Fundraising is about a lot more than just raking in the money for your client or organization. It really matters. So pat yourself on the back, because you're doing the work of the angels.
If you're a fundraising copywriter, you already have most of the tools you need to go from good to great. The rest are available to you. All it takes to get them, and the persuasive power that goes with them, is a lot of hard work.
The University of Cincinnati Foundation nearly doubled the number of gifts it received this Giving Tuesday. Here are the four online giving best practices it gleaned from the campaign.
It's not the actual number that matters — it's the ability for a donor to feel like he or she can make a real difference.
In a world pushing e-solicitations — for businesses and charities alike — does good, old-fashioned paper mail matter? My experience says yes.
Food and hunger nonprofits City Harvest and Philabundance utilize the "brown paper bag" outer envelope technique in these direct-mail fundraising campaigns. In this video, I show viewers how each of these nonprofits gets donors engaged in the packages in different ways. For access to more mailings like the ones seen here, visit www.whosmailingwhat.com.
The key message running through NextAfter's "5 Ways to Cut Through the Clutter With Your Year-End Fundraising" report (in my opinion) is that over time, when everyone adopts "best practices," they become overused. My personal beef is when a great concept that makes perfect sense for one organization is adapted — and jimmy-rigged — by another. Think about the dime used by March of Dimes; it makes perfect sense for that organization, but most of the other coin mailings seem to me to be a major stretch. Or the brown lunch bag used as the outer envelope for a food bank; it loses something when it's used by an organization that doesn't provide food, I think.
"Help" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You use it often in your fundraising copy, but are you keenly aware of its nuances?
Are you ready for a huge spike in online gifts this month? I hope so! Because the money — and the donors — are out there.
Always include the impact of the gift when you ask for money. This makes your ask feel not about the money but instead about the wonderful work your organization does in the world.
