Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: Appeal Letters, Easy to Read

by Leave a Comment

wall-of-text

Are your fundraising appeal letters easy to read? If not, all the work you put into choosing the right words may be wasted. (As in, tossed into the trash, unread.)

Let’s say you’ve done what it takes to persuade your potential donor to open the envelope. You’ve called them by the name they like to be called by, and you’ve written a P.S. that makes them want to go back and read your message. You’ve even included some excellent photos that go a long way toward telling the story.

And then they look at the language of your appeal letter, and it’s a solid wall of text. Into the trash it goes! (If they’re conscientious, into the recycling!)

What You Can Do to Make Letters Easy to Read

White space

white spaceBefore & After Magazine’s John McWade describes white space as no less than a “zone of silence”–and that’s a good thing!

White space gives your readers a break from the printed word, allowing them to rest their eyes, and making them more likely to continue reading. (And that’s what you want, right?)

Lisa Sargent gives five easy and powerful ways to use white space in your fundraising appeals:

  1. Use reasonable page margins (at least one inch, right and left).
  2. Write short, indented paragraphs and leave a blank line between them.
  3. Leave plenty of space for your signature.
  4. For longer letters, use subheads.
  5. Indent quotations.

Font

Why should you care about something seemingly trivial like the font your letter is printed in? Well, Colin Wheildon, author of Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes?, says:

It’s possible to blow away three-quarters of our readers simply by choosing the wrong [font]. If you rely on words to sell, that should concern you deeply.

Kathie Kramer Ryan of Arroyo Fundraising Fluency advises:

  • Use serif font for print and sans serif for online.
  • Use at least 12-point font for older eyes. (I would say 14!)
  • Don’t let designers dictate the look of your fundraising letter. Choose a font that invites your audience in.

Serif and sans serif fontsUnderlining, bold, and italics

The late, legendary fundraiser Mal Warwick counsels you:

Let’s assume you’ve decided that subheads are inappropriate for the appeal you’re writing… There’s still an easy way for you to accent the benefits offered in your appeal, answer readers’ unspoken questions, and make your letter easier to read: by underlining. Do it sparingly. Choose only a few key words and phrases. But, if possible, choose them before you write the body of the letter!

Why should you choose the words to emphasize even before you write the letter?

Because it helps you decide what the letter is really about.

Because it helps you remember what the letter is really about.

Because it helps you communicate what the letter is really about to your donors–and it forces you to ask, “And why does that matter to the person I’m asking to give?”

You should pay attention to white space, font size and shape, underlining, bold, and italics for the same reason you pay attention to your donors. Share on X

By making your appeal letters easy to read, you show them you care–and make it easy for them to see why they should give.

 

Fundraising Tuesday: Great Photos Make Great Appeal Letters

by Leave a Comment

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!

 

 

 

TY Thursday: Steal from the Best

by Leave a Comment

steal from the bestAre you trying to come up with an original way of thanking your donors? Don’t worry too much about that. Instead, follow comedian Milton Berle’s advice: “If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.”

(That must be good advice. Kurt Vonnegut stole the quote from him!)

Steal These Top Ten Thank-You Ideas

There are lots of models for saying thank-you out there. Here are my top ten.

  1. Michael Rosen shows you how to thank your most loyal donors. (You should certainly make your supporters feel as appreciated as a big corporation like Marriott does with its guests!)

2. Ann Green tells you to create a thank-you experience that begins with the thank-you landing page on your website and goes on through email, mail, and phone calls.

3. If you’ve ever considered using video for your thank-yous to donors, take a look at these examples presented to you by Bloomerang.

4. Joe Garecht says you can take the classic thank-you letter to a whole new level. Take a look at his sample letter. And Pamela Grow’s thank-you letter template, too!

5. While you’re at it, take a look at my blog The Ideal Thank-You Letter Went Out Today–one of the most popular I’ve ever written–because you want to know the single most important thing about thanking your donors.

6. Gail Perry gives you a checklist of do’s and don’ts if you want to write a killer thank-you letter.

7. It’s a lot easier to say thanks if you develop an “attitude of gratitude” in everyday life. Mary Cahalane shows you how thanking donors can make you happy.

8. A thank-you can win the trust of your donor. Kivi Leroux Miller says your TY can be specific about how the gift is being used and show results: two things donors say they want above all else!

9. Rachel Muir tells us about The Best Thank-You Letter I Never Got, in her guest post on John Haydon’s blog. Do you donate? Can you put yourself in the shoes of the donor? Follow the golden rule of nonprofit writing.

10. Does someone at your nonprofit say, “Let’s just send out the same letter we sent before”? Lisa Sargent suggests you do a thank-you letter audit–and she provides a 17-point checklist to help you show the skeptics where you could be doing better.

Because Your Donor is Worth It

Are you as good at building loyalty as an airline?

pilot thanks you

Thank you for flying our nonprofit!

Every time I’ve flown in recent years, I’ve heard the flight crew say something like this upon landing. “We know you have many choices for your air travel. Thank you for choosing North-South-East-West Airlines.”

Your donors have many choices about what to do with their money. They could give it to another nonprofit in your field. They could give it to a completely different cause. They could blow it on pizza and beer. They could leave it to their grandchildren.

But they chose to make a gift to you. You are better off because of it. And you want them to make that same choice next time.

So, it’s worth sending that donor the best expression of thanks you can. Especially when you have so many good ideas to steal!

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Yes! Please send me tips from Communicate! Consulting.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.