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Fundraising Tuesday: Make the Donor the Hero

May 2, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

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 for the first time in 2015 didn’t renew their gift in 2016.

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.”

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7 Reasons You’re Not Getting Enough Donations

November 17, 2015 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

“Is the mail here yet?”

When I worked at a nonprofit organization, every day in December, I would anxiously check the mail. How many of those appeal letters I’d sent out were coming back with donations enclosed?

Now I’m a consultant–and I’ve always been a donor–so I’m looking at the mail in a different light. Last November and December, I received 58 solicitations in the mail. How many of the organizations I support are sending out letters that will make other people want to support them?

Good news, bad newsFriends, there is good news and there is bad news. 

The bad news is that your appeal letters are failing, in seven different ways. If you are falling short of your fundraising goals this year, your letters may have a lot to do with it.

The good news is that you can do something about that!

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

1) You’re starting your letter “Dear Friend.”  21 out of 58 letters I received called me Friend or Supporter.  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. 41 out of 58 letters were in French: they said “we, we, we.” Another 9 said, essentially, “Thank you, you’re great because you support our great work.” 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.  28 out of the 58 letters I received told just the facts, ma’am. Another 22 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 26 of 58 letters I received were text only! Another 25 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: 48 out of 58 letters I received used exactly the same language to me that they would use to someone who had never given them a penny.

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! 55 out of 58 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 Welcome Project for including notes to my wife and me from both the Executive Director and the Board President.)

7) You’re sending multiple copies of the same letter to my address. Is it really so hard for you to figure out that Dennis Fischman, Dennis and Rona Fischman, and Dennis K. and Rona J.S. Fischman are the same people?  Besides wasting paper and postage, you’re letting me know that you really have no idea who we are: not a good way to ask for money!

Fix this by cleaning up your database, and by asking your envelope-stuffers to be on the lookout for duplicates.

 I’ll tell you how the 2015 appeal letters looked at the end of the year!

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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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