Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

The No-Nonsense Nonprofit

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Is your organization a no-nonsense nonprofit? Maybe! If:

no nonsense

You don’t chase after every passing fad, or fall victim to Bright Shiny Object Syndrome. At the same time, you don’t think “the way we’ve always done it” is always the best way.

You take your mission seriously and your opinions lightly.

You schedule time to consider new ideas and learn new things into your work week. (You know that putting it on the calendar is the only way to make it happen.)

You don’t care about “best practices”: you want to know what will work for your organization.

You know the difference between what’s technical and what’s practical.

You know that things take time. You’re willing to be patient. Eventually, though, you want to see the results.

You know that results and Return On Investment are two different things, and you care more about results.

You know that free is not always the best price, and you’re willing to invest money as well as time to change your organization for the better.

Communication for the No-Nonsense Nonprofit

I love working with a no-nonsense nonprofit to improve the way you communicate with donors, volunteers, clients, and any other audience you’re trying to reach…and here’s why.  By the time you hire me as a communications consultant, you know the value you’re going to get out of the consultation.

  • We’ve asked about the purpose of your communications. (Are you trying to renew more donors, attract new ones, advocate effectively on an issue, or even galvanize people who care about that issue to form a movement?)
  • We’ve determined how well you know the audiences you are trying to reach–and what else you’d have to know to send them messages they will read, view, listen to, and respond to.
  • We’ve committed to creating a communications strategy that suits your audiences and fits within the time and money your organization can dedicate to the task.

It’s exciting when an organization says, “We’re going to do better.” It’s even more exciting when I can provide a step-by-step outline of what it will take to get your nonprofit to the point that people are actually looking forward to hearing from you and upset if they miss a message!

If you are a no-nonsense nonprofit, we should talk about how you can use the services I offer to get tangible results for your organization. I will give you at least one suggestion you can put into practice right away during our first conversation. Contact me and let’s set a time to talk.

 

 

 

Thank-You Thursday: Get on Their Screen with Video

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If you work at a nonprofit organization, you’re probably pretty charitable yourself. Are you getting a lot of thank-you letters in the mail? Great. But have you ever received a thank-you video on your phone or computer?

You would remember if you had.

The Personal Impact of a Thank-You Video

There’s something about the face and voice of a real person saying “thanks.” Yes, I love getting thank-you letters in the mail.Video can’t substitute for an envelope with a stamp on it that you can hold in your had. But it can add.

A video can show you where your donation made a difference. That’s the approach The Nature Conservancy takes.

It can present the faces of the people who are doing the work, as charity:water did with their staff.

Or it can show you the faces of the people whose lives are better because you helped. The Children’s Hospital Foundation took that approach. They even titled their video “Thank you for supporting kids like me.”

Making Your Thank-You Video

These examples come from larger organizations, but the thank-you video is a great tool for the small nonprofit too. If you have a smart phone, you have a video camera in your pocket.

Production values are not what matter in a thank-you video. Here’s what does (according to Raymund Flandez, writing in the Chronicle of Philanthropy):

  1. Be brief. Don’t send out a fifteen-minute description of everything you do. One minute of gratitude says it much better.
  2. Say thanks–and say why. Let the donor know the impact his or her gift has made.
  3. Speak personally. Make sure the donor can tell who it is that’s saying thank-you and why they care.

Sharing Your Thank-You Video

Once you’ve made your thank-you video, you have multiple ways to share it.

You can email it to the donor–but sending it as an attachment may make recipients worry about being spammed. Your video is more likely to be seen if you’re using an email service like MailChimp that allows you to embed the video in your message.

You can distribute the thank-you video through your Facebook page or other social media. You can post it permanently on your website or YouTube page, so you have the link to share in the future.

And you can personalize it. With a very little bit of editing skill, you can add the individual donor’s name to the basic video and thank him or her directly. Try personalizing some of your thank-you videos and see how that affects your donor renewal!

 

 

You should plan to thank your donors throughout the year. But how? Every Thursday, I’ll share a different idea. (The first one was Give Your Donor a Voice.)

 

Fundraising Tuesday: Last Things First

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Every Tuesday this season, I’m offering a tip on how to write better fundraising appeals. The first post was Call Me By Name.

postscriptBesides getting the donor’s name right, what’s the easiest thing you can do to increase the chance they will give?

Answer: write a good postscript.

 

The P.S. Matters as Much as the Letter

The National Mail Order Association says:

79% of all people who open your direct mail will read the P.S. first. Before reading anything else in the letter. Or any other part of the mail package.

And in fact, if you don’t catch the donor’s eye with your salutation, your postscript, and your photos, you might as well not send the letter at all. Into the recycling it goes.

This may seem harsh. It does to me. I’m a writer by nature, practice, and inclination. Looking for the right word feels something like meditation, where I let meaning float to the surface….and something like a wine tasting, where I savor each word on the tongue. How can my writing not matter to the reader?

The simple truth is that nothing we write matters if no one reads it. And the postscript is one of the most important tools we have for getting the donor to read the letter.

What to Put in a Postscript

Because the P.S. is the first (and sometimes the only) part of a letter that readers read, it is not a throwaway line. In fact, you should use it to make your main point clear.

One of my favorite approaches is to summarize the appeal in a few short words and then call for action.

Look at the example from the Clinton campaign above. “Stop the GOP power grab” was the theme of the letter, and here it is again, baldly stated, in a few words. “Respond by July 30” tells the reader what action he or she can take.

Other experts, like the late Ray Jutkins, say to emphasize “the special something they will get when they respond.” That might be the premium you are offering them for giving, or (as in the Clinton letter) the chance to see their donation matched. For a nonprofit, it can be a cogent statement  of the difference their donation will make.

What’s more, the P.S. can be used to repeat your telephone and fax numbers, physical address, e-mail and Web site. It’s almost impossible to restate your vital contact data too often, Jutkins says.

What NOT to Put in Your Postscript

“The primary thing not to do with your P.S. is state a new fact, introduce a new idea or start fresh with a different thought,” Jutkins cautions.

Why not? Because it just confuses the reader.If they read the postscript first and then find the letter is about something different, they think, “What is this nonprofit really trying to say?”

Remember how many pieces of mail we all get. I received 90 fundraising appeal letters between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, just myself. All 90 0f them were competing for the reader’s attention. A postscript that confuses the reader ensures the letter winds up in the recycling bin.

A postscript that moves the reader and makes her want to read the rest of the letter: now, that’s the last word in fundraising.

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