Thursday February 20- Hunger games

Hi !

🤏 Jackie: TL;DR version

Lead with gratitude. Show impact. Make people feel good about the gift they gave. Let them see how they’re making the world a better place. All of that will help secure the next gift. What you want to avoid is making people feel bad and shame them into giving.

Organizations should avoid:

• Making their internal fundraising goal the centerpiece of campaign materials

• Creating negative feeling around giving

• Causing people to feel bad about your organization not reaching its goal

Let’s discuss today’s pain point: How not to communicate with your audience.

📈 Michael: The hunger games

My friend Laura, an expert fundraising copywriter, forwarded this to me:

I understand what the organization was going for. But that’s not the best way to get there.

Let’s review for a second why people give:

• They want to solve a problem: Can an individual solve hunger in their neighborhood? No. They know your organization are experts on this issue and are helping people. People donate so thru you they can solve a problem.

• People want to do good: We want to help others. One of the ways to do that is donating to a nonprofit.

• Makes them feel good: There’s nothing wrong with this! People feel good when they donate. We should make sure they feel those good vibes.

• Makes the world a better place: Do I have the resources to solve a worldwide problem? No. But by making my personal community better I am contributing to making the world a better place.

• Community: It’s not just about the individual giver. People want to belong to a community of do-gooders. To know that others are like them and collectively they are making their community better.

When we understand the above, we can make sure our fundraising and marketing materials- direct mail, email, website, blog, social media, texts, videos- play to those themes. Share a problem and a donation is the solution. Make people feel good about their giving.

What you do NOT want to do is “hit people over the head” and tell them they HAVE to give. You don’t want to make giving transactional. And you certainly don’t want to make people feel bad about not giving.

The above contains two of my biggest fundraising pet peeves:

1. Status pending: It’s not about donor love. It’s transactional. It’s as if the organization is standing in front of me with their hand out and saying, “Come on. Let’s go. You promised to donate. Give already!” That’s not how you build relationships. That’s how you turn people off.

2. The goal: Please please please internalize this: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR INTERNAL FUNDRAISING AND MARKETING GOAL!

Here’s the opening to an email I received: “This could be a DISASTER, Friend. We were counting on hitting our goal by yesterday’s deadline, but we fell seriously short. Now we urgently need your help to close the gap before it’s too late.” (Bold and red from original) It’s like they’re blaming their subscribers and supporters for not hitting their goal!

Here’s the closing of an email I received: “If we fall short of this goal, we won’t have the resources that we need to help families facing hunger in the new year.” It’s all about “we,” the organization’s goals, nothing about supporters.

You have a goal? Great! You CAN share that goal but that’s not a reason for people to give.

Making people feel bad because you didn’t hit some arbitrary number that your Board picked out of a hat a week before the campaign started is not the donor’s problem. Tell them WHY they should give, WHAT will be the impact, WHO will be helped, HOW they can donate.

Today’s pain point is all about how your audience feels when you shame them into giving. And it’s not good.

Wanna grow and thrive? Try a better approach. I guarantee it’ll boost retention and help you raise more money so you can help more people and have more impact in your community.

That’s how a thrivalist does it.

📰 Tito: A little of this and that

Here’s some great content for you to learn from:

1. How to maximize the effectiveness of direct mail (Nonprofit Pro)

2. How to write thank you letters that lead with love and gratitude (Hilborn)

3. Everything you need to know about email CTAs (Email Uplers)

4. Strengthen sustainability. Diversify your fundraising (Ann Green)

👶 Jermaine: What would you do differently?

Meet Ickle Pickles, a wonderful organization in the UK. (I LOVE the name! Next week I’ll share how they got it.)

At the beginning of this month they sent an email thanking everyone for donating and helping them raise much needed funds. The CTA of the email was to watch a gratitude video.

The video is pretty good. Kudos to them for putting it together and thanking everyone in their audience.

I’m curious to hear from you:

Please watch the 90-second video, reply to this email and tell me what you would have done differently or how you could have made it better.

Next week I’ll share some of your responses and provide a couple of tips of my own.

🤔 Marlon: Maybe I should consider this as my next gig

Learn more about what a decision coach is. It’s a real thing!

I’ll be back next Thursday. Have a great weekend!

P.S. I listened to Pat Benatar’s “Invincible” on an endless loop while working on the enews. The video to this song is the first video I ever saw on MTV.