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Fundraising Tuesday: Get the Name Right

February 18, 2020 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

keep calm what's my nameHow do you make sure a donor will actually read your appeal letter? You must get their name right.

After the envelope and the postscript–sometimes, even before the P.S.–the first thing the donor looks at is their name in the salutation. If the letter is sent to “Dear Friend,” that increases the chances that the donor will throw it away unread.

And if you get the name wrong, you may never get a gift from them again!

Over a lifetime, that could be hundreds or thousands of dollars that donor wanted to give your nonprofit–but ended up giving to some other organization. One that said I know you with the very first words of the appeal letter.

Why “Dear Friend” Loses Donors

Maybe the Southern Law Policy Center can get away with “Dear Friend.” They have a huge mailing list and an established brand.

Maybe the Arthritis Foundation can do it. They have a built-in constituency of people with arthritis pain.

But most organizations are not like those big national concerns. Some are national but very focused on one issue, like About Face: Veterans Against the War. Some are regional, like the Appalachian Community Fund. And many, many of us work at community-based organizations, focused on one city or town.

People who give to your smaller nonprofit identify with your work. They give because it’s their way of making a difference. In return, they expect you to know them and what they care about.

This chance to build a relationship with your donors is the superpower of the smaller nonprofit! But  if your small nonprofit goes with “Dear Friend,” you are giving away your biggest advantage in fundraising: your ability to add a personal touch. Make the size of your list work for you.

How Do You Know What to Call the Donor?

Spell the name rightYou might have chosen “Dear Friend” in the past because there are so many ways of calling the donor by the wrong name.

True, you don’t want to:

  • Mail to Dennis Fischman when you should be asking Rona and Dennis Fischman.
  • Call someone “Mary” when she only answers to “Mrs. Kimble.”
  • Call someone “Mrs. Kimble” when that person goes by Ms., or Mx., or Mary.
  • Mail to Chang Sho Huang and say “Dear Chang,” only to find out you’ve just called them by their family’s name (like writing to me, “Dear Fischman”!)

The solution to this in the short term might be to use the full name: “Dear Dennis and Rona Fischman.” As soon as you can, however, the best solution is to ask.

You could ask online donors immediately, on the post-donation page of your website that thanks them for their donations.

You could also ask them when you call them to thank them for their donations. Or in a donor survey.

The key is to ask–to record the answers–and then, to call them by the name they prefer.

How Do You Remember the Right Name?

Let’s face it, most of us are bad at remembering names.

On the personal level, there’s a theory that human beings are only capable of knowing 150 people and remembering how I know you and vice versa. On the organizational level, that’s the same number that’s recommended as the maximum a major gifts officer should have on their caseload.

Even if your Development Director has an exceptional memory for names, faces, and life stories, your organization will someday have the fortunate problem of getting too big for any one person to keep the data in their head.

That’s why you need a database.

Warning: Excel is not a database! 

Both my wife and I have received email from organizations we like and support that called us by the wrong name. In both cases, the “first name” data from one line of an Excel spreadsheet had been combined with the email address from another line.

There are many reasons why your nonprofit needs an actual database or constituency relationship management (CRM) system, but getting the names right is one of the most important.

If any of this sounds confusing, or if it sounds like too much work to do on your own, email me at [email protected] to set up a time to talk about whether you could use some consultant help. Because whatever else you do for donors, you must get the name right.

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Fundraising Tuesday: 7 Reasons You Don’t Get Enough Donations

January 10, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Donations by mailFrom November through December 2016, I received fundraising appeals through the mail from more than 100 nonprofit organizations. About half the organizations sent more than one e letter to my wife and me asking for donations. I spent a morning looking through each and every one of them.

Friends, we have to do better. And we can.

If you didn’t get as many donations as you wanted to this year, here’s how to do better in 2017.

7 Reasons You’re Not Getting Enough Donations (and what you can do about it)

1) You’re starting your letter “Dear Friend.”  A third of the letters I received called me Friend or Supporter–or didn’t call me anything at all.  Wrong!

As fundraising expert Gail Perry says, “Your donor expects that you know her name and who she is, since she’s been sending you money for a while!”  Fix this by using a good database and adding a First Name mail merge field to your appeal letter.

2) You’re mainly talking about your organization. Three-quarters of the letters were in French: they said “we, we, we.” But that’s making your organization the hero of the story!

As Seth Godin has pointed out, in a good appeal letter, the donor is the hero of the story.  That’s why they give. Fix this by talking about how the donors are helping to right wrongs, save lives, or help people.

3) You’re not telling an “impact story.”  There are six types of stories that nonprofits should tell. In your appeal letter, you should tell an impact story, showing how the donors’ contribution makes a difference.  42 out of the  letters I received told just the facts, ma’am. Another 32 included a brief quotation from a client, or a general anecdote about a client, and how the agency helped them.

These letters blur on me. They all sound alike. Fix this by telling a compelling story about one person whose life is better because the donor helped.

4) You’re not including a photo. People are becoming more visually oriented, and a photo helps your appeal stand out. Yet 44 of 106 letters I received were text only! Another 27 included blurry black-and-white photos, or nice color photos that added nothing to the message.

Fix this by taking striking photos of people in action throughout the year. Then you won’t have to scramble for a picture in December.

5) You’re not letting me know you appreciate what I already gave.  This, I find really shocking: nine out of ten appeal letters used exactly the same language to me that they would use to someone who had never given them a penny! And this has gotten worse since last year–even though the software for tracking your donors has improved.

Fix this by segmenting your list, writing different letters to prospects, lapsed donors, and renewing donors, and acknowledging the date and amount of the previous gift.

6) You’re not personalizing your letters. It used to be a no-brainer for Executive Directors, Development Directors, or Board members who knew the donor to write a personal note on appeal letters. People, we are going in the wrong direction on this! 90 out of 106 letters arrived in my mailbox with no personal touches whatever–even when my wife and I have known the person sending the letter for many years.

Fix this by composing your appeals long enough in advance to add those personal notes…and doing so. (Kudos to the Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund, whose Director wrote by hand, “So grateful for your wonderful, longtime support!” You can count on a renewed gift from the Fischmans. Ditto to the Highlander Center, Community Cooks, the Jewish Labor Committee, and the Somerville Homeless Coalition.)

7) You’re neglecting the power of the postscript. When people read letters, they look at the banner, the salutation, and the first line…and then their eyes jump to the bottom of the page. I’m happy to say that 66 of the letter-writers realized that (even if their P.S. was a bit perfunctory).

As for the 40 of you who didn’t add a postscript, you skipped doing the simplest thing you can do to increase donations! Fix this. Add a postscript unless there’s a really good reason not to.

Want More Donations? Look for Tips on Tuesday

You may be wondering now, “What did our appeal letters look like?” Go back and check your letter. If you made even one of those seven mistakes, you probably left donation money on the table.

How do you write better fundraising letters? I can help.

Between now and Tax Day 2016, read this blog every Tuesday. You will get a no-nonsense, how-to, “do it today” tip on every aspect of your appeal letter, from the salutation to the P.S.

Some of them will be so easy you’ll kick yourself for not doing them before! Some will take a little work–but I will show you how to do them, step by step, with video when necessary.

Look for Tips on Tuesday beginning next week, January 17! (And if you want professional advice uniquely suited to your organizations and its donors, email [email protected].)

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Sent Your Fundraising Appeal? 3 Things to Do While You Wait

November 22, 2016 by Dennis Fischman 1 Comment

Waiting for the mailYou’ve written the best fundraising letter you can: maybe, the ideal appeal letter.

It’s in the mail. The donors will get it next week.

Now what? Is there anything you can do besides waiting for the mail? (Or the online payments, of course.)

Yes! Here are three ways you can follow up on that fundraising letter: by phone, by email, and by social media.

Follow Up with a Phone Call

Even a polite voicemail message increases the chances that your donors will renew their support for you this year. But there are worse and better ways to make that phone call.

The worst thing you can do is to call someone who doesn’t want to hear from you by phone. My wife and I tell everyone who calls us, “We prefer not to give over the phone. Mail us.” If they call again, we send our donations somewhere else. And there are lots of people like us!

A good way to reach out is by having a well-trained volunteer call and start by thanking the donor for their past support. Give the donor a sense of accomplishment: “Thanks to you, twenty children had lunch every day this school year.” Tell them, “Your help is still needed.” Ask for a specific amount.

It’s even better if the caller is a donor like them. “Thank you. Here’s what we did together.” Better still if the caller is a donor AND a board member. You’re complimenting your donor by letting them know they’re worth the board’s attention and time.

The best, the absolute best thing you can do? Find a friend of that donor to make the call. Someone who knows them well and can speak to them from the heart about how much they appreciate the donor’s gift. When your friend is grateful for your donation, of course you have to renew!

ET, Phone from Home?

Now, to my mind it’s a real toss-up whether it’s better to ask your volunteers to call from their homes or get them together for a “phone bank.”

  • Ask them to call from home and it’s more convenient for them, but they may forget… and you may have to work harder to find out who they reached and who they didn’t.
  • Invite them to call together and you create camaraderie among those who show up, and you can be on hand to answer any questions, live…but fewer people will volunteer in the first place.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Do what fits your organization the best.

We’ll talk about using email and social media to follow up your fundraising letter in future posts. For now, happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

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