Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Tag: nonprofit

  • How to keep your donors interested in your fundraising appeal

    It’s the age-old problem: how to engage the readers of your direct-response fundraising appeal to, first, start reading and then to continue reading.

    Luckily, we have some tips from Clarification blog:

    • Talk less about us (the nonprofit) and more about you (the donor).
    • Use shorter paragraphs to make copy more inviting and easier to read.
    • Don’t stop at a compelling headline or subject line. Also consider the subheads, the PS, the salutation, and other components to keep readers engaged.
    • Use a metaphor to paint a picture for your readers.
    • Use quotations but keep them short, so they’re more likely to be read.

    These are all good tips.

    But there’s one additional aspect to good copywriting to add to this list. It’s vital if you want to keep readers motivated, and that’s using transitions.

    Transitions are invaluable if you want to keep your readers moving from one paragraph to the next like a slinky toy going down stairs.

    And in linking your paragraphs together, transitions also make a piece of copy seem like a coherent, crafted whole – a good thing.

    The transitions to use? There are an infinite number, limited only by your imagination. But some that are frequently used include phrases like “that’s just the beginning,” “and don’t forget this,” “and here’s the point,” “we’re not done yet,” “what does this mean to you?” and many, many others.

    Using transitions is one of the best ways to help ensure that your readers take in your complete fundraising message. And that’s your best chance of moving them to give.

  • 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 have to face the devastation of cancer and death. But they do. Each year, hundreds of children…”

    It’s the standard, institutional, boilerplate blah, blah, blah. Jerry notes that where the letter actually begins is in the fifth paragraph, with this:

    “Lance was diagnosed with leukemia two days before Christmas. He was 2 years old. ‘Lance was so sick that they flew us to Twin Cities for immediate treatment,’ his mother said. ‘His platelets were so low that his teeth bled through the night.’”

    BAM – there you are, right in the middle of the drama. Nothing institutional about that. Nothing blah, blah, blah about that. Especially that detail about the boy’s teeth bleeding – that detail gets you.

    Sure, starting an appeal with a story is a tried-and-true approach. But here’s the point. The first opening – “Children’s shouldn’t have to face …” – is basic expository prose. It’s simply explaining something. It’s simply conveying a generalization about children and cancer. It’s not trying to involve you. (It’s something you’d get from ChatGPT if you asked it to write an appeal about childhood cancer.)

    The second opening – “Lance was diagnosed …” – is meant specifically to involve you. It’s telling you that this letter is about a human drama playing out right before your eyes. It’s one human being talking to another.

    As Jerry says, the second opening will raise more money.

  • What makes a good offer for a fundraising appeal and what makes a bad one

    Why does the offer matter so much in direct mail fundraising? Let’s take a look at an appeal to find out.

    This is a fundraising appeal from a military nonprofit, and in the body of the letter, the first ask is this: Please let your service members know you stand with them by sending your most generous donation you can to [charity name] today.

    So that’s the call to action – to “stand with” service members. To be honest, that’s a problem. Because “stand with” is vague. It’s a generalization. It’s an abstraction. It’s up in the clouds, instead of being down-on-the-ground concrete.

    The donor isn’t being asked to solve a specific problem, help a specific person, or even to fund a specific initiative of this nonprofit. But to stand with service members. That doesn’t give the donor much to go on.

    The second ask in the letter doesn’t give much to go on either. It’s this: We rely on the generosity of individual Americans in supporting our military. That is why I am asking you to support our troops and their families by giving whatever you can afford to [charity name]. Your gift of $15, $25, or more will make a real difference in the life of a brave hero who is fighting for every one of us.

    A couple things here. The donor shouldn’t be asked to give to a charity. Donors aren’t motivated by giving to a charity. They’re motivated by helping someone or solving a problem or righting a wrong.

    But even beyond that, this ask is again general, vague, and nonspecific. The donor is asked to “support our troops,” but there’s no indication of what that means in this context or how giving a gift will accomplish it.

    Those two calls to action are in the body of the letter. Let’s take a look at the main call to action in the response device. It says: Please help strengthen our service members by keeping them connected to family, home, and country. Your tax-deductible gift to [charity name] will also provide other much-needed services to our military heroes and their families.

    So, first we have “help strengthen our service members,” which is vague. Then we have “keeping them connected to family, home, and country.” Okay, that’s a hint of something. It’s good for service members to be connected to home. But how my gift would do that is not explained. Then there’s this: “…will also provide other much-needed services…” Other much-needed services? Like what?

    This offer provides almost nothing for the donor to latch onto. And in doing so, it fails to answer the donor’s most basic questions. Like, How will my gift help? What will it do? What problem will it solve? Who will it help? These are the questions that must be answered for the donor before she’ll even consider giving.

    In addition to that, instead of being asked to fund a small, specific part of the nonprofit’s mission, the donor is asked to fund the whole thing. That’s too big. It’s too much. Especially when that mission is something vague like keeping service members connected with family, home, and country.

    In direct mail fundraising, with the exception of the list, the offer that you make to donors is probably the most important part of the whole project. In large measure, it’s the offer that determines whether the appeal soars or sinks. Less so for the writing, the graphics, the logo, the size of the envelope, and so on. Those things are important, of course. But ultimately it’s the offer that provides the motivation to give. And if that offer is vague and mushy, then you can expect the response to be too.

  • What’s AI got to do with copywriting? Not much …

    All the talk about AI for copywriting serves to highlight a basic misunderstanding of what copywriting is and what it isn’t.

    What AI bots do is produce content. That’s not copywriting. Copywriting – whether for commercial marketing or fundraising – is NOT about producing content. If it were simply about that, then AI might have a place. But it’s not. And it doesn’t.

    Copywriting is about persuasion. And because of that, it relies heavily on the rhetorical triangle. Yes, Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle.

    He tells us that persuasion consists of three basic things:

    Ethos – this is about the writer and his or her credibility — which is essential for your prospect to accept and believe your argument.

    Pathos – this is the emotional aspect and how you tap into your prospect’s feelings.

    Logos – this is the logical argument, the left-brain part.

    The secret to the rhetorical triangle is how you use it. Depending on you, your purpose, and your audience, you could use just one part of the triangle (say, pathos), you could use two parts (say, pathos and ethos), or you could use all three.

    Or you could use two and emphasize one over the other in your copy. You could use all three and emphasize two of the three over the third. You get the idea. Point is, there are lots of variations here.

    And that IS the point. Because there are lots of variations, creativity is involved. Creativity in which of the rhetorical aspects you use in a given project. Creativity in how you choose to express ethos, pathos, or logos (lots and lots of options here). Creativity in how you put all of it together. And creativity in how you craft it into a cohesive whole.

    Copywriting is made up of the many, many decisions the writer makes with regard to all this. Some of these decisions are based on education, experience, and training. Some are based on intuition. Some are based on esthetic sense. Some are done consciously and some subconsciously. All these considerations come into play and combine to make up an effective piece of copywriting.

    No, copywriting isn’t about producing content. That’s because an effective piece of copywriting isn’t just content. It’s one human being who is appealing to and connecting emotionally with another human being. No bot, regardless of how sophisticated, can do that.

  • The envelope teaser

    The burning question in direct mail fundraising?

    Should you use a teaser for the outside envelope of your next appeal, or not?

    Some say the plain, blank envelope is the best ‘teaser,’ a no-teaser kind of teaser.

    But if you use a blank envelope to ‘trick’ people into opening it, and if the appeal isn’t something the donor wants or cares about, and they just toss it, then what have you really gained?

    That’s why the opposing camp suggests using a teaser in order to set the stage for the donor and get her interested in what the appeal is all about, so that when she opens the envelope, she’s ready for something that’s relevant and interesting.

    Along those lines, there are three basic types of teasers that work.

    There’s the offer teaser.

    There’s the benefit teaser.

    And there’s the curiosity teaser.

    To get the whole story – including specific examples for each kind of teaser – visit https://tinyurl.com/ew65trr3

  • 3 Reasons Why Your Non-Profit Should Add a Blog to Your Website

    by guest blogger Joe Garecht, President of Garecht Fundraising Associates.

    Every non-profit wants to raise more money online.  But most non-profits struggle to get traction raising money on their websites.  One of the reasons why organizations struggle online is because they simply don’t have enough people visiting their websites… and if people aren’t visiting your website, they’re not going to donate on it.

    In my experience, one of the best ways to get more people to visit your site… and to keep them coming back again and again… is to add a blog to your website.  Adding a blog to your non-profit’s site is easy to do and will provide huge rewards to your organization down the line.

    How is a Blog Different from a Website?

    The first question we need to answer is what we mean when we say “blog.”  A blog is different from a simple, static website – or rather, it is an addition to your traditional non-profit website.

    Your non-profit does need a traditional website where people can learn more about your non-profit and your programs, connect with your staff, sign-up to volunteer, and donate to your organization.  You need a good old-fashioned website with all of these things, the types of information that stays fairly constant.  This part of your website will be updated, but not every day or every week… those pages will stay pretty static, with only periodic updates made to them.

    Your non-profit’s blog is an add-on to your website.  It is one section of your website where you are constantly adding new things.  A blog is fluid and updated often.  You can be a little less formal on your blog, and you should be adding new things at least once or twice per month, though adding new information weekly is a better goal.

    How Can Adding a Blog Help Your Non-Profit?

    I believe that every non-profit that has at least one full time fundraiser or one full time communications staff member should maintain an active blog on their website.  There are 3 important ways that a blog can help your gain more traction with your website:

    #1: A Blog Gives Your Supporters a Reason to Regularly Visit Your Website

    If you want to grow traffic to your website, then your non-profit’s website needs to be more than just a brochure.  Your goal as a non-profit fundraiser is to get your donors to see your website as a resource – a place they want to visit regularly for updates about your organization.

    The only way your donors will want to visit your website often is if you are regularly updating your site, meaning that you are consistently posting new information that is interesting, informative, or entertaining.  The single best way to do this is by having a regularly updated blog on your website, where you post something new each week.  You can post an article, pictures, a video or any combination of the three, so long as you are doing it consistently.  Whatever is easiest and most appropriate for your non-profit.

    #2: A Blog Provides SEO Power That Brings New Donors and Supporters to Your Website

    It’s not just your current donors and supporters that you are trying to attract to your website.  You also want to make sure that new donors, new volunteers, new supporters, and others interested in your work can find your website and learn about your programs.  A good way for new supporters to connect with you is by finding your website when they use a search engine like Google.  One way to put your non-profit in a great position to get found in Google is by harnessing the power of SEO.

    SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  This is the process of putting content on your website in such a way so that when people search in Google for words and phrases related to your non-profit, Google gives them a link to your site.  Search engine optimization also includes getting other websites to link to your site, so that Google and other search engines know that your content is worth sharing.  One of the best ways to get people to link to your site is to post content that people want to share with others.

    The process of search engine optimization is complex and beyond the scope of this article, but you should know that having a blog is helpful for SEO because you are posting lots of new content that can be found by search engines and that people might want to link to.  This means that having a regularly updated blog will almost certainly increase traffic to your website.  The increase won’t happen right away, but as you add new articles or other content every week or every other week, your traffic will slowly build.   After a year of weekly blogging, you will likely see a significant jump in your web traffic year over year.

    #3: A Blog Shows That Your Non-Profit is Active and Engaged

    Having a regularly updated blog will show your donors, volunteers, and the community at large that your non-profit is active and engaged.  When someone comes to your website, they will see that you posted a new informative article last week, or maybe the week before that.  They will know that your non-profit is working hard and will be able to see what the latest news is from the frontlines of your programs.  This will help support your fundraising efforts, your PR efforts, and your volunteer recruitment efforts.

    What Type of Content Should You Put on Your Non-Profit’s Blog?

    When planning out your blog content, it is important that you not overthink it.  Don’t stress out about your blog content.  Instead, commit to putting up either a short article of at least 300-400 words, or a short video of 1 minute or more, or some pictures with an explanation, and doing it each and every week.  Consistency matters far more than perfection. Your posts can be informal  so long as they are still professional, meaning no typos and no outrageous grammatical errors.  But they don’t need to be perfect.

    As for the exact types of content that you can create for your blog, you should be posting the same types of information you are putting in your newsletters, such as updates on your programs, updates on your events, profiles of your clients, staff, and donors, important updates on your mission field, etc.

    In fact, many non-profits double dip with their content by posting blog articles and then using them as content in their newsletters… putting a summary of the article or the first paragraph of the article in their newsletter, with a link that says “Click here to read more.”  This way, all of your e-mail newsletter subscribers will stay updated with what you are posting on your blog, and you don’t have to write twice as many articles by doing one for your blog and a separate one for your e-mail newsletter.

    Adding a blog to your non-profit’s website will help you grow your website’s traffic, raise more money, and increase awareness of your organization.  It’s easy and effective.

    About the Author
    Joe Garecht is the President of Garecht Fundraising Associates.  He has twenty years’ experience as a Development Director, Executive Director, and fundraising consultant to hundreds of non-profits.

  • 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 happened. But there’s research to suggest that stories in the present tense pack a lot of punch and leave an impression on the listener. And that’s because researchers found neural coupling between the storyteller and the listener in a story that’s told in the present tense.

    Granted, this research involved verbal communication, so it may not be directly applicable to written words. But still, it is interesting.

    The researchers wired up the brains of the storyteller and the listener. And when the story was told in the present tense, similar parts of both brains were lighting up. This could mean that the storyteller and the listener are more in sync.

    Partially this could be because a story in the present tense is more likely to be judged by the brain receiving it as an emotionally charged event. Which means that the person hearing the story gets a shot of the brain chemical dopamine. Which makes the whole experience for the listener more impactful and more memorable.

    That’s the theory, anyway, and when you think about it, it does make sense. A story seems more immediate in the present tense. Which means that you’re listener is going to be more, well, present and more likely to stay with you for the whole story and what follows. Like the call to action.

    Naturally, nothing has been conclusively proven in this research. Communication is far too complex for almost anything to be conclusively proven. But it is something that could be worth trying and testing.

  • How to raise more funds with storytelling

    There’s a lot of talk about storytelling in fundraising, and it’s easy to get the idea that all you have to do is throw in a story about a beneficiary to create an appeal that does gangbusters.

    It’s not that simple, of course. The storytelling in an appeal is of a specific type with certain requirements and restrictions. On the other hand, storytelling for a newsletter tends to follow what we would usually think of as a typical narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

    And that’s where this post about improving your storytelling with playwriting techniques can come in handy.

    The first thing to consider is the basic structure of a plot.

    • The beginning, where we meet the characters and hopefully being to feel a connection with them.
    • The middle, where a problem or challenge is encountered.
    • The end, where the problem or challenge is overcome, and the protagonist is changed in some way. And the donor is given the credit.

    The next thing to consider is how to flesh out the characters in the story:

    • What does each character want?
      What are the conflicts involved?
    • What are the obstacles?
    • What are the consequences to a particular character’s actions?

    Naturally, for a newsletter story it’s not necessary to answer all of these questions, but they do provide a starting point for thinking about the characters who make up your story and how to add more depth to them in order to bring them to life for readers.

    One more thing to consider is the quotations you use in your story. You can think of the quotations as a character speaking directly with the reader in a sort-of dialogue. So it’s better when the quotations reveal something about the character and his or her motivations, rather than just reinforcing the previous point in the story. This too can add more depth to the story.

    These are some of the basics, but there’s lots more to good storytelling. Still, storytelling isn’t a panacea for ineffective fundraising, but it is a powerful part of connecting with donors on an emotional level. Let your donors feel what the beneficiaries of your nonprofit feel. Let your donors relate to their lives, instead of thinking of them as somehow separate. Let your donors into their world. That’s what will engage your donors, and a heartfelt story is one of the best ways to do it.

     

  • 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 donor communications with a healthy dose of skepticism, as Pamela Barden suggests in her blog post.

    Here are the four questions she recommends that fundraisers should ask themselves as a kind of self-test, a check to see if we’re on the right track:

    • So what? You should be clear about why your organization exists, the impact it’s having, and the outcomes it’s producing. By asking So what? you keep the focus on what matters to your donor.
    • Who’s doing it better? You need to know what other similar nonprofits are doing and what they’re saying about what they do. It’s important to know how your organization is different.
    • What’s our unique selling proposition? You’ve probably heard this marketing term before, but it still applies. It’s all about conveying a specific benefit to your donor that she can’t get anywhere else.
    • What’s the best story to show this specialness? This is where you connect emotionally with donors and do it in a way that shows how what your organization does matters – and deserves your donor’s support.

    Great questions, all. But really, when you think about it, these questions are aiming at basically one thing – positioning. The positioning of your nonprofit. And that basically comes down to the one thing or couple of things that make your nonprofit different from the others.

    So, it’ll be helpful to think about the answers to these four questions, and use them to come up with a positioning statement for your nonprofit.

    A positioning statement, not a mission statement. They’re vastly different. A mission statement is more aspirational, more pie-in-the-sky. Mission statements for most nonprofits are generally pretty vague and not all that useful for fundraising.

    A positioning statement, on the other hand, is useful for fundraising, because it captures what your organization does and what it does that’s different.

    There’s a lot of information out there on positioning statements, and there are lots of templates to use in creating one.  A basic template, though, for a positioning statement is this:  For <target audience>, <organization> is a <type of nonprofit> that <differentiator>.

    Let’s look at an example. Say the nonprofit is a homeless shelter that’s open all day, every day and allows people who are homeless to stay as long as they need to in order to get their lives back on track, achieving the goal of permanent housing.

    So for this nonprofit, we might have a positioning statement like:

    For donors who want to help people who are homeless, Hope Shelter is the social services nonprofit that provides the short-term or long-term stability a homeless person needs to overcome their challenges, secure permanent housing, and return to society.

    This is one out of many possibilities, of course. There isn’t necessarily one right answer when it comes to a positioning statement, and it may change over time as your nonprofit changes. But like any positioning statement, it can be a helpful measure to see whether your fundraising communications are on-strategy.

    But there’s an even simpler way. There have been tons of books, articles, webinars, and more on the topic of positioning and branding. The more you read about it, the more dizzyingly complex it becomes. But there’s a far simpler – and many would say – better way to approach it.

    The branding and positioning for most of the world’s biggest brands can often be reduced to one adjective or at least one word.

    Volvos are safe. Porsches are fast. Apple computers are intuitive. Nike is aspirational. You get the idea. One word that signals a difference, a direction. Sure, it’s simple, but in marketing and fundraising, simple is powerful. And it’s easy to keep in mind when you’re creating appeals.

    So what’s the word for your nonprofit? In the example for the shelter above, the word might be “stability.”

    Stability in the sense that the shelter is an oasis in the chaos and uncertainty of living out on the street … that the shelter is always open, 24/7, to help someone who’s homeless … that someone who’s homeless can stay as long as needed to turn their life around … that the ultimate goal is for the person to find permanent housing … that addressing homelessness creates a stronger, better community for everyone, including the donor, and so on.

    Once you have a clear positioning for your nonprofit, you can check your donor communications against it, and that means, instead of seat-of-the-pants, you’re operating from a strategy – a much better way to go.

     

     

     

  • 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 a quote from Padre Pio, and while it’s certainly inspirational, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher as a teaser for a direct mail appeal.

    The reverse side of the envelope has another quote from Padre Pio that’s also about struggle and strength in adversity.

    The envelope has a four-color illustration of Padre Pio, along with some graphic elements. Obviously, some attention went into this. Which makes the teaser even more puzzling.

    The outside envelope of a direct mail appeal is prime real estate. There should be lots of thought about what to say on that envelope and what to show, because that’s what determines whether your appeal gets opened or gets tossed in the trash. And getting the envelope opened is the number one, overarching goal.

    The problem is that there’s a dizzying array of options when it comes to teasers. Including not having a teaser at all and simply mailing a plain envelope.

    But the main point is that the teaser has to tease – it has to make the donor want to see what’s inside.

    Sure, a quotation might do that, but usually you have to put a little more into it.

    Basically there are three kinds of teasers: the offer teaser, the benefit teaser, and the curiosity teaser. You can see more about that here.

    So instead of a quotation on this outside envelope, we might think about a benefit teaser or a curiosity teaser and come up with something like:

    • Let Padre Pio inspire you with new strength in these troubling time – inside
    • Why does Padre Pio say, “Do not fear adversities”?
    • See Padre Pio’s prayer for you in these tough times – inside
    • Unsure? Frightened? Pray with Padre Pio now. See how, inside
    • Pray THIS prayer (inside) with Padre Pio for strength in these trying times.
    • Why we need Padre Pio now more than ever in these uncertain times

    These are just a few possibilities for a teaser that could motivate donors to look inside. Another way to go would be an offer teaser.

    The offer presented to donors in this appeal is to join in a special birthday mass for Padre Pio in gratitude for his guidance and intercession. When the donor gives, she can also include her own story about what Padre Pio means to her, along with her prayer intention.

    So, an offer teaser could be something like, “Special Birthday Mass for Padre Pio – join us and draw on his strength in these trying times. Prayer card enclosed.”

    This is of course just one possibility out of many.

    Point is, the teaser is one of the most important parts of a direct mail appeal. But for some reason, it’s often treated as an afterthought. Lots of times, only once the appeal letter is created does attention turn to the outside envelope and the teaser. In reality, it should be the other way around. It’s vital to entice donors on the outside envelope, and get them wanting to see what’s inside. That’s the first step in moving them to give.