Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Category: Online fundraising

  • One reason why fundraising appeals go bad

    “The letter doesn’t sound like me.” That’s something a president/CEO or executive director of a nonprofit might say when she’s reviewing a fundraising appeal.

    It’s actually a frequent comment, and it’s understandable, really.

    After all, the president probably believes passionately in the cause that their nonprofit is engaged in and probably works like crazy at it. So it’s completely understandable that she would think of herself as the face of the nonprofit, as if she and the nonprofit are somehow one and the same.

    And that’s exactly where the disconnect comes in. Most donors will probably never meet the president, will probably never even see a picture of the president, and probably wouldn’t know the president’s name except that it’s on the bottom of the letter. Most donors, to be honest, probably don’t know or care who the president is.

    So it’s probably not the president who should be thinking of himself or herself as the face of the nonprofit. If anybody should be doing that, it should be the donor.

    The reality is that the fundraising letter isn’t there to reflect and validate the president – as vital as that person unquestionably is to the nonprofit. It’s there to reflect and validate the donor. So when the president says the letter doesn’t sound like her, that’s okay – and probably even beneficial – as long as it sounds like something that interests the donor.

    This is a hard thing for a lot of presidents to come to terms with – again, for completely understandable reasons. But sometimes it gets a little nutty. Like the president who forbids the use of contractions in letter copy… or beginning sentences with “and” … or using sentence fragments … simply because these and other quirks are pet peeves or personal preferences.

    In other cases, it’s more extreme.

    One president who was heading up a Christian rescue mission was reviewing a Christmas appeal, and he reacted to all the references to the birth, the nativity, and so on. “I don’t really talk about that very much,” he said. Keep in mind, he was a devout Christian. It’s just that, for him personally, he preferred not to wear his faith on his sleeve, and that included his very real feelings of joy over the birth of Christ. He felt this was intensely personal, not something to be included in a fundraising letter. So the feedback was to reduce and tone down the references to the birth. Remember, this was a Christmas appeal. Coming from a Christian charity.

    The president may be reluctant to have lots of nativity talk in his letter, but you can bet the donors want to see plenty of Christmas language and Christmas imagery in a Christmas appeal. After all, this is a charity that they have not only an emotional connection with but also a spiritual one. They’re no doubt expecting religious language. They’re probably even looking forward to it.

    And that’s the point. It’s not the president’s letter, even though his or her name and signature are on it. That’s tough for many presidents to realize. The effective ones do realize it, though. They know that it’s the donor’s letter. And so, it should be all about her, all about her values, all about her heart for the cause, and all about giving, because that’s what draws donors closer to the nonprofit – and that’s what raises more money.

  • Worrying about your year-end appeal?

    What you need is information. It’s here, and it’s free: The Straight-Talk Guide to Year-End Fundraising. Download it now, free, and discover:

    • What you’re missing if you don’t engage your donors at this critical time of year.
    • Mid-level donors – why you shouldn’t overlook this special and generous class of supporters.
    • The importance of Giving Tuesday for year-end fundraising.
    • How to maximize donor response to your year-end appeal.
    • The specific type of offer to present to your donors.
    • What works and what doesn’t when it comes to the messaging for your appeal.
    • Multichannel – how integrate direct mail, email, and social media.
    • And much more.

    Make this year-end appeal your best ever. FREE Download: The Straight-Talk Guide to Year-End Fundraising.

  • Is social media fundraising worth it?

    With all the controversy about Facebook and selling user data and undermining user trust, it’s a good time to think about how and why we’re using social media for fundraising.

    It might not seem like it at first, but there’s a lesson for nonprofits and fundraisers in Sport Rider magazine. This popular motorcycling magazine went out of business a little while ago, even though they had 2.4 million Facebook followers — 2.4 million!

    Looking at 2.4 million followers, anyone could be forgiven for thinking, “Our readers love us! What could possibly go wrong?”

    But as vintage-motorcycle esthete Paul d’Orleans soberly observed, “A ‘like’ isn’t a dollar.” So true. In the cold light of day, those social-media vanity metrics aren’t really worth much.

    How many charities and fundraisers will learn this same, hard lesson about social media?

    How many ‘likes’ does your nonprofit get? How many followers do you have? Thousands? Millions? Chances are, all that means very little.

    Shareable content – that’s the key to social media, we’re told. Think about how much time and effort you’re spending to come up with clever videos, catchy photos, and other shareable content for social media all in order to chase likes and followers. What is it really achieving?

    Sure, the social media proponents say that Facebook and Instagram and the like are supporting and bolstering email response rates. And that may be true. After all, we know that email helps drive up direct mail response rates, so, yes, there may be some cross-channel benefit. But the problem is that when you use Facebook and other social media, they’re the ones in control of the platform, not you.

    As fundraising expert John Hayden explains, an over-reliance on social media is risky, and as an online strategy, instead of putting too much emphasis on social media, it’s smarter to focus more on email, which you can control and which actually produces fundraising results.

    For the fundraisers chasing vanity metrics like the number of followers, likes, impressions, and even more vague measures like awareness, it’s probably time to take a hard look at social media and then at actual donations.

     

  • 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?

     

  • 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.