Clean Up Your Fundraising Appeal
By George Crankovic, on GuideStar Blog
You can improve your fundraising appeal using tips from Marie Kondo, renowned organizing expert and author. The essence of her method is: If a thing gives you joy, you keep it. If it doesn’t, you thank it and let it go.
Improvising on that philosophy, look through one of your fundraising appeals and ask yourself whether each part of it gives your donors joy. For example:
- Toss that out the section where you talk about your nonprofit’s founding and history, because you’re bragging about how great the nonprofit is, not talking to your donor about their concerns and what they want to accomplish.
- If the first line of an appeal states the obvious, like “Food is essential to life,” get rid of it. It doesn’t generate interest. It doesn’t speak to donors about impact.
- Saying “you” repeatedly in an appeal because somebody suggested that it makes your “donor centric” should be eliminated. Overusing “you” makes it sound like your appeal was generated by an SEO robot.
- Writing in formal, overly proper language keeps donors at arm’s length.
- Using euphemisms such as “food insecure” when you mean someone is going hungry doesn’t give your donor joy. They want plain talk.
All these things and many others like them are just clutter; let them go. Sometimes it’s hard to let go. Some of the things that fail to give donor joy might be expected at a nonprofit, like going on and on about a nonprofit’s history. For the good of your fundraising, you have to let them go.
Now that some of the decluttering is done, what do you keep? Well, let’s see:
- The compelling, specific offer in your appeal that describes the need, highlights the solution, and details exactly what each gift will accomplish. Does that give your donor joy? Absolutely. Donors want to know what their gifts will do and that they will matter. Definitely keep that one.
- Using a serif font like Times New Roman, making it big enough to actually read, indenting the paragraphs, and not putting color behind the type. Do layout basics like these give your donor joy? Yes! Keep them. Why make reading a struggle?
- The photo that portrays the essence of your nonprofit’s mission, like the photo for a soup kitchen of a grizzled homeless man sitting at a table with a plate of food in front of him. Does that kind of iconic photo give your donor joy? Yes, because it shows what the donor’s impact can be. It shows what the nonprofit stands for. And it shows how the world can be better. So, yes, that gives your donor joy. That’s a keeper.
- A clear presentation of the problem to be solved, whether it’s hunger, homelessness, animal cruelty, or any other. Does that clarity give donors joy? Yes! Your donors are adults. They appreciate being spoken to as adults, and that includes straight talk about a problem they find troubling. Another keeper.
- Writing appeals in a friendly, conversational, informal tone at about the sixth-grade level. Donors like friendly and conversational—which makes sense. But sixth-grade level? Isn’t that dumbing things down? Won’t donors feel you’re talking down to them? No, it’s writing so you’re understood easily and immediately.
- Giving free rein to emotion and drama in appeals. Donors want to feel something about your cause. Let them. When the level of emotion seems over the top to you, then it’s just about right for donors.
- The story that illuminates your cause and how your nonprofit helps. Not a look-at-how-great-this-nonprofit-is story. Not a story that’s thrown into an appeal just to have a story. But a story that portrays the full humanity and urgency of what your nonprofit does. Does that give your donor joy? You bet it does. It’s an essential part of your appeal. Keep it.
When you declutter an appeal, taking out those things that don’t give your donor joy, what you’re really doing is opening up space for the things that do. Your appeal will be more streamlined, focused, and effective in the case it is making to your donors. Which leads to better fundraising and ultimately more joy for you and your nonprofit.
George Crankovic is an experienced, award-winning fundraising copywriter and strategist. He helps nonprofits engage their donors through multichannel direct response, combining strategy, messaging, offer, and audience to maximize results. An in-demand writer, George has published articles in Fundraising Success magazine, Nonprofit Pro magazine, and other national publications. He is a guest blogger at Jeff Brooks’s Future Fundraising Now site, and he blogsatwww.marketing-fundraising.com.