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Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: Stop Talking about You

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Enough about me, what do you think of me

When it comes to fundraising appeals, too many of us in the nonprofit world are stuck on ourselves.

How can that be, we wonder? We’re not self-centered. We care about our mission. We care about our clients. We’re not in it for personal gain–or we surely would have chosen another profession! How can it be that we’re constantly writing about ourselves?

Yet take a look at the last appeal letter your agency sent out. Did it contain:

  • Statistics on how many people “we” helped?
  • Explanations of “our” programs?
  • Stories about what “we” did that changed client’s lives?

We, the nonprofit vs. they, the donors

What we’re trying to do with those letters is make a case for the donor’s support. What we’re succeeding at doing–far too often–is making them feel insignificant.

Saying “We need your help” is not convincing when the rest of the letter is about what “we” did without the donor even knowing. Worse, it puts us on opposite sides of the fence: “we” who do, and “you” who admire.

Yes, that organization sounds great, the donor thinks. So what? What’s that got to do with me?

That’s the question your ideal appeal letter must answer.

All of us, together

Think back to the end of 2015. At home, in the mail, you got a ton of letters asking for money. Was there one that made you excited about giving?

If so, I’ll bet it got the little things right. It called you by your name. It referred to your giving history. It packed some punch in the postscript.

But that’s only what it took to get you to read the letter. What made you remember it, and feel excited about it, and want to give?

The letter that makes you feel like you were there in the midst of the action all along.

The letter that says the success stories are your successes.

The appeal letter that makes the donor the hero of the story.

That’s the one that stays in the memory. That’s the letter that donors want to keep, and quote, and show to their friends.

And that’s the letter that your nonprofit organization wants to write.

Every Tuesday this season, I’m offering a tip on how to write better fundraising appeals. Find the rest of the series under Fundraising Tuesday.

 

Fundraising Tuesday: You’re My Hero

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Every Tuesday this season, I’m offering a tip on how to write better fundraising appeals. The first post, about greetings, was Call Me By Name. The second was about postscripts: Last Things First.

 

Let’s try an experiment. You’ll need your latest fundraising letter, a blue pen, and a yellow highlighter. Put them all on your desk. Ready?

highlighter

Highlight your donor, not your organization

Pick up the pen and circle every mention of your organization. It could be the agency’s name. It could be the word “we,” used to refer to your organization. How many blue circles do you see? A lot, I’ll bet.

Now, pick up the highlighter and underline every mention of your donor. Yes, you can count the salutation if you called them by name. You can also highlight the word “you”–if that means the donor who’s reading the letter.

Is there more yellow on the page than blue? If not, you’re losing donors with every letter you send.

To Renew Their Support, Focus on Donors

A lot of us in the nonprofit world are under a misconception. We think that the reason donors give to us is because we do good work.

No, that’s the reason we’re proud of our organizations. It’s not the reason people give!

If doing good work were enough, you wouldn’t have to worry about getting donors to renew. They’d get to know, like, and trust your organization, and then they’d keep on giving into the indefinite future. But about 70% of the people who gave to you in 2014 didn’t renew their gift in 2015.

Don’t focus on what you do. Focus on how the donor feels.

Make the Donor the Hero of the Story

Seth Godin writes:

Why on earth would a rational person give money to charity–particularly a charity that supports strangers? What do they get?

A story.

It might be the story of doing the right thing, or fitting in, or pleasing a friend or honoring a memory, but the story has value. It might be the story that you, and you alone are able to make this difference, or perhaps it’s the story of using leverage to change the world. For many, it’s the story of what it means to be part of a community.

For your donor to renew, she or he has to feel like the hero of the story. You are the one who is going to make donors feel like heroes. And the fundraising appeal letter is just one of the many times during the year you have an opportunity to do that–but it’s a crucial time.

Spiderman emblemUse your fundraising powers for good.

Write fundraising appeals that tell the donor, “Because of you, this happened. You are my hero. And you are needed, now.”

 

Fundraising Tuesday: Last Things First

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Every Tuesday this season, I’m offering a tip on how to write better fundraising appeals. The first post was Call Me By Name.

postscriptBesides getting the donor’s name right, what’s the easiest thing you can do to increase the chance they will give?

Answer: write a good postscript.

 

The P.S. Matters as Much as the Letter

The National Mail Order Association says:

79% of all people who open your direct mail will read the P.S. first. Before reading anything else in the letter. Or any other part of the mail package.

And in fact, if you don’t catch the donor’s eye with your salutation, your postscript, and your photos, you might as well not send the letter at all. Into the recycling it goes.

This may seem harsh. It does to me. I’m a writer by nature, practice, and inclination. Looking for the right word feels something like meditation, where I let meaning float to the surface….and something like a wine tasting, where I savor each word on the tongue. How can my writing not matter to the reader?

The simple truth is that nothing we write matters if no one reads it. And the postscript is one of the most important tools we have for getting the donor to read the letter.

What to Put in a Postscript

Because the P.S. is the first (and sometimes the only) part of a letter that readers read, it is not a throwaway line. In fact, you should use it to make your main point clear.

One of my favorite approaches is to summarize the appeal in a few short words and then call for action.

Look at the example from the Clinton campaign above. “Stop the GOP power grab” was the theme of the letter, and here it is again, baldly stated, in a few words. “Respond by July 30” tells the reader what action he or she can take.

Other experts, like the late Ray Jutkins, say to emphasize “the special something they will get when they respond.” That might be the premium you are offering them for giving, or (as in the Clinton letter) the chance to see their donation matched. For a nonprofit, it can be a cogent statement  of the difference their donation will make.

What’s more, the P.S. can be used to repeat your telephone and fax numbers, physical address, e-mail and Web site. It’s almost impossible to restate your vital contact data too often, Jutkins says.

What NOT to Put in Your Postscript

“The primary thing not to do with your P.S. is state a new fact, introduce a new idea or start fresh with a different thought,” Jutkins cautions.

Why not? Because it just confuses the reader.If they read the postscript first and then find the letter is about something different, they think, “What is this nonprofit really trying to say?”

Remember how many pieces of mail we all get. I received 90 fundraising appeal letters between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, just myself. All 90 0f them were competing for the reader’s attention. A postscript that confuses the reader ensures the letter winds up in the recycling bin.

A postscript that moves the reader and makes her want to read the rest of the letter: now, that’s the last word in fundraising.

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