Future Fundraising Now

Time 2020-12-17 05:03:05

Web Name: Future Fundraising Now

WebSite: http://www.futurefundraisingnow.com

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The most important element to work on is the subject line. When you don't get a winner there, it really doesn't matter how brilliant the rest of your work is.Strange thing about subject lines: There are two contradictory "tricks" to win eyeballs. You can read about them on the Bloomerang Blog, at Fundraising Magic Tricks to Boost Year-End Response.Trick #1: Clarity. Use the subject line to tell the recipient exactly what they'll find inside.Trick #2: Curiosity. Create mystery. Don't reveal what they'll find inside.In my experience, #2 is the go-to approach most often. #1 works better only when the thing you're revealing is either an amazing "deal" or some situation everyone is thinking about -- like a natural disaster. The most gracious, important, and precious gift any donor can give you is not money.It's attention.Almost everyone can come up with at least a little money they can give away. Hardly anyone has some extra attention to share.This is the main reason it's hard to succeed at fundraising. We struggle to get donors' attention.That's why one of the keys to success is to spend real quality time and energy on outer envelopes, subject lines, headlines -- the part of any communication that grabs attention. It doesn't matter how amazing your offer and your message are if they don't see it in the first place!Here are three ways to improve your attention-getting power:Mystery is (usually) your best friend for getting attention. Plain, informal, not over-polished is better at breaking through. This is why a plain, no-teaser envelope is so often the top performer in direct-mail testing.Your next best friend is WIIFM -- making it clear to everyone you're hoping to reach What's In It For Me. That means a focus on action (the donor's action), benefits (to the donor), and the donor's name are all important.Here are some approaches to avoid if you hope to get attention:Cleverness, wordplay, abstraction are terrible at getting attention.Giving it all away ("Hungry children need your help now") rarely works -- except when your fundraising proposition is really amazing, as in matching grant or other form of leverage.Your logo is not a magical attention-grabbing talisman. It's more likely the opposite.They've noticed that most, maybe all, posts here are tips, approaches, hints, ideas, even philosophy. Not specific "how-to write fundraising" material.It's an astute observation. But there are two reasons for the approach I take:1. Telling you how to write fundraising is not the mission of this blog.This blog hopes to equip you to write amazing fundraising.Because your bespoke fundraising, created by you and fully in context with your organization, your donors, your community will be many times more amazing than my generic attempt at some kind of plug-and-play fundraising message.You'll raise more money that way.And you'll help spread the word about what really works when you know in your bones what really works -- not something you picked up online that you hope will do the job.I want to change the world by equipping fundraisers to do great work. If you want to join me in doing that, your part is to get equipped and do the great work.2. I don't trust templates, and neither should you.I can't tell you how many times I've wished I could find a perfect template for some odd new writing challenge. Something to free me from the terror of the blinking cursor with a reassuring promise that "this will work."Problem is, that promise of a template is iffy. At best.Unless a template is targeted to your exact situation, there's an awfully good chance it will lead you astray.The only times I'm willing to create a template for others to follow is when the situation is super-specific -- when I'm confident it's more likely guiding people toward success rather making an empty promise it can't fulfill.If you want someone else to write effective fundraising for you, you can do that. It's a smart move for many. There are many people well equipped to do that. They want you to pay them, of course. But it can be very much worth what it costs.(And what you'll notice about the good ones is that before they start writing, they'll ask you a lot of questions. That's how they make sure they're doing the right assignment.)But even if you choose to outsource, you'll be better off if you understand fundraising from the inside.The truth is, fundraising is hard. Even outsourcing it is no piece of cake.There's no way around that.Even if you've read every blog, studied every book, attended every conference, had great mentors, and done it for decades.It's still a struggle. A journey. I invite you to join the journey. That's what this blog is about. Book Review: Turning Doubters Into Donors: How to Make a Compelling Case for Your Cause by Tom AhernI'd been in fundraising a good ten-plus years. I'd written hundreds of fundraising campaigns.So when someone asked me if I'd written very many "cases," I hardly knew what to say.As far as I knew, I'd never written a case, ever. I didn't even know what a case was. I vaguely hoped case was just an unfamiliar name for something I'd done plenty of times.Nope. No luck. I had to find someone I trusted to explain it to me.Maybe you've been in a similar position. Everybody seems to know what a case is. They talk about it freely and easily, as if everyone does them all the time. But you're saying "huh?"Thing is, you are a lot luckier than I was. You can read Tom Ahern's latest book, Turning Doubters Into Donors. It tells you exactly what a case is -- several distinct types of case -- and how to create one that knocks your donors' socks off and moves them to shower you with donations.A typical case is a document that's part of a capital campaign. It makes the case for why we're hoping to raise this extraordinary amount of money. Most often this type of case is several-page booklet, beautifully designed and image-heavy, written with soaring, inspiring words designed to take donors to heights of connection.But Tom points out that the standard case isn't the only type.There's also the feasibility case, which is a less formal document, used to solicit advice and interest from very high-end and closely connected donors, and the internal case, used for staff and others involved in fundraising to equip them with the information and approaches that will help them be more effective. (I wish this were a lot more common than it is!)If you find yourself needing to write a case, this book will help you find the paths, ask the right questions, avoid the pitfalls, and make it work.It's packed with real-life examples, stories of success (and failure), and insider advice.Highly recommended.Available at Amazon or from the publisher. Headlines are some of the most important writing you'll ever do. Advertising legend David Ogilvy put it this way:On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.He said this in an age when one of the most important forms of advertising (and fundraising too) was on-page ads in newspapers and magazines. So he was very much talking about printed headlines at the top of an ad.Which we don't do so much any more.But we still use headlines constantly, though in slightly different ways:Email subject lines.Teasers on direct mail envelopes.Headlines in newsletters.Any time we put large copy above smaller copy, that's a headline, and Ogilvy's 80¢ rule applies.Things not to do in headlinesDon't make them mere labels of what's below, like "President's Column" or "Health Update." Make your headline a sentence, meaning it has noun(s) and verb(s).Don't use newspaper-style "headlinese," which prefers fewer words over almost everything else, so it often has only implied verbs, and abbreviated ideas. Your headlines can be long in most situations!Don't use to be verbs (usually).Don't use passive voice.Don't use -ing verbs.Things to do in headlinesUse concrete, specific nouns.Use strong action verbs.Use the word you.Use your donor's name where possible (subject lines or digitally printed pieces).Emphasize relationships.Describe conflict, not static situations (conflict is not always between people, but often between people and their challenges).Use multiple headline elements where possible and appropriate (like subheads above or below the main headline).For envelope teasers and email subject lines: Mystery is one of your best friends.Finally, learn from the masters. The most reader-focused and powerful "headlines" are often found in these two places:The Tabloids. They're still great. They live or die on impulse purchases, so they have to be good!Clickbait. Same thing. The interesting thing about these is that techniques come and go as they work so well they start to be over-used and then they stop working.Not a surprise, given that almost everything in fundraising has been huge this year.Which raises the question for next year: "Should we 'do' Giving Tuesday?"Here are my answers:1. Don't decide next November. Think about it now.One of the most common causes of Giving Tuesday Failure is hasty, half-baked strategy and execution, thrown together in the days before the big day, often because someone insisted that you "do" Giving Tuesday. Decide now. If you're doing to pursue it, give yourself time to do it right.2. It's okay not to do Giving Tuesday.Giving Tuesday doesn't work for everyone. If you've tried it and it hasn't done well for you, it may be your donors just aren't dialed in to the idea. If that's the case, don't waste your time.The real "Giving Tuesday" for most organizations is on a Thursday this year: December 31. That's the biggest online giving day of the year for many, many organizations, including most that do very well on Giving Tuesday. You almost certainly should "do" December 31!However, it may be that it hasn't worked because you haven't done it right ...3. If you do it, do it right!The most common mistake organizations make on Giving Tuesday is they don't actually raise funds. They just send out messages about Giving Tuesday.Giving Tuesday is not a reason to give. It is (for some people) and occasion for giving like birthdays, Christmas, Hannukah, and others. My inbox was filled with subject lines like Today is Giving Tuesday and messages that went like this: It's Giving Tuesday, so give us a donation!That's not fundraising. Fundraising is giving donors the opportunity to make something happen that they care about. Even on Giving Tuesday. That's what the organizations that do well are doing.If your Giving Tuesday fundraising hasn't worked, take an honest look at it. Is it really fundraising, or is it just telling people to give because it's a random Tuesday? 4. If it's working, keep doing it.Most writing experts recommend that you write every day. That's the way you build your writing muscle so that whatever else you do, the act of writing is easier -- more fluent, less daunting.Writing every day is a lot more difficult than it sounds.That's why you should check out this post at Publication Coach: 15 tips I use to help myself write every day. Here are the tips:Put your commitment to yourself in writing. Post your commitment where you can see it. Set a goal so small you can't fail. Like to write for 10-14 minutes. Or just one paragraph. Progress is progress!Stack your writing with another habit. Like your morning coffee.Write in the morning (unless you are a night owl). But pick a special time for your daily writing.Have a double reminder system. Set an alarm or have an email send automatically.Have a quiet place for writing.Allow yourself to write badly. Really, it's okay to write crap. You can fix it later.Don't edit while writing. Don't research while writing.Allow time for EVERY step in the writing process. Thinking, research, planning, editing ... they're all necessary steps. Make sure you separate the steps and do all of them.Track your progress. Find a satisfying way to keep track.Don't count "free writing." Freewriting is a useful thing to do, and you should make it part of your practice. But it's different from the daily writing discipline. Set up an accountability system for yourself. Create rewards and "punishments" for yourself.Plan for what to do if you fail. You will miss a day. That is often what defeats the habit. Make sure you have a recovery plan for those times.Commit to the process for at least six months. If you keep it going to that long, you likely will have a long-term habit. Are you confusing your donors with a bureaucratic category that makes no sense and doesn't matter to them?You might be if you're raising funds under the flag of the foundation that's the fundraising arm of your main organization.There are plenty of reasons to organize yourself this way. But none of them are important to donors. If you're communicating in a way that forces them to understand that your foundation is in fact a separately run organization, you are keeping the confusion alive.Say you're with an organization called "Feed the Penguins." Your logo might look like this:So far, so good. But if you're like some fundraisers, It's the Save the Penguins Foundation that's communicating with donors. And the foundation has its own logo that emphasizes the separation:Big mistake.Sometimes the foundation has its own tagline that widens the gap. Instead of a cause-oriented statement like Never let a penguin go hungry, it's Supporting the work of Feed the Penguins.Donors don't give because you're a foundation. They give because of the cause. The foundation means little or nothing to them.Downplay the foundation. In your logo and in your language. Give donors "direct" access to the cause they care about.(This post first appeared on June 30, 2016.) Yesterday I told you about an organization that made getting complaints one of their goals. Today I want to tell you a little more about why that's a good idea.Because complaints seldom feel okay. Most often, they give you a sense that you were "caught" getting something wrong. It's not so bad when you feel the complainer is out to lunch, but it can really get to you when you know or suspect they're right.You just have to grit your teeth and take a complaint for what it is: One person having their say. It may be more or less apt or well expressed -- but it's not right or wrong. Complaints about fundraising are a good sign, because complaints are engagement.That's why the most successful campaigns also generate the most complaints.Here are some complaints you will never get:Your fundraising failed to get my attention.Your fundraising didn't call me to action.Your fundraising didn't inspire me to change the world.Your envelope/subject line didn't get me to open your message.In each case, you really failed -- at least with that particular donor -- by failing to generate engagement. The donor won't complain about that. She can't! The nature of your failure kept you off her radar.When you succeed at engagement, you hope it comes in the form of a donation.But it sometimes doesn't. Maybe the donor can't give right now. Or doesn't want to give right now. Or won't give to you ever...But you got her attention, and you made a strong case that she should donate. Now she's in a state of discomfort: She has information that she should donate, but she can't or won't. She is facing something like cognitive dissonance.Ouch.So she complains. Can you blame her?Sometimes the complainer isn't a donor at all. She's getting your material more or less by accident. But often, the complainer is a great donor -- someone who has given before, maybe recently, or often, or large amounts. She's likely to give again, but something about your fundraising isn't quite right for her, and she cares enough to point it out to you.That type of complaint is a great opportunity to take engagement to a new level. Get in touch with her, and tell her the truth about why you do fundraising the way you do. Almost every time, she'll believe you and appreciate being shown that you are professional and on top of things. And all those other people who aren't complaining? Well, a lot more of them are giving you a great big YES in the form of donations.That's why complaints are not bad.They're good. I started working with a new client right at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.The organization had been around for 50 years, and had a confirmed habit of doing all their fundraising work in-house. Outsourcing to someone like me was strange and new.Despite the uncertainty of the time, we agreed to a list of goals for the coming year. Most of those goals would have been somewhere between achievable and a stretch -- in a normal year.We had no idea how realistic they were at the time.But the last goal on the list, inserted by the CEO at the end of the planning process was this:Get more complaints.Our goals required that we ramp up the quantity and quality of fundraising campaigns to a new level. When you do that, you get complaints. It's pretty much inevitable. In fact, if you aren't getting complaints, you probably aren't maximizing your connection with donors.Even so, the courage of having complaints as a stated goal frankly stunned me.After all these years of telling fundraisers that strong fundraising always generates complaints, a boss believed me, and ran with it.What has happened?We're meeting the goals. Smashing some of them.Including getting more complaints. We've got around 10 complaints. Which, if you think about it, is freaky low.But they're still complaints, and that is scary for many leaders. As you plan for the coming year, I urge you to have a goal of generating more complaints. That will inspire you to be brave, to do fundraising that has real impact. And it will prepare you for the complaints when they come in -- you'll be more equipped to handle them effectively. It is an utterly liberating goal.Tomorrow: Why complaints are good in fundraising.What this blog is aboutThe future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here. More.About the bloggerJeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.Blog policiesI'm a Fundraisingologist at Moceanic, the company that can help you transform the way you do fundraising through one-on-one coaching or membership in The Fundraisingology Lab. Find out what we can do for you and with you!A proud member of The Case Writers, a collective of the smartest, most donor-loving creative professionals in the business.Writing for fundraisersAdmit it: Fundraising writing is weird.So many people get thrown into the work of writing fundraising without ever being told about the weird they need to live with -- and master -- if they're going to succeed.Until now. How to Turn Your Words into Money: The Master Fundraiser's Guide to Persuasive Writing by Jeff Brooks, is specifically and tightly aimed at helping you write better fundraising. Including things like ...Specifically how to ask.How to use rhyme to make your message more memorable and persuasive.How to tell stories that motivate donors to give.How to meet donors' emotional needs.Whether you should use guilt as a motivator.Whether you're working on your very first fundraising writing assignment or you're a seasoned veteran ... whether you want it for yourself or need to show someone else how the pros write fundraising -- or both -- this is a book you should order today.Irresistible fundraising!Raise funds with your eyes open. Skip the guesswork. Show your boss what really works. This book takes you on a fact-filled and memorable journey through writing, design, strategy, and the mental game of effective fundraising.Proven, tested, real-life techniques that give donors what they want so they can make the donations you need. If you care about fundraising, about your donors, and about supporting your cause, you need The Fundraiser's Guide to Irresistible Communications by Jeff Brooks.Order it today from Amazon.Branding can boost fundraisingDiscover how to make branding improve your fundraising in The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand: Motivating Donors to Give, Give Happily, and Keep on Giving. It's easier -- and less expensive -- than you may think! If your organization is even vaguely considering "branding work," you need to read The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand by Jeff Brooks. Read more here.

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