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TY Thursday: Will Your Donor Welcome Your Email?

March 9, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

I heard a knock at the door. “Oh, no,” I thought. “Who could that be?”

welcome visitor

Will they welcome your email?

I hadn’t ordered a pizza. I wasn’t expecting a package.

I went to the door and peered through the peephole, braced for someone trying to convert me to their religion (and/or sell me a magazine subscription).

What a pleasant surprise it was when my friend Miriam was there with a bundle of fresh-cut lilacs from her garden!

Your email should make donors happy

When a donor gets email from your nonprofit organization, they should react like I did when Miriam showed up at my door. It should make them happy. Write your email like a friend and you can have donors looking forward to seeing it!

Why email your donors?  I know your nonprofit sends a thank-you letter to every donor. You send it within 48 hours from the time you received their donation. It’s full of appreciation for the donor, and it helps them believe they made the right choice when they gave to you.

Great! But thanking the donor is not “one and done.”

You need to continue thanking them all year round. And email is one of the best ways of sending your thanks.

Is your email a welcome visitor?

Now, you know how many emails you get every day. They can turn into one big blur. You might start reading them in order, but soon, you scan for names of friends and leave the rest of the messages unopened–or even delete them.

Your audience is just like you. They get overwhelmed just as fast. And the delete button is always handy!

How to make your email delight your donors

If you want people to read your email, you have to be like Miriam.

  • Be a good friend. (Not that guy who only shows up to borrow money!)
  • Come bearing gifts. Present them with something they want: entertainment, information, a chance to see their friends and feel good about themselves at the same time…
  • Knock. Make sure the subject line of each email announces you in a way that makes your readers say, “I’m so glad you stopped by. Come in, come in!”

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Fundraising Tuesday: Why a Nonprofit Can’t Run Like a Business

March 7, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Business and nonprofitAre you tired of being asked, “Why can’t you run your nonprofit like a business?”

I’ve written about how nonprofits can use advice written for businesses (with just a little translation).  When it comes to nonprofit finance, however, some business wisdom is just wrong.

Clara Miller, the former director of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, explains why.  In her wonderful article, “The Looking-Glass World of Nonprofit Money,” she lists seven assumptions that businesspeople make that–in the nonprofit world–are just not true.

A Nonprofit Differs from a Business Because…

    1. “The consumer buys the product.” False. Donors and funders buy the “product” (which may be a service, a program, or a campaign), and clients benefit from it.
    2. “Price covers cost and eventually produces profits, or the business folds.”  False.  Nonprofits are devoted to their missions and will keep on pursuing the mission as long as they  can.  They have a sideline in fundraising to support their “business”–but it may also sap energy away from the reason they exist.
    3. “Cash is liquid.”  False.  Government and foundation grants are often restricted to specific purposes and can’t be used to pay for anything else.  A nonprofit can get more grants and have less money to pay its day-to-day costs of doing business!
    4. “Price is determined by producers’ supply and consumers’ ability and willingness to pay.”  False.  Since the consumers don’t pay (see #1), they don’t have the say.  Government or foundation funders decide what they’re willing to pay AND how many clients the nonprofit must serve in return for the money.  If it’s not enough, the nonprofit has to make up the difference with fundraising, or the quality of service suffers.
    5. “Any profits will drop to the bottom line and are then available for enlarging or improving the business.”  False.  Many nonprofits have spent less than budgeted only to see their budget reduced for the next year, on the theory that they must not really have needed the money.
    6. “Investment in infrastructure during growth is necessary for efficiency and profitability.”  False.  Well, actually, true, but not recognized by funders!  Many funders want to pay for program, but only a far-sighted few will invest in building capacity for the future.
    7. “Overhead is a regular cost of doing business, and varies with business type and stage of development.”  False.  As Miller says, “Overhead is seen as a distraction—an indication that an organization is not putting enough of its attention and resources into program.”  (Thankfully, this is beginning to change, but only beginning.)

The Donor Solution

When Miller talks about “funders,” basically she means government and foundations. The great hope for nonprofits is the individual donor.

When we persuade people who care about a cause to express their values by donating to our organization, we get out of the looking-glass world and back into the real world. People who pull out their credit card or their checkbook to make a gift care about the impact their gift is making.

They don’t care whether you have money left at the end of the year. They don’t care about whether an expenditure is “program,” “fundraising,” or “overhead” (within reason). What matters to donors is whether your organization is a good way for them to make a difference. Communicating with your donors? That’s your business.

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How to Create a Communications Calendar in 5 Easy Steps

March 6, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

stepsNothing 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 communications calendar and you’ll never have that feeling again.

You can create a communications calendar in five 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.

What You Can Do with Your Calendar (and what it can do for you)

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 communications calendar? Is there something that you post about that makes you stand out from most other organizations?

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