Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Blog

  • Subject-line lessons for fundraising from the Presidential campaign

    Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign in 2012 set the standard for the use of email for fundraising with the famous one-word subject line: “Hey.”

    Now Hillary Clinton’s campaign is testing and using a variety of subject lines, based on six major themes:

    1. Reaction to events
    2. Invitations
    3. Merchandise
    4. General campaign messages
    5. Calls to action
    6. Event announcements

    Check out this post from Future Fundraising Now to see how the Clinton campaign is using these themes and how you can adapt them to your fundraising when you need a good subject line.

     

  • What political speeches can teach us about fundraising

    When they’re speechifying, politicians want their audiences to respond, and they love it when a line in a speech sets off thunderous applause. But they don’t leave this to chance. They use specific techniques to get a response, and getting people to respond is exactly what we want to do as fundraisers. See my guest post over at Future Fundraising Now for more on using these seven techniques in your fundraising:

    1. The contrast: contrast positive vs. negative.
    2. The list: Place (usually) three items in a series.
    3. The puzzle: Describe the problem, then the solution.
    4. The headline – punchline: Say you’re going to say something, then say it.
    5. The combination: Combine the previous techniques.
    6. The position: Establish a position, then take or refute it.
    7. The pursuit: Encourage response by reiterating.

     

  • How to use social proof in fundraising appeals

    Social proof is a powerful motivator in fundraising appeals. My article in Nonprofit Pro describes how to use it, and shares some ideas on making it work even harder for you.

    To leverage social proof, you can:

    1. Highlight a dollar amount in the gift string. This is often effective. But there’s an even better way to make this work.
    2. Use localization: add the name of the donor’s city to your appeal. But there’s a way to make this even more compelling for donors.
    3. Use testimonials from donors. But you can take this a step further, so that it works even better.
    4. Change the way you present donor benefits. Here’s how to slightly recast the impression that your fundraising copy is giving to bring more donors in.
    5. And whatever you do, be careful to avoid using negative social proof. See what it is and why it’s an easy trap to fall into.

    Check out the whole article here.

  • One big reason to ramp up your major donor marketing

    Now’s the time to do more than ever to engage major donors, and here’s why.

    The U.S. economy is minting new millionaires at a stunning pace. According to one study, the number of millionaire households shot up from 13.7 million to 16.3 million in just one year, from 2012 to 2013.

    And yet, according to other research, the rich and super-rich have cut back on their giving. From 2006 to 2012 — encompassing the Great Recession and recovery — wealthy donors reduced their share of income going to charity.

    So, right now, the rich are a vastly under-tapped source of funding.

    But here’s the interesting part.

    During that same period, the poor increased their giving. They gave a larger share of their income.

    Yes, the poor gave more, and the rich gave less. And it’s is even more surprising since most poor and middle class folks were hammered by the recession.

    The rich, on the other hand, actually did better during that time. What’s more, the number of people entering the privileged classes continues to increase as the income gap widens.

    Which means, of course, that your major-donor prospects keep getting wealthier and the pool of these donors keeps getting bigger. It’s not hard to see that you probably need to pay a lot more attention to high-dollar donors.

    One stumbling block is that the rich and poor give to difference causes. The poor give to churches and soup kitchens, but millionaires tend to give to the arts and universities.

    But even if your nonprofit isn’t in one of those sectors, you can and should engage wealthy donors. And why not? Why shouldn’t your cause get some of this funding? At first, try something simple like versioning a mail appeal for bigger donors, and then move on to campaigns, including mail, email, events, and personal-contact touch points. Have your nonprofit put on its best suit, shine its shoes, comb its hair, and get in front of these donors. Make your case. The upside potential is huge.

     

  • Are you a good fundraiser? Try this simple self-check.

    Your appeals get your donors involved and engaged in your nonprofit and mission, right?

    If you’re ready to find out, try this self-check.

    Call one of your donors out of the blue. You’ll be shocked. Because, odds are, your donor:

    • Doesn’t know what your nonprofit does beyond something hazy like helping people or fighting poverty. And doesn’t really care to know much more.
    • Doesn’t care what your mission statement says. Hasn’t read it, doesn’t plan to.
    • Doesn’t know what your programs are or any successes that you’ve had.
    • Doesn’t know she’s in your sustainer program and doesn’t know you have a sustainer program or even what that is. She only knows that she gives $10 a month when the reminder comes.
    • Doesn’t really want your appeals and newsletters. She usually just glances at that stuff and tosses it.
    • Doesn’t know that the appeal she just responded to featured a matching grant. Didn’t look at it that closely.

    Sure, we all realize that what donors say is usually different from how they respond. So just because one donor doesn’t know or care much about your nonprofit but still gives, that’s okay, right?

    Maybe. But what if large blocks of your donors feel this way? What if they’re giving out of habit or some philanthropic reflex and not because they love your nonprofit and value what you do? That’s scary. Because if they’re not loving you, they’re leaving you. Attrition will steamroller you.

    So what do you do? You do more. More donor engagement, more donor focus, more donor communication.

    Don’t release an appeal until it sings. Don’t send a newsletter until you can’t believe how good the stories are — with a protagonist, conflict, a plot, and a point. Don’t fear ‘bothering’ your donors. The more they hear from you, the more they’ll like it. Don’t just go through the motions with social media. Provide content that’s good enough to share. Don’t just have a website. Give donors videos, images, stories, infographics, and more.

    But mainly, don’t just communicate with donors. Hit the hot buttons of their values, motivations, and aspirations. Animate those feelings, and you’ll get right to the core of what drives your donors’ giving as well as their loyalty.

     

  • Is this the easiest, most direct way to motivate donors to give?

    It’s no secret that giving confers all kinds of benefits to donors. People who give are generally happier and even healthier than non-givers.

    But if that’s true, then how would donors react if we pointed out those benefits in an appeal? Will speaking directly to donors’ self-interest about the benefits of giving persuade them to give or maybe to give more?

    There’s not a lot of research to go on. But one study suggests that laying out the benefits of giving just might work.

    As a first step, researches explored whether a virtuous cycle exists between happiness and giving — that is, does giving cause the happiness that encourages donors to give?

    The subjects were asked to recall a time when they spent money on themselves or others, and report their happiness. Then each subject was offered the choice in future spending that would make them the happiest. Turns out, the people who felt happy by recalling a previous expenditure for someone else were more likely to donate in the future. So, the virtuous cycle does seem to exist.

    Next, researchers explored whether laying out the benefits of giving would motivate people to give. Researchers surveyed 1,000 readers of the New York Times who had read an article about the link between giving and happiness. Compared to other studies, the people in this group reported devoting as much as 40% of their spending on others — a higher than average rate — suggesting that these people gave more because they were aware of the benefits of giving.

    Yet, other research suggests that adding in motivators like happiness from giving will divert donors’ attention from the need and lessen their impulse to give.

    Still, promoting the benefits of giving is worth testing to see how your donors will react. If you’re bold, come right out and link greater happiness with a gift to your nonprofit. If you’re cautious, use subtle suggestions. And see whether or how much this added dimension moves your donors.

     

  • How this out-of-the-box copywriting technique draws donors into fundraising appeals

    Whatever you might think of TV infomercials, they’re brilliant examples of direct response. And one part of the infomercial in particular – the product demo – can be adapted to fundraising appeals in order to engage donors and move them to give. See how here.

    You’ll discover that creating a kind of demo in fundraising copy can evoke an emotional response in donors, and you can check out three specific examples of how it works. Take a look.

     

  • Donors Are Nutty! This Might Help Explain Why

    In a logical world, the bigger the problem is, the more donors would give to solve it.

    But people aren’t logical (it’s what makes us so much fun!).

    You’ve probably heard about the identifiable-victim effect. It tells us that donors will give more to help a single victim than to help many victims. This is the research where people were given a story about a starving girl in Africa, but when that same story was paired up with statistics about starvation, people gave less.

    The typical explanation is that statistics blunted the emotional impact of the story.

    But what’s really at work, according to other research, is donors’ sense of perceived efficacy, the feeling about how much their gifts will do. In one test, the first group of donors got a photo and story of a poor child. The second group got photos and stories of two poor children, and were told they could give only to help one child or the other, not both. The second group — those who got two stories and photos — gave less. The same result happened when the second group got photos and stories of seven children in need.

    The conclusion? When donors get information about additional people needing help — whether it’s just one other person, seven others, or statistics about millions of people — that information discourages them from giving. Donors consider the people who won’t be helped, feel less good about giving, and conclude that their gifts won’t do as much good as they want — then don’t give. Of course, rationality says that helping even one person is better than helping none. But donors don’t see it that way, and no amount of logic is going to change that.

    What to do? Here are two approaches.

    1. Focus on the human drama, not the scope. It’s a natural reaction to want to make the problem seem big by citing statistics, referring to others in need, showing images of people in crisis, and so on. But that doesn’t work. It doesn’t even work in disaster fundraising, where the need is often shockingly large. Avoid the temptation – and it’s a strong one – to hype the size or breadth of the problem. Instead, focus on presenting the individual human drama as compellingly as possible in copy and images.
    2. Present the right offer. The offer you present to donors has to be calibrated to donors’ sense of proportion. If possible, be specific. Say $XX does a specific thing, and make sure that the specific thing is reasonable to your audience. You can’t expect a donor to solve world hunger. But you can expect a donor to help one hungry child when the gift will make a clear, defined difference. That he or she will gladly do.

  • Book review: “Everyone at a Nonprofit Is a Fundraiser”

    “Your nonprofit is siloed.” That’s something you never want to hear. If you do, then your organization’s departments all have their own agendas, lack a common vision, and fail to communicate with each other. Everyone is working at cross-purposes, trying to go in different directions at once, instead of one clear direction.

    That’s why the new e-book — Everyone at a Nonprofit Is a Fundraiser  — from Nonprofit Funderland is particularly relevant. It combines the experience and insight from the three principals of the organization — all veteran fundraisers — who’ve seen when nonprofits work well and when they don’t. That is, when nonprofits are centered around the donor and when they’re not.

    One anecdote in the book sums it up. A donor visits a nonprofit for a meeting with the executive director only to be met by a rude receptionist who ignores him, continuing instead to talk on the phone with her friend. The donor, thoroughly insulted, has his meeting with the executive director. A short meeting, to announce that he’s ending his support. Generous, long-term support. Ouch. Lesson learned.

    That’s the underlying spirit of the book — that a nonprofit centered around the donor, and therefore free of silos, is a better nonprofit. Better at fundraising and better at achieving its mission. In exploring this theme, the book delves into concepts of interest to fundraisers in organizations large and small. For example:

    • Creating a nimble nonprofit where good fundraising can thrive.
    • How and where to find new audiences for fundraising.
    • Why a nonprofit can and should be entrepreneurial.
    • Applying the 80/20 rule to donor engagement versus cultivation in your online fundraising.
    • Ways your digital strategy can improve donor acknowledgement.
    • Addressing the fear nonprofits have about asking too often.
    • What to do when your board isn’t fundraising-friendly.
    • The strongest tactic for fundraising in a recession (yes, the next one is coming).
    • Using communications to engage donors.
    • How to connect with major donors and win greater support.
    • Pitfalls to avoid if you’re considering an event.
    • Why fundraising, despite its challenges, is still a noble and personally satisfying profession.

    Everyone at a Nonprofit Is a Fundraiser covers a lot of ground. The only problem is that the content is so good you’ll find yourself asking drill-down questions about details that are outside the scope of the text. But that’s a minor concern. Because the lessons in the book are large and insightful. After reading it, you’ll come away with clear, specific ideas not only about how to do fundraising but also how to think like a fundraiser.

  • Power to the pronoun

    Most of us think of pronouns like “I” and “we” as mere function words in copy. We use them to start a sentence or move it along to get to the good, meaty words that are marbled with meaning.

    But research shows that simple pronouns say a lot more than we think.

    For example, in both speaking and writing, higher-status people don’t use the personal pronoun “I” very much. This contradicts the stereotype of the captain of the boardroom constantly exclaiming “I, I, I” and “Me, me, me.” In fact, higher-status people use “I” far less, while lower-status people use “I” far more.

    This is the case, as the researchers theorized, because the lower-status people are focusing more on themselves. They say “I” more often because they’re more self-conscious and aware of how they’re seeming to the higher-status person.

    On the other hand, leaders and other higher-status people tend to use the plural pronoun “we” much more than their followers. That’s because leaders are more “other-focused.” Their attention isn’t on themselves but on the group, the goal, and the big-picture externalities.

    What does this mean for fundraising? The copy in an appeal can convey a whole range of emotion from outrage to benevolence to fear to hope. Along with that, we’re always aware when writing copy that our appeals are essentially a dialogue between writer and reader. And during that dialogue, the focus shifts from writer to reader and back again, as in any conversation.

    So, based on this research, using “I” in copy can be an effective way to put the donor in a position of higher status, to display more thoughtfulness or self-awareness on the part of the writer, or to show vulnerability, as when reacting to an instance of human suffering, for example. “I slumped in my chair when I learned Miriam had TB.”

    And, “we” can be used to show that the focus is outer-directed, to convey the need for teamwork, or to suggest that the writer is taking charge and demonstrating leadership — “We need to end poverty now!” One caution here. In marketing and fundraising copy, readers might assume that “we” is being used in the organizational sense — that the organization is the “we” that’s talking. It’s important to make it clear from the context that the “we” refers to writer and donor together, marching toward a goal.

    Admittedly, these are subtle points. But as anyone who’s ever sweated over the right verb or poured over test results knows, it’s the subtleties that can add up to big differences in response.