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.
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Comments
Many nonprofits flout this law all the time. It seems they can’t stand the idea of a supporter (or anyone else) having a less-than-complete understanding of the grand scope of what they do and who they are, so they cram everything about themselves in every piece of communication..
Jeff Brook´s and his ” Easier Said Than Done Laboratories ” : ) one is really a must-read, also enjoable for the analytic and clear presentation.
I would add a no-to-do rule: don´t let your volunteers be to agressive on people when doing off-line fundraising on the street or you´ll waste all the efforts you do with other fundraising strategies too. A friend of mine revealed me that he refused support an ecology non-profit as the girl almost directly (very soon in the talk) asked him to sign for money.
Ok, time is also money for volunteers who try to collect as many donors as possible in the time they invest for that action, but if these are the results..
Donors want to be comfortable and confident their gift will be used responsibly and effectively to accomplish a mission they are passionate about.
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.