They opened the thing. Now what?
Notably re-quotable
"He had once told me one of his most effective fund-raising techniques. When the man he was asking for money wrote a check and handed it across the desk to him, Mr. Corcoran, no matter what the amount—no matter if it was more than he hoped for—would look at it with an expression of disdain, drop it back on the man's desk, and, without saying a word, walk toward the door. He had never once, he told me—exaggerating, I'm sure, but how much?—he had never once been allowed to reach the door without the man calling him back, tearing up the check, and writing one for a larger amount." Make your adjustments for time and place: political fundraiser "Tommy the Cork" served FDR; and this anecdote arises from Robert A. Caro's fabulous book, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing. Still, there's a lesson here. You have power. Find/wield it. HT to Andrea Hopkins.
File this under: "Keeping the reader reading..."
"I opened your envelope." Now what?
"I opened your email." Now what?
Landing your appeal
Your fundraising appeal has cleared its first BIG hurdle:
>>> Someone has opened it!!! <<<
Break out a small glass of champagne.
This time, your intended audience didn't ignore your appeal ... as the majority of your list predictably DOES on any given day. This is real life in donor comms: MOST people throw away MOST of what you send them MOST of the time ... even when they care about you and your cause.
It's not that you did something wrong, either. As I've whispered in thousands of ears over the years, "The first gift you ask for is my attention ... not my hard-earned cash."
So if against these bad odds your target audience DID in fact open your envelope or your email?
Yippee! Phew! Take a bow.
---
Now what?
How can you NOW move these "rare ones who opened" forward ... toward making a gift?
Here's one surefire default:
Start your appeal's opening sentence with the word "you."
And make that opening sentence short (as direct marketing legend, Joseph Sugarman, counsels). It could be as simple as a two-word opening paragraph:
You know ....
At this point, realize that ALL you're trying to do (as fast as possible) is get a conversation started. It's a mental conversation which occurs in the head of your reader. As she reads, she hears voices speaking ... as opposed to reading prose. As the late, very great UK copywriter, George Smith, once advised, "All fundraising copy should sound like someone talking."
And what is a key feature of a typical conversation?
A typical conversation involves two people ... one of whom is the author of your appeal. In other words, there's an "I."
---
The pronoun "I."
With "I" in mind, maybe your opening two paragraphs will now go something like this:
You know ....
I wonder --- and I dearly hope you do, too!
---
A bit of magic just happened ... though it's moss-easy to miss. Let me man-splain...
When an appeal says "I dearly hope you do, too!", I am really asking a "question in disguise."
Sure, the give-away punctuation mark [ > ? < ] is absent. And yet my parenthetical -- "I dearly hope you do, too!" -- begs an answer from the reader:
Yay or nay?
I call this a "moral challenge."
I'm asking you to stand up firmly for what you believe in ... on your best, least distracted, least selfish days.
It's the most basic fundraising on earth. (Thank you, Mark Phillips, for curating these and reminding us.)
You show me a true photo of a starving child (as Oxfam did in its early years, trying to save Austrian infants from starvation as World War Two ground to its grim close).
You share from the field the awful news; for example, this recent report from World Vision.
Then you ask me, "Will you do something about this?"
THAT's a moral challenge.
It's your choice.
YET, as noted above, almost nobody responds.
Which is why effective fundraising communications aren't subtle. CAN'T be subtle. Human inertia is fundraising's cruel, real enemy. It is, after all, far easier to do nothing than it is to do something.
Idealists sometimes forget that. But unicorns-with-purpose have that inscribed on their horns.
---
The realities of opening rates:
What your boss doesn't know (that will hurt your career)
Acquisition direct mail does a happy dance when it achieves a 1% response.
Your charity sent out 100 appeals, hoping to arouse new donors. And one gift came back ... for $24. That $24 amount is the average gift in the U.S. right now, according to Blackbaud.
Open and click-through rates for nonprofit email appeals are also slender. TheM+R Benchmarks 2021 report(a key industry bellwether) reported: "For every 1,000 fundraising messages sent, nonprofits raised $78. This marks a 35% increase over 2019."
Reread: a $78/per thousand rate was an improvement. How big is your org.'s email list? If you have 10,000 email addresses, you can expect to raise from that list $780 per competent appeal.
You might want to share these chilling stats with your boss and board. 'Cause for sure they don't know ... and they might well expect unreasonable returns ... from poor you.
# # #
BAME philanthropy matters
HERE. "It is well known that Black, Asian and other ethnic minority communities are largely under-researched in the charity sector...." So begins this newly released study by London's nfpSynergy, a consultancy. In late 2019 and early 2020, nfpSynergy examined giving behaviors and attitudes toward nonprofits. One key finding?Generosity is a thing that unites humans."Giving levels in the last 3 months are very similar between BAME [Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic] and the general public," nfpSynergy reports. In one area, though, there was a noticeable difference: BAME volunteering levels were "considerably higher [emphasis added] than for the general public (32% vs 21%)." While the nfpSynergy study is UK-specific, research conducted in Virginia by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation's Giving Black® project got similar results, with this additional finding: "Nearly 4 out of 5 Black donors agree on the importance of their donation dollars going to Black-led organizations."
2 things you do splendidly! (Right?)
HERE. To quote the opening salvo of this challenging (essential) blog post by Penelope Burk: "Two critical points of contact determine whether donors stay loyal or quickly abandon your cause after giving only once or twice. First, a great thank you letter (timely and original) reassures your supporters that they just gave to the right cause. Second, a compelling post-gift communication (not an ask, but an update), makes donors want to give again."
Decreasing your tick population by 90%
HERE. What does this have to do with fundraising? Nothing. It has to do with your future mental health. You do NOT want tick-borne Lyme disease (which has now spread to Europe). I've had Lyme disease, caught early and treated. If NOT caught early, though, it can permanently scramble your nervous system BIG time. I've just returned from a family-and-friends trip to Michigan. There I learned about DIY tick tubes that can deal quite effectively with ticks (Lyme's carrier). I thought you'd want to know, in your own self-defense.