Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Category: fundraising

  • Isn’t it time for one-click online donating?

    Amazon is the source for everything on the Internet. And according to NPR, it has held the patent on a process that has probably been largely responsible for its phenomenal growth. It’s one-click checkout.

    If you’ve ordered anything on Amazon – and who hasn’t? – you’ve probably noticed how easy it is. You log onto the site, chose your item, and click the button to order it. Easy. So easy in fact that you can get the idea to order, say, some ink cartridges for your printer, find the ones you need on Amazon, and have them on their way to you in under two minutes.

    Surprising as it seems, Amazon has held the patent on the process of one-click ordering since 1997 – back in the Wild West days of the Internet.

    But now that patent has expired. Which means that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and others can develop one-click checkout.

    So, maybe now it’s time for charities to offer one-click donating. At this point, the options for online giving are a one-time gift or a monthly gift.

    But let’s say I like to give to Save the Looney Bird Society whenever the mood strikes, and let’s say the mood strikes maybe three or four times a year. I’m not a one-time giver, and I’m not a monthly giver.

    So, each time I feel a twinge of guilt about the plight of the Looney Bird, I have to fill in my name, street address, city, state, zip code, credit card number, expiration date, security code, and more.

    Of course, it’s not all that difficult to type that stuff in, but still, wouldn’t it be nice just to log onto the Society’s website and just click ‘donate,’ and know that the precious Looney Birds will be safe for another few months?

    Online donating is pretty easy. But it could be even easier. What do you say, online-fundraising developers?

     

  • Why donors give

    Thanks go to fundraising expert Tom Ahern for this. In his excellent e-newsletter, he included the moving and inspiring words of Damian O’Broin on why he’s a fundraiser. The occasion was the opening of the 2017 Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School in Dublin. Yes, Damian’s address is about him and his chosen profession, but it’s also much more than that.

    With each of the reasons that Damian lays out for being a fundraiser, he also reveals why people are donors. And he does it in language that’s direct and powerful. Because donors give for reasons that are direct and powerful for them.

    Staring off, Damian talks a bit about his early life, and then gets down to the specifics about why he’s in fundraising, including such illuminating points as:

    • I’m a fundraiser because my mother died from lung cancer, and my Dad died from kidney failure.
    • I’m a fundraiser because we’re sleepwalking into catastrophic climate change.
    • I’m a fundraiser because we’re closer than ever to beating cancer.
    • I’m a fundraiser because two million people have fled for their lives in South Sudan.

    There are many more. For each of them, simply substitute “donor” for “fundraiser,” and you have the key to engaging donors and raising money.

    I’m a donor because my mother died of cancer … I’m a donor because we’re sleepwalking into catastrophic climate change … I’m a donor because two million people have fled South Sudan.

    You can read the text of Damian’s talk here.

    You’ll feel good about being a fundraiser, and when you include the word “donor,” you’ll better understand the direct and powerful reasons behind the decision to give.

    We have to remember that what’s going on in donors’ heads when they receive our fundraising appeals is their own personal reason for giving. That’s what we have to tap into.

    The fact is, we make fundraising complicated with all the talk about data, strategies, metrics, and so on. Those are important, but we can’t let them distract us.

    Because it’s really just about the person on the receiving end of our fundraising message. It’s really just about her and about her ‘why.’

     

     

     

     

  • Email fundraising idea to test

    There are lots of guidelines for fundraising emails about opt in, unsubscribe, and so on, that you’re probably well aware of.

    But in that required language is an opportunity to strengthen our fundraising messages. Hear me out.

    Most fundraising emails have an “unsubscribe” link that’s visible near the top. That’s required. Then, when you scroll all the way down to the footer of the email, where no one ever looks, you’ll see another “unsubscribe” link, the “forward to a friend” link perhaps, and probably social media icons.

    If look even further down in the footer, you’ll probably see another, boilerplate-sounding statement that seems like it’s required language. It will be something like: “You are receiving this email because you subscribed at www.ABCNonprofit.org” (or however people opt-in to your email list).

    Including this line isn’t mandatory, but it is a best practice, so it’s probably on your emails.

    Now, here’s the idea to test. Take this statement — “You are receiving this email because you subscribed at http://www.ABCNonprofit.org.” — and move it from the bottom of your email where nobody sees it to the very top of the email, so that it’s the first thing that donors will see when they open your email.

    Why? Because it will immediately set the tone by reminding donors that they asked to receive emails from you. (This is assuming of course that you’re not spamming donors but are generating your opt-in list from signups, and so your recipients actually did ask to join your email list.)

    Instead of donors thinking, “This is another email from ABC Nonprofit asking for money,” seeing that line of text just might reframe the whole email for them, so that they’re thinking, “This is one of those emails I opted-in to receive.”

    It’s also a plus that the line seems like mandatory /  regulatory language as opposed to marketing / fundraising language.

    Not a bad way to start off your fundraising message. So why not test it? Just take that line that’s now at the bottom of your email and move it all the way to the top. And if you do try it, share what happens.

  • When thanking your donor is a weak fundraising approach

    It seems like the most natural thing in the world to open a letter or email to a donor with something like: “Thank you so much for all of your generous support.”

    It’s putting attention on the donor. It’s conversational. It’s friendly. And it’s safe — after all, who would object to being thanked?

    It may seem like a good idea, but as an opening gambit to a donor when you’re going to lead up to an ask, it can sometimes be pretty weak.

    Because, for one thing, your donor should ideally have been acknowledged and thanked for previous gifts in a separate communication, and that’s where you would go overboard with appreciation and praise.

    But even more than that, opening a letter with a statement of thanks is weak when it’s used in the absence of a strong offer. Thanking your donor in the opening isn’t a substitute for leading with an offer. Nor is it a substitute for presenting the donor with an opportunity to make a difference.

    It’s even worse when the communication goes like this: “Thank you for all of your generous support. As you know, ABC Charity operates a variety of innovative programs and services in countries around the world, and our experts in logistics and international relief are among the best …”

    In cases like these, the “thank you” line is there simply to create the appearance of donor-centricity, while the rest of the message is all about the organization.

    There’s no question that it’s good to thank donors for their gifts. That’s why thank-you letters are crucial.

    And there are even times when thanking can work as an opening. For example: “Your last gift of $25 made a real difference in the fight against cancer. Thank you! And now, I have an even more exciting opportunity to help end cancer as we know it.”

    Here the thank you is keyed to a reminder of the last gift amount as well as to donor impact and donor opportunity.

    The opening in a letter or an email is how you’re positioning and framing the entire message to your donor. It has to be right, or the communication won’t get read.

    That’s why one of the most reliable letter leads (among many others, of course) is, “I’m writing to you because …” Whatever you fill in to finish that sentence will most likely be a valid proposition to your donor and an opportunity to have an impact.

     

  • Our idea of a “fundraising story” is way too small

    Tell great stories. It’s the fundraising mantra. We’re led to believe that if our fundraising is going to have any hope of raising money that we have to be able to create protagonists, work out a plotline, and build the action in our stories to a crescendo like we’re Cecil B. DeMille or something.

    Yes, good stories are important in fundraising. Crucial, in fact. But there’s this idea that all you have to do is drop a story into a mail or email appeal, and suddenly donors will crawl over broken glass to give.

    The problem is that a story, even if it’s a good one, probably won’t be able to save an appeal that doesn’t have a compelling offer, fails to present valid reasons to give, and isn’t donor centric.

    But that’s only the half of it.

    We need to see the idea of storytelling in a much larger context. In reality, every word, every image, every ‘thing’ in your appeal — from the envelope or the subject line to the paper or the digital graphics to the signature — everything is telling a story.

    It’s not enough to simply drop a story into an appeal. Your appeal – all of it in its entirety – IS the story.

    Not only that, everything that a nonprofit does — from the website to the internet presence to the media coverage (or lack of it) is part of the story. The entire donor experience that a nonprofit is providing is the story.

    This is simply another way of saying, as Seth Godin does, that the brand is the story. “Every brand has a story,” he writes. “The story includes expectations and history and promises and social cues and emotions. We support a charity or a soccer team or a perfume because it gives us a chance to love something about ourselves.”

    Sure, there are all kinds of dramatic devices we can use in storytelling for fundraising. But whether we’re talking about the story of someone saved from addiction in an appeal or “story” in the larger context, what makes a story good is when it’s about the donor.

  • Why informing donors doesn’t work in fundraising

    It’s all too easy to think that if donors had enough information about a nonprofit’s work that they would donate in droves.

    But, unfortunately, that’s not the case.

    Truth is, as fundraisers we run into a roadblock called confirmation bias. This is people’s tendency to accept information that already supports their beliefs and reject everything else. Cognitive scientists have been studying this for a while. They find that more information doesn’t change people’s minds. In fact, it causes them to be more entrenched in their views. See more, including study results, in my guest post at Future Fundraising Now.

    If we’re trying to persuade people to donate to a cause, information isn’t the way to do it. We have to move their hearts, not fill up their heads.

  • What’s wrong with using emotion in fundraising?

    When we use strong emotions in our donor appeals, is it poverty porn or just good fundraising? See my guest post on the topic here.

    One of the conclusions of a recent article in SOFI is that negative emotions can highlight a problem, but positive emotions create more behavioral change.

    So does this mean we should use only positive emotions in appeals? That wouldn’t work, for obvious reasons. Human beings are not one dimensional in any area of life. Why should our charitable giving be any different?

    There are wide range of emotional motivators to choose from. There’s no need to restrict ourselves to just one or two. Instead, it’s better to use as many as possible. Here’s why.

  • Why we get mediocre fundraising

    The appeal opened with a description of a sweet little baby, and proceeded to deliver this bombshell:

    “Then he’s dead. Dead in 24 hours. Lying open mouthed to the night air, with his mom and dad weeping.”

    Strong language for an appeal? Yes. Concrete and graphic? Yes. Taking aim at donors’ emotions? Yes. Gratuitous guilt-tripping? Not at all. Not even close.

    In this case, the appeal was about the tragedy of babies dying in poor countries. So it made perfect sense to dramatize that problem as vividly as possible.

    Then, the initial comments came in.

    “Too over the top,” they said. “Too shocking.” So it was watered down. But why?

    For a lot of reasons, but mostly fear. People are reluctant to rock the boat or disagree. And in truth, many clients are reluctant to risk donor complaints.

    It’s understandable, of course. But then again, anything that’s even slightly outside the boundaries of the accepted gets nixed, and what’s left is the lukewarm, the middle of the road, the mediocre.

    If writing copy for fundraising is about anything at all it’s passion for the cause. We can’t have that and, at the same time, let fear hold us back from connecting with donors at a visceral level. Which is what we absolutely, without question, must do.

    So, we have to push forward. Test the boundaries. Take a risk. Go out on a limb. Try something bold, even if it doesn’t work.

    It’s the only thing to do, because there’s only one other alternative, and that way lies mediocrity.

  • Giving is way up for 2016, but what’s ahead for 2017?

    2016 has been a banner year for nonprofits, according to a report from NPR.

    Fundraising is up about $35 million over last year – a big jump. Giving Tuesday alone was up an amazing 44 percent over last year, totaling $168 million in donations.

    Most likely, the rise in giving is due to the strong economy.

    But the other part of the story has to do with the impact of a Trump administration and the Republican Congress.

    If there are big tax cuts for the rich, then the charitable tax deduction won’t be worth as much. So some accountants are advising clients to give more this year because of possible tax changes.

    So far so good.

    But it’s likely there will be federal spending cuts in the coming year that will directly impact the poor.

    Many nonprofits engaged in providing housing, health care, and other services for the poor rely on federal funding. And many of the people who get help from those charities also rely on welfare and other forms of governmental assistance. If funding is cut, what happens to those nonprofits and the people they serve?

    Even if charitable giving rises about 4 percent in 2017 as expected, it probably won’t be enough to cover the huge increase in operating costs these charities will face. Nonprofit budgets will be stretched even further. Some charities may not be able to continue. And the poor will continue to suffer.

    Having a big year in fundraising is great news. But as fundraisers we have to remember that our work isn’t defined entirely by the numbers. We’re in the business of helping people.

    So in an era of potentially crushing cuts in federal funding, we’ll need to respond with tighter messaging in appeals, stronger offers, more donor engagement, wider acquisition efforts, more donor acknowledgement, more reporting back to donors – in short, all the things that are proven to motivate donors to give.

    Even if the coming year breaks fundraising records too, we’ll still have our work cut out for us.

  • Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Lessons for Fundraising

    Herschell Gordon Lewis passed away recently. He was known as the “Godfather of Gore” for his campy movies.

    But more importantly, he will always be remembered a master of direct-response copywriting, both for business and for nonprofits. See my guest post at Future Fundraising Now.

    Among his many lessons for fundraisers, there are three that stand out:

    • It’s about “you,” the donor – not about “us,” the organization.
    • Use the motivators – fear, exclusivity, greed, guilt, and need for approval.
    • The best fundraising is episodic – it presents anecdotes, narratives, and events to donors.

    This barely scratches the surface of Lewis’ wisdom on fundraising.

    If you’re a student of copywriting and fundraising, then you should count Lewis, along with legends like John Caples, as one of your teachers. See the guest post here.