, and volunteers who help you carry out your mission to report a good story every month. When something special is going on, make sure that someone is assigned to take photos and someone walks around interviewing people about their history with your nonprofit. Put it all in your story bank.

Tools to Have Stories at Your Fingertips

You could use tools specially designed for storybanking. Prescott likes TrackVia. Others have spoken well of Zahmoo or WuFoo. It’s certainly going to be helpful to be able to share the information you collect online, and no spreadsheet or word processing document can do that.

tools they can useThe problem with new technology is that often, the people in your organization won’t use it.

Learning a new tool feels like one more thing to do, on top of a pile of things to do that’s large and constantly growing (in every nonprofit I know!).

So, you are probably better off using tools that are familiar to people in your organization. Do you have a shared Google Drive?  Use that. How about a wiki, or a Dropbox? Use what people are used to.

If you have to, assign one person to be the address for the storybank and have everyone email their stories, photos, etc., to that person. It’s better to have a bank of stories that’s low-tech than not to collect those stories at all!

Tips for Banking Your Nonprofit Stories

  1. Think ahead about how you will use these stories. It’s possible to use them many different ways–and it’s a good idea! But if your sources can picture their stories–in print, or on your Facebook page, or on YouTube–they’re more likely to share them and shape them for an audience.

2. For each story, track dates, demographics and times used.
This tip comes again from Elizabeth Prescott, who says, “It may not seem as important when you only have a few stories, but the bigger your bank gets, the more you’ll wish that you had some good search terms so that you could find just the right person to speak about a particular topic or from the perspective of a particular social group.”

3. Make sure you have permission to use names and photos. Having a standard release form for people to sign is a good idea. In your story bank, keep notes (or copies) of the permission given. Even then, though, double-check. It’s better to use a slightly less vivid story than to make a client or a supporter feel bad about your organization.

You be the judge. Is storybanking right for your organization?

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 164
  • 165
  • 166
  • 167
  • 168
  • …
  • 214
  • Next Page »

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Yes! Please send me tips from Communicate! Consulting.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Copyright © 2025 · The 411 Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Notifications