3-Point Reality Check: 3 must-read posts about fundraising
- Tue, July 14 2009
- Filed under: Fundraising essentials
There’s been a trio of excellent reading material the past week. Every single one of these is worth a read, and they may even change your nonprofit marketing and fundraising forever:
Jeff Brooks on the 3 Laws of Fundraising Dynamics. Namely: simplicity, listening and no fundraising-by-committee.
Nicholas Kristof with a double header: First, last week’s piece, “Would you let this girl drown?” reminding us that like it or not, one person’s story is always more powerful than a collective problem. Tell the small story rather than the big statistic.
Then, in “Clean, sexy water,” Kristof highlights Charity: Water, one of the best-marketed causes I know. (Follow-up comments are here.) I followed Scott Harrison’s amazing work for Mercy Ships on this blog way back when and have admired him ever since. If you want to see great story-telling and beautiful transparency, follow Scott’s work. He also reminds us that donors need to know where the money goes - and they need to know it’s not wasted.
The moral of these stories? The basic thing we always forget: audience, audience, audience.
If you want to be better at communicating, have a conversation, not a monologue, with your supporters. Talk with them simply, clearly, transparently and tell a good story. It’s not rocket science, but it will ignite and propel your message like rocket fuel.
Comments
I work very closely with a number charities and the majority of them falter at the communication point. They lose sight of the specific point of their communication and as rightly pointed out, cram everything about themselves into every piece of literature.