Tag Archives: advertising

One sure way to make your fundraising better

The single best thing you can do to improve your fundraising? Come to terms with a hard truth: You are not your donors. They’re probably older than you, for one thing, which means they have a completely different frame of … Continue reading

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When disaster fundraising works and when it doesn’t

If you haven’t already, you’ll probably soon receive a barrage of emails appealing to you for donations to help the victims of the horrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria. This is of course a worthy cause. The need is overwhelming. … Continue reading

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Two ways to begin a fundraising appeal – from Jerry Huntsinger

In Jerry Huntsinger’s “86 Tutorials in Creating Fundraising Letters and Packages,” he makes a point about how to begin a fundraising appeal. He makes his point with an example. It’s an appeal for a cancer charity. It begins: “Children shouldn’t … Continue reading

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Tell a better story for fundraising

Is this the way to make the story in your fundraising appeal more memorable and more impactful? Tell it in the present tense. Most of the time, stories are in the past tense. This happened, then that happened, then this … Continue reading

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Positioning for your nonprofit

Donors want to know that they’re making a difference with their gifts. That’s always been the case, and it’s even more true now with the current recession going on. So that’s why it’s important to take a look at your … Continue reading

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Make your fundraising appeal stronger with the right teaser

An appeal from a religious nonprofit has this teaser on the outside envelope: “It is necessary to be strong, in order to become great; that is our duty. Life is a struggle which we cannot avoid. We must triumph!” It’s … Continue reading

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Coronavirus fundraising – there’s a better way

Judging from what’s showing up in mailboxes and email inboxes, it looks like a lot of nonprofits are struggling with the messaging around the coronavirus crisis. But honestly, they’re making it much harder than it has to be. Take this … Continue reading

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How NOT to begin a fundraising appeal – and one way that almost always works

A fundraising appeal from a social services nonprofit opens with this: “What would we do without you? How would we help local families like Michelle’s?” That’s the opening paragraph, the first thing that donors will see, and for some, the … Continue reading

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Coronavirus fundraising and what not to do

Fundraising for the coronavirus emergency is, well, unusual so far. A soup kitchen sends an email with the subject line “A message from the president.” If you’re a donor scanning your email inbox, that could be just about anything. Then … Continue reading

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Are your fundraising appeals repetitive? Good

Effective copywriting for fundraising is weird. It has a lot of characteristics that seem to be the opposite of what’s right. One of these is repetition. Good copy for an appeal tends to repeat some things over and over. To … Continue reading

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