How to Ramp Up the Urgency in Appeals and Boost Response

A donor opens up your direct mail appeal or clicks on your email. They start reading. After a few seconds, they think “That seems like a good cause. Maybe I’ll help with that a little later.”

Your donor didn’t say no to your ask, but they might as well have. Because, as any salesperson knows, you want to clinch the deal while the prospect is in front of you. If you don’t, the odds of getting a response plummet.

That’s why it’s vital to add urgency to appeals. Here are four ways to create that all-important mindset. 

Use a Deadline 

Because we’re conditioned to respond to deadlines, they can overcome donors’ hesitancy and create a sense of urgency. Deadlines generally fall into three categories.

Actual deadlines. These are appeal deadlines, like year end, fiscal year end, Giving Tuesday, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and so on. These deadlines are naturally a part of the appeal, and donors generally recognize that and accept it. 

Sensible deadlines. These aren’t as readily accepted as actual deadlines, but they can generate urgency. Some examples are deadlines around National Doctor’s Day, Cancer Awareness Month, National Nutrition Month and others. This category also includes deadlines for fund drive appeals and matching grant appeals. These often aren’t hard deadlines, but they’re believable. Donors accept, for example, that a fund drive has an ending point.

Random deadlines. Emblazoned at the top of the letter or the email is “Give by June 2” or “Respond in the next 7 days.” Unless there’s a valid reason to give by that date, these deadlines are generally less effective than more specific ones.

Create Immediacy

Often, appeals lay out the reasons to give but leave the timeframe open-ended. That’s not ideal. Even without a specific deadline, you can add urgency by focusing the ask in your appeal around a timeframe in the very near future. 

For example: “Your gift today will save the life of someone who’s homeless. Just a few weeks from now, in January, temperatures will plummet. That’s no time to be out on the street. The cold kills. Before that happens, please give now to provide safe shelter.”

Because the ask is more imminent, it seems more urgent. Your donor knows why to give now.

Detail the Consequences of Not Giving

Research shows that people will do more to avoid a negative outcome than to produce a positive outcome. So adding the consequences of not giving can ramp up the urgency.

For example: “Our criminal justice system in this country is unjust for low-income people. Please give now to help create a more equal justice system by eliminating cash bail. Unless you help, people who are detained before trial because they can’t make bail will lose their jobs, lose their housing, and even lose custody of their children.”

Spelling out what happens if your donor doesn’t give makes your ask more actionable for your donors.

Heighten the Emotion

A more emotional ask is going to seem more urgent than a bland one. Instead of an ask like “Please give now to help reduce the rate of infant mortality in underserved countries in Africa,” there’s a more emotional alternative. Try something like: “In a cinder-block hut in Uganda, a young mother, weeping. A father, broken. Their newborn baby girl lies dead, open mouthed to the night air. Please give now when just $25 can save a precious new life.”

An emotional ask is more urgent in a way that a bland, logical ask could never be. Your donors want to feel something about the cause they support, and that can overcome inertia.

Giving now is imperative, both for your nonprofit and for your donors. Truth is, most donors mean well, and they intend to give, but other things can get in the way. Sometimes they just need that little, extra-friendly nudge that urgency can provide. 

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.