Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Love Your Audience

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peasants in a tavern

Do you know what hurts me?

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev in the Ukraine, used to say that he had discovered the meaning of love from a drunken peasant.

The rabbi was visiting the owner of a tavern in the Polish countryside. As he walked in, he saw two peasants at a table. Both were gloriously in their cups. Arms around each other, they were protesting how much each loved the other.

Suddenly Ivan said to Peter; “Peter, tell me, what hurts me?”

Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: “How do I know what hurts you?”

Ivan’s answer was swift: “If you don’t know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?”

Love your audience.  Know what hurts them.

Know what excites them, frightens them, makes them happy, makes them proud.  Know what they want and what they detest.

Love your audience and you will frame messages just for them.  They won’t read your messages if they don’t feel the love.

Valentine’s Day is for Suckers

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My wife and I decided years ago that Valentine’s Day is for suckers. No Valentine's Day

Think about it. This week, candy and flowers will cost more than they do any other time of the year. Restaurants will push special meals with more food than you can eat and more expensive wine than you would choose.

Businesses make big bucks because people think putting out a lot of money one time a year is the way to show their love.

Rona and I are romantic, but we are not suckers. The ways we show our love all year round count more than what we do one day a year. And we do not let Hallmark tell us when to say “I love you.”

But what about your nonprofit?

The calendar may be playing you for a sucker, too.

  • Are you ignoring your donors all year round until the day you send them an “annual appeal”?
  • Are you then expecting them to show you the love on December 31, just because in the U.S. that’s the last day to get a tax deduction for the year?

Lots of nonprofits work hard on making that appeal letter just right, as if it were a Valentine’s Day bouquet. But you can't neglect your donors all year and expect one romantic gesture to make it all right. Share on X You have to show some donor love all year long.

Here’s a plan to make your donors love you in just one year. No, it’s not candy and flowers! Good relationships take good communications.  I’ll help you figure out where you can spend your nonprofit time and money that will matter most to the donor.

Because that’s what you want, right? Not to do the same tired things the same time of year. You want every day to be Valentine’s Day for your donors and you.

(P.S. Chocolates will go on sale February 15. Just wait.)

The Golden Rule of Nonprofit Writing

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Golden Rule

You know it and I know it: a lot of nonprofit writing is just painful to read.

We donate to our favorite causes. In return, we get newsletters full of jargon, emails full of typos, fundraising letters that sound like they’re written in French because the organization says “We, we, we.”

As people who work for nonprofits, and to ensure their success, we can and should do something about this! Make sure your organization asks itself these five tough questions:

1. Are you listening long enough before you write?

2. Do you think longer and more complicated is more impressive? (Your readers don’t!)

3. Are you writing memos when you should be telling stories?

4. Are you burying the lead? (Does the reader know from the start why he or she should read on?)

5. Are You as Good a Communicator as Shakespeare’s Fools? (Will people invite you to speak truth fearlessly to them because you leaven it with humor?)

None of us wants to cause pain to our supporters. But that means we must think what our supporters want to read! The golden rule of writing is to write unto others the way you wish they wrote unto to you.

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