Shared with permission from Kenya...
Notably re-quotable
AWOMEN!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
As an alternative to AMEN! ... first seen by me in an email from the amazing A. H. Belanger
Shared with permission from Kenya...
Hey Tom,
[Gemma wrote me] Thought you might like to see what the updated Thank You letter for first-time donors is looking like...
[she continued] I've built a whole donor journey around the thank you letters (first-time, second-time donors, and third-time+). With stories from different beneficiaries depending on whether people give to elephants, school children or people living in conflict with elephants. ¶ Big thanks to you and Jen for guiding the way!
Then she turned her computer's camera on her garden, where a leopard has stalked earlier that day. Advice? Make sure the dogs are inside.
——-
Her email subject line for FIRST-time donors:
Elephant-sized thanks to you, [first name of wonderful donor]
Dear Paula,
I’ve just received the uplifting news …
You’re the newest member of the Save the Elephants Family!
Karibu! Welcome!
I’m so grateful you’ve chosen to join hands with us: to defend one of earth’s most influential, yet endangered keystone species—elephants.
By donating today, you are giving these gentle giants the protection needed to secure their future. Because habitat loss, fragmentation and the rapidly rising issue of human-elephant conflict are the biggest threats to Africa’s savannah elephants right now.
But you are undaunted. You — along with concerned and caring individuals like you_ believe elephants deserve a fighting chance. We hear you.
Thank you Paula.
Thank you for your compassion.
Thank you for the hope that your generosity brings.
As a new member of the family, I invite you to stay connected with up on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If social media ins’t your thing, you can always check the latest updates on our website and YouTube channel.
In the meantime, here is a 30-second message for you!
Thanks again for your generosity and gift of $10. And for being a friend to the elephants.
With deep appreciation from Kenya.
Winlet Vusha
Donor Relations Administrator
P.S. I know there are many worthy charities that ask for your help. Please know how honored we are that you’ve chosen to support the work of Save the Elephants.
www.savetheelephants.org
---
What you just read [above] is an emotionally satisfying, honest, earnest, deeply-felt, NON-transactional thank-you from Save the Elephants to their newest donors worldwide (the majority live in the U.S., I'm told).
Notice that while the gift amount was mentioned late in the note, the gift amount was NOT the hero of the note.
> Pause now to look at your OWN thank you for first-time donors. And if you have NO thank you for first-time donors, then add that task to your writing to-do list.
Who WAS clearly the hero? Paula and her generosity and her willingness "to join hands," "to defend," to give "these gentle giants the protection needed," to remain "undaunted" despite the threats .... and on and on and delightfully on.
Please note: this thank you didn't come out of the blue. Gemma, yes, is a remarkably talented heart-on-sleeve writer ... but she had help this time.
Two things contributed to its final wording:
(1) a one-page paper-based thank-you note written over the signature of Marlo Thomas in the 1970s for a completely different charity, a fundraising powerhouse;
and (2) training provided by the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy (UK), in its unique "Certificate in Fundraising Copywriting" course.
Psychologist Jen Shang and master-writer, Lisa Sargent and others, now tutor this one-of-a-kind certificate course. Among many other examples, the course analyzes the Marlo Thomas thank you ... and why this superb thanks works on SO many levels.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~ said George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
Philanthropy and fundraising are not new things. Giving to those in need is an ancient impulse, revered and recommended by all major religions. Sure, that was then. Now? Also know that giving to others who need help, others who aren't born into our advantages, triggers psychological benefits that make us happier and more content. Being a self-centered asshole will not work all that well for most humans.
Newcomer to fundraising? Don't invent. Study.
Then RE-invent for today and for your special mission and your special audience (as Gemma did) ... knowing what's worked in the past.
One more time: always study success, if you can find it (or can be led to it). Not to steal outright (although that's OK, too).
What is FAR more important to YOUR own development is knowing WHY they did/said/showed what they did that made success more likely.
In the end, it's all psychology.
# # #
Micro-donations: Shiny old thing made new
HERE. Patrick J. Coleman guest-authored this issue of Mary Cahalane's indispensable Hands-on Fundraising blog (subscribe, please; Mary's blog is valuable, fun-reading and absolutely free). ¶ What IS a micro-donation? "Micro-donations are donations between $0.25 and $10." Mr. Coleman calls them "the future of fundraising." I'd call micro-donations a very OLD idea (see 1940 coin-can photo; from Etsy) made fresh and reasonably easy for vast new audiences via social media such as Facebook. As CNBC reported in September 2020, "Nearly 3 out of 4 millennials (defined here as those ages 25 to 34) have sent some kind of financial aid to family or friends or donated to a nonprofit since the Covid-19 pandemic began, according to payment app Zelle’s September Consumer Payment Behaviors report." Learn more about micro here.
How to NOT take people (like your donors, maybe?) for granted
HERE. The podcast. One bottom line for fundraisers? Trust your donors' intentions ... and share your feelings about the same cause. Full disclosure: I've fallen in love with Greater Good Magazine: Science-Based Insights for a Meaningful Life. It's been quite the last couple of years ... for all of us. These folks from the University of California, Berkeley can help ... sometimes a lot.
Are YOU (your board, your org.) interested in clean energy? (Hint: the answer's "YES!")
HERE. You, me, all living creatures now have an option: (1) take your chances that the fossil fuel industry will ultimately save the planet through false promises and our own complacency, before Matt Damon and Elon Musk colonize Mars; or (2) what can we do NOW? ¶ Maybe start here, with this mind-expanding Arcadia blog post, interviewing expert Marilyn Waite. Who? "She manages grantmaking at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation ... for climate and clean energy finance. More specifically, she works on transferring private capital investments from high- to low-carbon projects. Part of her work involves getting funds to clean energy projects in communities — including communities of color — that are on the front lines of climate change." Rule of thumb: the front lines are always more interesting in the end. Altogether now: Let's not make it a bitter end, OK?