The Little Words Mean the Most

Ahern enters a local hall of fame

 

This news from Mary Jo....

 

"You & the rest of 1963 championship track team are going to the Holbrook Hall of Fame. I remember you running cross country but don’t remember your track event(s). Mile? Two mile? 🏆"

 

NEVER did a "champion" athlete NOT deserve plaudits ... than me in 1963.

 

Did the mile. Did the two mile. They were effortless; it was like flying. You wore the lightest clothing you could. You left scorn behind. You met sunset and sunrise on equal terms.

 

Because of this one thing I couldn't avoid in the first place:

 

I'd been forced to climb mountains in New Hampshire over the past summer, as a camper. The camp was staffed in part by college cross-country runners. We'd go on hikes of several days' duration. I'd complain the entire way, hefting a pack of snacks.

 

Still, unbeknownst, it was a miracle for me.

 

I went in one grueling summer from being the last person across the finish line in high-school cross-country ... to being first ... by a country mile.

 

I was clueless.

 

September-October-November that year were gifts. Winning at track was easy after that; triumphant and arrogant. It was just stupid; my legs were stronger, my asthma-damaged lungs were participants. By accident, I learned a tiny bit more than Holbrook's coaches about interval training (from this Harvard guy I happened into at the town's high-school track).

 

There's some kind of parable here. I don't know where to start....

 

Love forever,

 

tom

 

Who told you this shit was easy?

My Las Vegas love....

As you say, "words are hard." And unexamined, place-holder, endlessly-repeated, jargon-ista words have the dangerous life-span of radioactive waste. "Well, they said it that way ... so we should say it that way, too!" Blah, blah, blah, etc.

The industry's been through this ... more than once. It's a BIG reason (IMHO) why average donor-comm performance (and US household giving) is in decline ... because new practice unwittingly copies bad practice.

My latest real-life example? A good, beloved, award-winning, life-saving nonprofit community hospital system that got ZERO response to a massive email appeal. Hey?!? Me, too! Been there, done that, once upon a time ... before I gulped down 2 decades of training re: "words are hard."

Who told you this shit was easy?

 

Is Flesch-Kincaid still relevant, Dawn asks a decade later

Dawn! HELLO!!!

Yes, the tool is still relevant ... more than ever ... I teach it all the time. It's called the Flesch-Kincaid calculator (after its co-founders).

Here's the URL:   https://goodcalculators.com/flesch-kincaid-calculator/

As I probably harped on back then, grade level is NOT about getting 6th-graders to make donations.

Grade level is exclusively about how fast and easily I (an adult who might make a gift) can comprehend what you're trying to tell me: a 6th-grade level is faster than an 8th-grade level is WAY faster than a 10th-grade level ... and if you're trying to shove 12th-grade writing down my throat, you better be buying me a hot-fudge sundae with 3 cherries on top. And a day in rehab.

12th-grade writing ceases to be of any use after the 12th grade (unless you want to be a peer-reviewed scientist or college professor). For the general public, it's an insult to our attention spans.

Flesch-Kincaid standards ripple through the User's Manuals on our sub fleet, where sailors with high-school diplomas tend nuclear reactors and drive the boats. The people at the wheel are 18 and 19 years old (under senior supervision, of course). Thank you, Flesch-Kincaid.
 
Without Flesch-Kincaid, what a mess we'd be in.

 

 

August 3: Marci and Simone

 

I met Marci first. She'd been in Cambodia, in the Peace Corps, building dams. In the earliest years of charter schools in America, she invited me to a Cambodian restaurant in Lowell, MA; to discuss something about fundraising.

 

I wore my best Irish tie: hand-woven linen. Brand new, too. I looked down to see that narrow tie pointing at Marci, as it floated across my Cambodian soup bowl. Final chapter: Good-linen Irish ties dry-clean nicely.

 

Then Marci met Simone ... and our world shifted on its axis.

 

We became family. CLOSE family.

 

August 3 is our wedding anniversary, Seepy and me. My birthday, too. We purposely married on my birthday so I'd never forget our wedding anniversary. She was so wise.

 

Road warriors swap tales: Carol Weisman, MSW, CSP and Tom

I think my personal best was flying out of a dinky airport in NY state (with an incredible snack selection, though; kudos), to speak in Green Bay, WI the next day and the Twin Cities the day after that. Keynote speaker at 3 National Philanthropy Days in 3 days. I don't remember much except running, dragging, buying snacks, speaking; repeat in reverse.

Not to mention the time my flight for Denver from Pittsburgh left 8 hours late due to a PA blizzard. The pilots bought pizza for every passenger who hadn't given up and gone home. They promised we'd leave; the final flight was a quarter full. Landed at dawn, got an invite to Denver's best Ethiopian restaurant from my cabbie, checked into the conference hotel for 1 hour's sleep, did the gig, checked out, went home; probably crashed for 24 hours.

Or how about that time my plane taxied for takeoff in Odessa, TX (which smells of oil ... literally; it's the "drill, baby, drill" capital of the world). The pilot suddenly got a bad dashboard light. He taxied back to the gate (I'd moved about 400 yards in total by that time, none of them in the air). And, lo, there wasn't a room to be had in town. The oil boom was so hot they were scouring the jails for employees. The airline was as helpful as could be. I think I slept that night alongside some hotel's vending machines.

Or, hey, that time in Winnipeg, when Simone forgot her passport ... and I had to present for both of us. Having spent years rebuffing her: "You know what you know. I know what I know. I don't have to know what you know, too. Just tell me what to do."

Or then there's O'Hare. O'Hare's special. It's in the middle of a continent. A super-hub. Weather conditions across North America effect O'Hare's arrivals and departures. What road warrior doesn't have a great O'Hare story? Like the time all flights were grounded ... and I snuggled into a dim hallway cot beneath a thin blanket at 3 AM. There were thousands of other passengers on cots under thin blankets stuffed in the halls, as far as the eye could see. O'Hare looked like the London Tube during the Blitz.

 

To Jeff, a co-conspirator who asked me to write a guest blog post...

 

No need to talk me into. At your service, Jeff. Give me a deadline.

 

+ PS: Whatever I write, feel free to edit. On my personal Mt. Rushmore are those editors who made my crap better.

 

"The D seems off for that context."

 

[He's talking about the ancient AIDA formula in advertising.]

 

Advertising IS different. You hope to drive response; that's ALL that matters. The cash register must RING. That's why you're spending money to make money.

 

In the nonprofit world these days, though, being accused as "transactional" raises eyebrows.

 

Being transactional was the entire point, when I worked commercial: you committed your money, then you got something in return. Give, get.

 

I think nonprofit marketers (i.e., fundraisers) have been bullied into shunning this basic trade-craft. Weak bosses, self-righteous program staffers, ignorant board chairs all play a role.

 

It's one of the oldest delusions in fundraising: entitlement. "We don't have to do shit. You just SHOULD give us your money ... because we ARE that worthy!"

 

------

 

No longer ... for at least 50 years?

 

The reasons WHY someone's heart gives to your charity mission are personal. Not to be trifled with.

 

{deleted: a rant about today's New Puritans}

 

And so ... what's the transaction ... what then do I GET, nonprofit donor ... in exchange? (Because neuroscience says "reciprocity" matters, in human interactions.)

 

Is your best response a glib, AI-derived, soulless thanking me for my online gift?

 

------

 

Back to Jeff: I didn't mean that AIDA was FULLY appropriate.

 

I meant only that a grounding in AIDA changes your thinking. Donor newsletters aren't entirely passive; they can also trigger action. And based on our Zoomer, the newsletter under consideration is apparently NOT triggering action. And until it DOES trigger action, keep experimenting.

 

love cakes and the season for lobster rolls now arrives...

 

 

To Andrew ... who now knows more than I do about donor newsletters ... oh, about that approval committee you're saddled with

 

dear Andrew...

I knew none of this ... not at this level ... not this well quantified [he'd listed 5 criteria for success]. THANK YOU! ¶ We try stuff. Then we get one thing figured out maybe. Then we try something else. As I've said, it takes about 4 quarterly issues to get the mood right. ¶ The first thing we try to kill is internal committee review; but that's before we even sign a contract. A busted, dumb, lazy, "collegial" [universities], top-down ["This doesn't sound like me!"] approval process is the enemy of high-yield donor comms.

 

To a colleague/friend in Australia engaged in a fundraising campaign

 

This program wanted to engage me to write a case for support. I couldn't at that time. We parted friends. And we just reconnected, many months later. They'd decided to put the case on a back burner for now, as they worked out other important things. This very focused cause is helping to build a new generation of nationally-capable leaders, now in their teens, of aboriginal origins.

 

Dear [you] ...

 

My hunch: You're going to EXPLODE. The time is SO right.

 

BTW: from the world of case writing; at least 30% of the cases I start writing get stalled and never reach the finish line ... for various reasons. A common one? "We thought we were ready. But we weren't yet. Struggling with the case made us realize that."

 

Your case for support will write itself, when you finally need to engage a copywriter.

 

Your mission is SO strong ... and influences what comes next in Australasia: future politics, future economics, a next gen of leaders, addressing past harms, making Australia some kind of beacon for the world. (The US is not that beacon: European settlers went genocidal in 1675 and didn't stop until they reached the Pacific ocean).

 

I've had the amazing gift of being involved with an Indigenous-led museum here in the US over the past couple of years. They shifted my understanding of white privilege completely.

 

As a child, I selfishly thought I was born an underdog, because my family was lower middle-class; in a community of maybe slightly-more-affluent families. Clothing, roof, food on the table, ethics, life lessons -- always; still, never a new car. I didn't see -- couldn't judge -- what I'd been given at birth: I was white in a majority-white nation, in a majority-white town, with a mom who insisted I go to university. We didn't have a new car because there were more important things to buy for the family: like college educations for my sister and me.

 

I didn't realize for decades what a leg up my birth had given me in life ... until recently, schooled (gently) by my Indigenous friends (among many others) ... and by [you].

 

My sincere thanks, [dear you]....

 

Encountering your mission and vision changed me.

 

With deep respect from the other side of this struggling planet,

 

The issue was raised on LinkedIn....

 

Per Ben Miller, SVP of Data Science and Analytics, Bonterra...

Many nonprofits saw a surge of donations and donors during 2020 and 2021. Then in 2022 things started getting back to normal. Normal in this case is a declining donor pool for more than a decade. At the end of 2022 donors were 83% of what they were at the end of 2012.

Leading the charge, new donors have declined precipitously -18%. Plus it is more costly to get new donors.

His comments elicited a strong response from fundraisers internationally. My small contribution to the mob:

Like many of you in the FEP [Fundraising Effectiveness Project] family, I can speak from different perspectives: practitioner trying to raise money, new donor, monthly donor, major donor. And I now wonder if the 10% "decline" in US donors is something similar to climate change. >> I.e., physics; natural forces normally readjusting, in other words. ¶ I'm rushing off to lunch, so I can't check my data immediately. But it's my understanding that the # of nonprofits in the US alone has something like doubled in the past 15-20 years. ¶ Then you have John Lepp's recent anecdotal reporting on how slammed his mother-in-law's mailbox is every year ... more than 500 items coming in and ONLY one was a thank you to generous Dale. ¶ What is the sum of the research done by Dr.s Jen Shang and Adrian Sargeant at their Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy? In my non-academic interpretation: "When you like your donors, they'll like you back. And they'll express that through more giving and by sticking around." ¶ THE COMPLETE DONOR.... Interesting idea, Benjamin Mohler and Andrew Polter.

love bunnies...

 

Talking to friends ... maybe U entrepreneurs

yes U below come on

                                                                                                                                                                                              

this is how successfull

 

thank you foot

 

on flip

 

U see yourself in whatever frame

 

-----

 

been listening to the Jimmy Carter tributes

 

One insider camp called him "the meanist person I've ever met" ~ bcuz he wanted to get certain things done FAST

 

I have confirmation from a top-diplomat friend, who guided Jimmy in his post-presidency years around Nigeria: brilliant, impatient, a prick, clear-sighted; essential virtues NOT highly prized at that time, any time, in those armored limousines stuck in traffic

 

where are U, am I, on that spectrum? get more done? get people to like me?