The Little Words Mean the Most

Cause Camp, Lincoln, NE, March 27 + 28, 2017, was "pawsome," as animal charities like to say

 

[L-R] the wonderful, prescient, flawless people behind the event; the stunning venue at the University of Nebraska Innovation Campus; & Monday kick-off power keynoter, Dan Pallotta, telling us that the nonprofit industry, with its morbid, unbusiness-like focus on "overhead," has it SO backwards; Dan was there; Disney was there; charity: water was there; Beth Kanter was there; Kivi Leroux Miller; John Haydon; AND the audience was packed with fundraising stars = I learned from so many

 

 

The skeleton of a direct mail appeal

 

 

"I opened your envelope. Now what?"

You break the silence. Maybe ask a question. That's always a good start. "Did you ever wonder?" You're trying to turn on a conversation in the reader's mind. You start small. You start simple. You speak as you would speak to a good friend or a loved one.

You ask for a gift. Humbly.

You continue a story you started maybe on the envelope.

You pour shine on the power of donors to make a difference.

You ask again humbly.

You continue your story. Another fragmentary, vivid detail dragging the reader through the pain, awakening empathy in its trail.

You look them straight in the eye and you love them for who they are about to become and for who they really are, beneath the crust and the mistakes and the weariness.

You ask again.

You thank again.

Humbly.

You sign off wonderfully, surprisingly, delightfully.

Your PS (PPS, PPPS?) is/are a shooting star, searing the reader's night brain.

Your reply device extends the glow.

Your reply envelope extends the glow.

You call back soon!

 

new Ts

 

 

From The Better Fundraising Company, Steven Screen and Jim Shapiro

 

Their mantra: ASK, THANK, REPORT, REPEAT

 

Tom & Jerry | Photo by Jay Frost

 

mr ahern & mr panas, in chicago, march 1, 2017

 

 

Oh, Tammy, yes

note beneath the wiper

 

 

you've fallen in love with your look

 

fall in love with your results

just deleted (can you grab me one of those plastic gloves and a bag to throw it in)

 

 

Here I am, Mr. or Ms. Average Donor.

         It's been a long day.

         First off: house maintenance issues. They banged together our starter house around 1850, habitation for (true) circus midgets. Door handles are around your knees. The stair treads are as wide as a hardcover book. You knew an old house would be a money pit. You expected things to break. They did. All the time.

         There's always something breaking. "Something" is always expensive, too: thousands I don't have BUT that I must somehow scrape together ... in the sleepless hours before dawn. Plumbing, you deal with that right away. People have to pee, poop and cleanse themselves. Minor electrical: maybe you can wait. You bundle a bunch of jobs together; they come for two or three days, you're set for a decade. The roof's good.

         Plus, about that gift...?

         My daughter's not happy. Her boyfriend just bounced her. He isn't the first. I don't know: is she one of life's hefty percentage of losers? She calls me five times a day. I sympathize! wait a minute did I just call my daughter a loser?i'm losing it

         Oh, yeah: I have enough money to live comfortably until I'm 90 or so, barring catastrophic expenses.

You know who beat the watchdog system at its own game?

Charity: Water.

Charity: Water raised money for overhead as well as program, as two separate things. That way they could say with perfect honesty that 100% of a person's donation to program goes to work in the field.

The people that cover the overhead are donors, too, of course. And they know exactly what they're buying: incredible impact. Overhead makes the programs possible.

From a sales point of view, Charity: Water did something well-known in the banking industry: they made their donors a No Fee offer.

Scott Harrison founded Charity: Water in 2006. Over the next decade the charity raised over $200 million for clean water projects in 24 countries ... promoting the No Fee offer.

Of course, other charities hate the claim. It makes them look like spendthrifts.

And it makes Charity: water look like some kind of magician doing incredible work in a glamorous high profile way without spending donor money on anything but getting people clean drinking water for the first time.

Thus "proving" to a world that skips the details that great good can somehow come from thin air. Don't blame Scott H.! Blame your organization's C-level lack of understanding ... of how the human attention span is ever-shrinking.

It IS this decade's top story.

 

New show: SELLING LEGACY