Why your fundraising needs a strong offer

Posted on February 17, 2026 by George Crankovic

In fundraising, a strong offer is a clear statement about what your donor will do and what she’ll receive in return.

It’s the deal, the transaction, the quid pro quo. But it’s something more, too. Your offer is the emotional link between your donor and your nonprofit’s mission. It’s an expression of your donor’s aspirations about being a good person and the validation of those aspirations, all put into action through the work your nonprofit does.

To be effective, your offer should do a number of things. It should present donors with a specific opportunity to do good. It should convey donor benefits, which can be tangible (like a premium) and intangible (like making a difference). It should tell your donor what to do and why. It should convey some sense of urgency, either implied or explicit (like a specific deadline to respond). And it should show your donor that she’s getting a good deal.

You want to incorporate as many of these “shoulds” as you can when crafting your offer. That might seem like a tall order at first. But once you get into it, you see that the strongest offers are often the simplest, such as, “Your gift of $25 will save the life of a starving child in Africa,” “Your gift will double in impact to send lifesaving medicine into poverty zones in Tajikistan,” or “Just $1.75 will provide a Thanksgiving dinner for someone who’s homeless.”

Granted, getting to this level of simplicity isn’t always easy, but it’s worth the effort. You naturally want your offer to be as donor-focused as possible. So take the time to think about the most enticing opportunity you can present to your donors that allows them to fulfill their need to be good people making a difference in the world.

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Less pleading, more giving

Posted on February 9, 2026 by George Crankovic

A fundraising appeal, by definition, is an impassioned plea. But in too many fundraising appeals, there’s just too much pleading, too much begging for a gift.

There’s another way to go. And that’s to emphasize the benefit to the donor when he or she gives.

Benefits? In fundraising letters? Absolutely. While copywriters tend to think of benefits only in business-to-business or consumer promotions, the fact is that benefits motivate donors to give.

For fundraising, benefits range from simply feeling good about giving, to thinking of oneself as a compassionate person, to helping make the world a better place, to fulfilling a religious obligation, to saving a life, to sending food, and much more. These are personal reasons for giving. They’re what the donor gets out of giving. They’re donor benefits.

And think about your nonprofit. How is it making an impact? How is it making a difference in people’s lives, local communities, the world? These are larger-scale benefits that donors realize by being a part of your mission, and they can be powerful reasons to give.

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Should a fundraising appeal be a polemic raging against poverty, animal abuse, or whatever the cause is?

Posted on February 2, 2026 by George Crankovic

Not necessarily.

A fundraising letter is, first and foremost, a letter. Sure, there are times when the right tone is outrage. But even then, your letter still should read like a letter from one person to another. Not an essay. Not a philosophical treatise. Not a journalistic think piece.

Direct mail is the most immediate and personal medium. You should make use of that fact. You want your reader to feel that the signer of the letter is a real and concerned person, not a faceless corporate entity. Think about the signer. What kind of person is he or she? Think about your
charity’s brand. What are its characteristics? Try to incorporate some of these qualities into your letter.

Overall, you want to strive for an informal, warm, conversational tone, because that’s what most people respond to. Use contractions. Use italics for emphasis. Vary your sentence length. Begin sentences with “and,” “but,” “so” and “or.” No, it’s not grammatically incorrect. Use fragments. (They are grammatically incorrect, but who cares? They’re conversational.) When you’re done writing, go back and reread it again. Does it sound like a letter written by a human being in the 21st century to another human being? When you can answer yes, you’re good to go.

You’re in fundraising and development. What do you think? Are your appeals working the way you want right now? Comment, or get in touch to compare notes.

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The wrong kind of fundraising storytelling

Posted on January 30, 2026 by George Crankovic

Yes, you want the stories in your fundraising appeals to spark emotion in donors.

But no, you can’t go crazy with it.

If you overuse adjectives and metaphors, you risk ending up with drivel like this: “The awesome burden of Sasha’s unending poverty fell like a heavy weight upon her small shoulders, and as she struggled to provide for herself and her kids and considered the hopelessness of her plight, the tears streamed down her face like rain on a windowpane.”

Wow — what drama! The problem is, the drama is so phony that it upstages credibility. And it sounds like AI nonsense.

Save the florid writing for your 1940s-era detective novel. The best stories and descriptions for fundraising are ones that tell themselves without embellishment. Think Hemingway. Be direct. That’s how to pull readers in.

Go back and reread your stories and descriptions with an eye toward eliminating unneeded adjectives and adverbs. Instead, focus on strong verbs. That’s where the power is, because verbs are action, and people lock onto writing that has action. Your copy will move readers. It will have the ring of truth.

You’re in fundraising and development. What do you think? Are your appeals working the way you want right now? Comment, or get in touch to compare notes.

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How to get donors to really lean into a fundraising appeal

Posted on January 27, 2026 by George Crankovic

To engage your readers, you want to pull your ideas down from the ether and express them through the things of the world. Copy that’s abstract won’t grab donors. Verbal images will.

A verbal image is different from a story. Fundraising stories are narratives — this happens, then that happens and so on. A verbal image, even though it may have some narrative elements, is essentially a snapshot — a succinct, sharply focused picture that readers immediately get. And that’s where it draws its power.

A verbal image is concrete. You can write in your appeal, for example, that your charity has 1,000 pounds of medical supplies to distribute. But that’s abstract. It’s unlikely to have much of an impact, because your donor can’t envision 1,000 pounds. Instead, you can write that your charity has boxes and boxes of antibiotics, bandages, vaccines, stethoscopes and crutches, stacked from the floor to the ceiling, filling up the entire warehouse, just waiting to be shipped. That’s concrete. It’s something your donors can see in their mind’s eye.

You can use verbal images to make just about every part of your offer and your appeal more compelling for donors, keeping in mind that the images should be based in fact and not just made-up.

Just as you use photos and other visual images, you can make your appeals more compelling and more effective with verbal images. To pull donors in, don’t just say it. Show it with verbal imagery.

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Are you giving donors what they want?

Posted on January 22, 2026 by George Crankovic

Donors want action.

Unfortunately, they might not be getting it from the appeals they receive.

Donors see vague, abstract messaging like “give hope,” “stand with us,” “join our movement,” “make a difference” and other ambiguities.

This vagueness is too common in fundraising appeals of all kinds. It denies donors the ability to take action, which is one of the main things they want. It fails to connect with donors on the level of personal values. And it makes the nonprofit seem like it’s being very careful not to say anything specific (Will my donation actually do anything, or does it just go into a general-fund black hole?). Donors start to feel like they’re reading one long disclaimer instead of a fundraising letter.

That’s why when a donor gets an appeal from a nonprofit asking her to give to help build a sustainable energy infrastructure, she’ll probably toss it. But if the appeal promises a specific action – like shutting down the fracking in her town – and asks for her help, she’s more likely to give.

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Why you DON’T want your donors to be readers of your fundraising appeals

Posted on January 19, 2026 by George Crankovic

You see it in a lot of fundraising appeals. The first few sentences of the letter force the donor into the position of being a passive reader as opposed to being a participant.

The appeal might open with a discussion of a topic. It might present the donor with facts, figures, and opinions. It might cite statistics. The donor is a reader, going through what sounds very much like a corporate memo, instead of a personal letter.

So what’s the right approach when you want your donors to be participants instead of just passive readers? Of course there are many different approaches. But in most cases, an involving letter opening will have “you” and “I” references. It will bring the donor into the action. And it will try to be emotionally engaging.

A letter lead like this makes the donor a reader:

“Food is a basic human right. Yet every year, 45 million children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition, and more than 3 million die from hunger-related causes…”

A letter like this makes the donor more of a participant:

“You might not see it. It doesn’t always make the news. But I can tell you, it’s heartbreaking. Innocent children, frail from malnutrition, starving to death. It’s a crisis, a tsunami of suffering, all around the world. I think about my own children…”

A strong, involving opening is like a promise to donors that whatever follows will be just as interesting. And when that happens, you’re far more likely to be on the way to winning their support as well as their loyalty.  

You’re in fundraising and development. What do you think? Are your appeals working the way you want right now? Comment, or get in touch to compare notes.

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Are your appeals up in the air or down to earth?

Posted on January 8, 2026 by George Crankovic

Specifics sell. It’s true in commercial marketing, and it’s certainly true in direct response fundraising.

You see a lot of abstract concepts in fundraising appeals like ‘stand with us,’ ‘make a difference,’ and ‘send hope.’ What do those vague notions mean? Not much, really. They’re abstractions, concepts that are up in the clouds, not definite thoughts and things down here on earth.

Bottom line, these generalized abstractions aren’t motivating. They distract and create doubts in your donor’s mind. So, be specific.

Instead of ‘stand with us against homelessness,’ say, ‘Your gift of $5 provides a hot meal, a clean bed, and a night of safe shelter.’ That’s going to seem a lot more real and a lot more useful to your donors. It builds donor relationships too, because donors will see your nonprofit as the one that’s doing real things to solve real problems.

You’re in fundraising and development. What do you think? Are your appeals working the way you want right now? Comment, or get in touch to compare notes.

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Your fundraising appeals are probably way too complicated

Posted on January 7, 2026 by George Crankovic

For direct mail fundraising, you have to keep it simple.

There’s a tendency to throw in lots of information in an effort to bolster the appeal. But this has the opposite effect. It just over-complicates the appeal.

This is especially important when it comes to the offer.  

Pare down your ask until it’s an easy-to-understand statement, ideally something that simply and directly communicates ‘Your gift of $X will accomplish Y.’ Don’t complicate things with details about your nonprofit’s 25th anniversary, your organization’s history, your dedicated staff, your programs, and so on. Donors want to know the problem that needs to be solved, and they want to know what their gift will do to solve it. So tell them, without the embellishment. 

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How to harness the power of good to make your fundraising appeals better

Posted on September 27, 2025 by George Crankovic

Many nonprofits aren’t giving donors what they want.

And then those same nonprofits wonder why donors aren’t giving them what THEY want – donations.

Donors want a whole range of things in exchange for their gifts. One of those things surely is the intangible benefit of thinking of oneself as a good person.

And why not? Why shouldn’t donors think of themselves this way? Donors ARE good people for giving.

But many nonprofits fail to tap into this in their fundraising appeals. Maybe they think it’s too sentimental or too melodramatic. Nonsense.

You want to connect with your donors on a practical level (I’m sending food for starving people), but you also want to connect with donors on an emotional level (I’m doing something good that I can be proud of, something that shows I’m a good person.).

So how do you communicate this important intangible benefit to donors?

There’s the tried-and-true donor appreciation certificate with the donor’s name on it, saying how wonderful they are. That says, “you’re a good person for giving.”

There are special awards, like a Good Neighbor Award, that send the good-person message.

There are impact reports saying, “you made this good work possible,” which the donor understands as “I’m a good person for doing this.”

There are memberships in giving groups, like president’s clubs, where donors can see themselves as good people in the company of other good people

There’s messaging. You can suggest, you can imply, you can even come right out and say, “You’re a good person!” in donor communications.

There are many more ways to convey to donors that they’re good people. And when you give donors what they want, they’re more likely to return the favor. See the whole story at https://tinyurl.com/28e4pkjp

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