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The Ideal Appeal Letter Begins With You

November 5, 2015 by Dennis Fischman 10 Comments

November kicks off the annual scramble for donations in the U.S.  Your mailbox fills up with appeal letters from groups you support (and some you don’t). But do any of them look like this?

Next StepNext Step appeal letter filled their letter to my wife Rona with signs they care about her.

  • Calling her by name.  (I’m amazed how many groups still use the salutation “Dear Friend.”)
  • Creating visual appeal.  The photo catches the eye.
  • Using a real story.  It’s not just a photo: it’s a person, looking you in the eye, telling his story.
  • Adding a hand-written note.  It’s actually on an orange sticky note, and the content is personalized to Rona.
  • Directing her clearly how to give.

All of these elements make the letter vivid, attractive, and appealing.  But the most important thing that Next Step did was starting the letter with “You.” 

Next Step understands that donors will give if they feel that their donation is doing the good work.  As Seth Godin recently wrote, the donor is the hero of the story.  That’s why they give.

Now, your letter doesn’t literally have to start with “You.”  It would be boring if every letter did!  But when you wrote your organization’s annual appeal letter, did you start with the donor?  Did you do everything you could do to make them feel the letter was personally written for them?  And did you place the donor at the center of the story?

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What Bernie Sanders Can Teach Nonprofits about Fundraising

October 27, 2015 by Dennis Fischman 2 Comments

Bernie SandersWhat do you think of Bernie Sanders’ surprising presidential campaign? Whether you “feel the Bern” or not, your nonprofit organization can learn seven lessons from his fundraising–and use them in your own appeals.

The Sanders campaign sent me an email on Wednesday, October 14, the morning after the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas.

Lesson 1: be timely. Ask for support when you and your issues are on people’s minds.

The subject of the email was “We are off and running.” What a positive tone! Who wouldn’t want to be part of a campaign that was already “off and running”?

Lesson 2: be positive. People want to give to success.

The salutation of the message said “Dennis.”

Lesson 3: call your supporters by name. If it said, “Dear friend,” I probably would have deleted it then and there.

The first sentence of the email said, “I want to talk with you about last night — but not what happened in Vegas. I want to talk about what happened across the country.”

Lesson 4: help your donors feel they are part of something bigger. When I give, I don’t want to be a lonely outsider. I want to feel that I’m part of a movement making change.

A big piece of the email was quotations from Sanders supporters who watched the debates together. In fact, the subject line of the email–“We are off and running”–came from one of those supporters, Diane in Colorado.

Lesson 5: give your donors a voice. Make them feel it’s not about you, the organization–it’s mainly about them.

The “ask” included in the email was clever. “Your contribution of $25.55 — the average donation we’ve received this week — will help us continue to build a movement that will win the White House for the people.”

Lesson 6: ask for a specific amount. Seeing that amount, if I thought of donating $25, I’d probably raise it to $30, just so as not to be below average!

All in all, the email echoed Sanders’ campaign theme that building a movement to oppose corporate power with people power is more important than any specific candidate.

Lesson seven: make your fundraising consistent with who you are. People say about Bernie Sanders, “He’s always stood for the same things.” Make sure they can say the same about your nonprofit and its communications.

Have you received an especially good fundraising appeal from Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, or some other candidate? What did they do that you could do too?

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The Key to a Good Appeal Letter

September 28, 2015 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

IWJ appeal letterA good appeal letter is not about the nonprofit organization.  It’s not even about the impact of its work.  It’s about the donor.

This appeal letter I received from Interfaith Worker Justice is not the ideal appeal letter–but it has one strong point.

The graphic says to the donor, “You are the key.”

The graphic stands out from the text.  It’s even more visible because the envelope bore the same graphic in the same color scheme.  My eye was trained to look for it before I opened the envelope.

“You are the key.”  That’s the message that made me, the donor, want to read the appeal letter, even though it could have been written much more effectively.  It’s also the message that makes a donor want to give.

How are you sending that message to your donors?

 

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