This week, I want to talk about a few things I do know and how these things should impact our fundraising. Again, this isn't an exhaustive list, but rather what I recently have been grappling with.
Of course you should craft your appeals to resonate with the majority of your readers. But you should always allow for the possibility that something great could come from the most unexpected donors.
Do fundraising writers get writer's block? Does every writer? All writers talk about it. Some play complicated psychological tricks on themselves to prime the pump when the well goes dry.
By far, the most frequently made mistake I see is when a worthy nonprofit assumes mission trumps all. It's mostly out of oversight, as nonprofit leadership is focused on doing good. However, sometimes it's because the organization really believes that donors are merely "funders"—the ATMs of the nonprofit world.
If you're on a June/July fiscal year, you need to make plans now for a strong year's end. That means updating your messaging that you decided last July was the best approach. It means confirming or lining up your interviews for those story-based letters. It means making sure that you're still sending to the right segments.
Writing fundraising copy should be detailed and painstaking for you. Reading it should be fast and easy for your donor.
Writing fundraising copy takes concentration and focus. There are a lot of elements, strategic and creative, that have to be accounted for as you write. It takes up a lot of your headspace.
The 10 tips below are basic copywriting guidelines that will help you every time you write a fundraising letter, email or blog post.
Robert Taub, acting chairman of the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission, summed up the state of the USPS in 2015 during his DMA Nonprofit Federation Washington Nonprofit Conference keynote: "Very few people wonder if the mail will be there — it's always there and always has been … but will the mail be there in the future?"
I'm a firm believer that empathy has the potential to solve more problems than war and peace put together. From a more practical one, boosting your empathic ability could give your fundraising results a shot in the arm.
