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Fundraising Tuesday: Great Photos Make Great Appeal Letters

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stand out

Photos make your appeal stand out

Recently, I went through all the end-of-year appeal letters that 72 nonprofits sent me in 2017. (Yes, your letter too!)

I wanted to find out something very specific. How are nonprofits using photos in their fundraising letters?

Here’s what I can tell you: most of us are not using them well enough. That gives your group an opportunity to stand out from the pack–which is what you need to do to raise more  money.

How Nonprofits Use (and Don’t Use) Photos

No photo

wall of textAlmost half the organizations that asked me for money in November and December 2017 used no photo at all. Their letters were text-only.

They might have broken up the wall of text with frequent paragraph breaks, or bullet points, or bold, italic, or underlined phrases (all of which are a favor to the reader, because they make a letter easier to read). But no photos.

I would like to think that these organizations had A/B tested their lists, sending out letters to some people with a photo and some without, and determined that their list liked text only. Or, I’d like to think they took Alan Sharpe’s advice and made their letters so personal and so compelling that a photo would diminish the message.

But mostly, I don’t believe that. Instead, I think most of these organizations didn’t take the time to find or create effective photos all year round. So, when it was time to send out the appeal letters, they took the easy way out.

You can do better.

Some use of photos…

About a quarter of the nonprofits did send me appeal letters that included photos. Automatically, they had a better chance of grabbing my attention. And I am a “words person” by trade!

Words matter–but only if people read them.

When a donor receives your letter, she takes about three seconds to decide whether to read it or throw it in the recycling. In three seconds, what can she see? Possibly:

invite meBut more than any of these, a photo with a caption invites the donor in.

<–See what I mean?

 

 

 Photos Included, but Used in an Unfocused Way

The problem with many of these photos is lack of focus. And no, I don’t mean the image is blurry!  I mean that the nonprofit hasn’t thought about the main purpose for including photos: moving the donor to give.

In my mail, I saw many photos that failed to speak to the donor. They showed:

  • Staff members of the organization. (No offense, but you are not the ones the donors care about helping!)
  • Audiences listening to a speaker.
  • Crowds marching or rallying.
  • Multiple clients in different settings.

These photos may document what you do. They don’t tell the story of who, how, or why it matters. Therefore, they don’t move the donor.

You can do better.

Photos Used for High-Quality Storytelling

SCC appeal photo

Here’s what nonprofits did to use photos really well in their appeal letters.

  1. Featured one, at most two, people in each picture.
  2. Showed them doing something–not just head shots.
  3. Focused on the same person whose story the nonprofit told in the text of the letter.
  4. Reinforced the message about the problem.
  5. Reinforced the message about the urgency.
  6. Made an emotional connection between the person in the photo and the donor viewing the photo and reading the letter.

I’m happy to show you an example from a local organization my wife and I support, Somerville Community Corporation. The photo above is actually from a special end-of-year mailing to ask for donations of $1,000 or more to the Social Equity Campaign, which multiplies the value of each donation through a special tax credit in Massachusetts.

Notice how Somerville Community Corporation poses a question (“Why invest in our community?”) and uses BOTH the text and the photo to answer it.

Notice how SCC picked one of the problems it is asking you to solve–worker training–and with the photo, gave you hope you could do something about it right away.

Notice how SCC managed to express the idea of diversity with only two people in the photo. (They could have added more people, or more photos…but they knew you would care more about these people than about a crowd.)

Before you write your next fundraising appeal, think about how you  use photos. Chances are, you can learn from this example…and do better!

 

 

 

Fundraising Tuesday: Greetings and Salutations

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no recyclingWhen you’re sending an appeal letter to a donor, you want them to take the time to read it. Your biggest enemy? The recycling bin. Your biggest ally (once they open the envelope)? The salutation.

Call the donor by name if you want them to read on.

 

Salutations: “Dear Friend” Won’t Do

I was happy to see that out of the 72 nonprofits who sent me appeal letters in November or December 2017, 52 of them–70%–called me by name.

The names varied. Some used “Dear Dennis,” while others said “Dear Mr. Fischman.” Some addressed themselves to both my wife and me. Very few of them asked me what I preferred to be called, which is what I consider best practice. But all 52 started off on the right foot, because they wrote to me personally.

That means that the 15 nonprofits that wrote to “Dear Friend” fell behind, from the opening line of their appeal letter.

How to Create a Personal Salutation

I forgot your nameAs fundraising expert Gail Perry points out, “Your donor expects that you know her name and who she is, since she’s been sending you money for a while!” To meet that expectation, you have to ask what she or he or they like to be called (and you could find out their preferred pronoun at the same time).

Once you’ve asked, of course, you have to remember. You can use the greeting the donor prefers only if you keep good records.

This is where a donor database, or even better, a constituent relationship management system (CRM), is worth every penny you spend on it. It is time-consuming to use spreadsheets and merge fields to call people by name, but if you have a CRM, it’s simple.

Our friends at Capterra have published reviews of many of the best fundraising software, including CRM systems. It would be worth your while to make 2018 the year you get a tool that will let you be more personal with your donor. Keep your appeal letter out of the recycling bin!

 

This is the second of a series about improving your nonprofit’s fundraising appeal letters that will appear on Communicate! throughout the next two months. Next up: postscripts.

The Envelope, Please! Fundraising Tuesday for Nonprofits

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Nonprofit envelopeWhat can you learn by reading other nonprofits’ mail? During the last two months of 2017, I received 136 appeal letters from 72 different nonprofit organizations. I read them all (so you don’t have to!) And I learned quite a bit about what you can do to get more supporters to open your mail, read it, and donate. Today: the envelope.

Why Pay Attention to the Envelope?

To quote expert copywriter Alan Sharpe, “Your envelope serves two functions and two alone:

  1. Deliver your appeal to your donor
  2. Persuade your donor to open and read your letter.”

It doesn’t matter how well you write the letter, or what a compelling story you include, or how the photo tugs at the heartstrings, or even how personal you make your appeal if the donor never sees it.

What if your beautiful letter goes straight to the recycling bin, unopened? That would be such a shame! And if your donor is getting 136 appeal letters in a two-month period like I did, that is what is going to happen–unless you do something to make your envelope leap out of the pile.

What Makes for a Good Envelope?

17 of the 72 organizations that asked me for money in the last two months did not use the envelope to win my interest at all. They printed their return address on the upper left-hand corner, so I could tell who was sending me the letter. Apparently, they thought that was enough. Other nonprofits–their competition–did better.

28 of the 72 organizations actively bid for my attention.

  • Some included a logo or a tag line in their return address, to remind me who they were and why I should care.
  • Some used an envelope of an unusual size or color. Yes, that can work! When the Special Olympics increased its format from a 6-inch by 4-inch package to a 7.25-inch by 5.25-inch package, its response rate jumped nearly 10 percent, Bryan Terpstra of direct response fundraising agency RobbinsKersten Direct said.
  • Some printed a generic message like “You can make the difference!” on the envelope. (And I give them more credit than the ones who printed “Year-end appeal enclosed.” Why would I, the donor, care about that?)

27 of the 72 nonprofits went the extra mile to make sure the donor had to open the mail. Besides logos, tag lines, envelope color and size, they also used:

  • Attention-grabbing photos
  • Messages that conveyed urgency
  • Personal appeals

On the envelope you see in the photo, CISPES used a mix of these techniques. “We’ve missed you!” makes me feel they’ve noticed me personally. I am much more likely to open that envelope than the one that says “Give today” (or the one that says nothing at all).

What to Do First

Once you get started, you can think of many creative ways to signal to your donor, “You’ve got to read this!” Alan Sharpe lists a baker’s dozen of them, from using both sides of the envelope to promising a benefit to the donor.

Let’s be real, however. Most nonprofit organizations are small, with limited budgets to spend (even though we know you have to spend money to make money). You are not going to do everything that would entice your donor all at once, in your next mailing. What changes should you make first?

I would agree with Gail Perry that these three steps will help you raise more money, all by themselves:

  • Make it stand out (use a size of envelope you haven’t used before, or try a different colour of envelope).
  • Use a first class stamp (instead of bulk postage).
  • Hand address the envelope.

Yes, all these things take time, or money, or both. “In the nonprofit sector there’s an obsession about fundraising’s cost—as opposed to its cost-effectiveness,” says fundraising guru Mal Warwick. If you want to succeed, plan on spending the time and money to get a better result.

Because your appeal letter is too important to end up in the recycling bin.

 

This is the first of a series about improving your nonprofit’s fundraising appeal letters that will appear on Communicate! throughout the next two months. Next up: the greeting, or salutation.

 

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