Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: Readers’ Choice!

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Here are the blog posts about fundraising and building solid relationships with donors that you, the readers, liked best in 2020.

  1. Fundraising Tuesday: What Do You Call a Donor? (Hint: ask them!)
  2. Fundraising Tuesday: Remember the Postscript. Donors Do! (And when you do, you raise more money for your cause.)
  3. Fundraising Tuesday: Greetings and Salutations (Because “Dear Friend” just won’t cut it. Not in 2021!)
  4. Fundraising Tuesday: A Letter to Nonprofits which I hope you’ll read–it’s from my heart.
  5. Fundraising Tuesday: Envelopes Make Donors Want to Open Your Mail

A lot of the lessons about postal mail apply to email too. It’s worth doing an email merge to personalize the To: line, and the Subject: line is the envelope of the email world. So, read, enjoy, and make more donors happy and generous in 2021!

Fundraising Tuesday: Don’t Sleep on Your Donors in December

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Following up on your fundraising appeal letter is the most important thing you can do to raise money this year.

I know you put a lot of work into writing an excellent letter to donors—even the ideal appeal letter. It was even more work to lay it out, produce it, and get it into the mail. (Especially in 2020, when we are doing everything remotely and the post office has been buried in ballots.)

It would be so tempting right about now to take a nap. Just hit the Snooze button and wake up on December 31. But there’s a reason for the saying, “If you snooze, you lose.”

December 2020 is a wake-up call

alarm clock DecemberThere are so many other worthy causes competing for those donations in the middle of the pandemic. Donors have already dug deep in 2020 to help people in their communities meet their basic needs.

By the end of the year, they may have spent their whole budget for charitable gifts on other organizations—unless you follow up with them now.

So, wake up! And read Three Powerful Ways to Follow up Your Fundraising Letter in 2020. It’s my guest post on Robin Cabral’s blog…and it may save your end-of-year appeal.

TY Thursday: Your Donors Need to Hear “Thanks” Right Now

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It’s always a good time to say thank you to your donors. Right now, in Fall 2020, it’s the best time. Because your donors need to hear from you.

Why Donors are Worried

worriedConsider how much uncertainty we are all confronting in Fall 2020.

  • We are still facing a worldwide pandemic that has killed over 200,000 people in the U.S.–and the numbers continue to rise.
  • Flu season is upon us, too, and while the vast majority of us get our shots, the few who don’t are a danger to themselves and all of us.
  • We may see another major shutdown of businesses and public facilities.
  • Millions of people are out of work. The first stimulus package helped many of them, but not all and not enough…and we will not know about a second stimulus until after the election. Possibly after the Inauguration in 2021.
  • The world is holding its breath for the results of the election, but we don’t and can’t know ahead of time how long it will take for those results to be official and what legal or extralegal challenges they will face.

In times like these–I’m not going to say “unprecedented” because that has become a cliche–donors are worried.

People who give money like to feel they are (more cliches coming here) changing the world, making a difference, having an impact. Right now, it’s hard to feel any of those things, and easy to feel out of control.

Why Your Donors Need to Hear “Thank You”

By thanking your donors, you help restore their sense of control.

By telling them stories about people they helped, you bring it down to a human level.

By making them the hero of the story, you make them feel powerful, instead of powerless; caring, instead of careless. You make them feel good to other people–-and you make them feel good about themselves.

Thanking donors gives them the best gift they could ask for, and it makes them want to keep on giving back. Click To Tweet

So, throughout October, on Giving Tuesday, on Thanksgiving, and any chance you get, make sure to thank your donors. You will feel better about yourself when you do! And you will build loyalty among your donors that will last beyond 2020.

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