Hot Appeals or Burnt Offerings

The Do's and Don'ts of Sucessful Fundraising

The least surprising statement you’ll read in this book:

This is the twenty-first century.

If you’re aware of the fundraising ramifications of that statement, you also are aware of the difference between the fundraising ambiance of the kinder, gentler 1980s and 1990s. Oh, certainly the nonprofit world was competitive, but the competition didn’t include the World Wide Web.

You may or may not agree with the assertion that all fundraising is competitive with other fundraising, but consider: The local library competes with the local symphony orchestra … which competes with the local hospital, which competes with national hospitals … which in turn compete with organizations soliciting funds for helping the poor or eradicating diseases … which in turn compete with the local library.

Carrying that conclusion to its own logical conclusion, we add the reality of competition: Donors have a finite amount of money to contribute to all causes.

That makes competition hypercompetitive. But it always has been that way. What has changed during the first decade of this century is the obbligato theme the Web has added to any siren song we chant, imploring existing donors for our rightful due … and demanding of individuals whose demographic and psychographic profiles suggest they parallel our donors, “We deserve your attention.”

Attention is one of two operative words here, because our best potential donors are the ones whose attention is most in play. They’re the ones whose e-mail boxes are the most crowded. They’re the ones most likely to be jaded by constant “We need help” messages from various nonprofit sources. They’re the ones most likely to be courted by every competitor, whether library, orchestra, college, hospital, or major cause. And theirs is the attention most likely to be fragmented.

So we need the second operative word: relevance. Those others out there, they aren’t as relevant as we are. They don’t offer as much personal recognition, which in turn means they don’t offer as much personal satisfaction.

Too many newcomers to our ranks believe the medium is the message.

So we turn on the psychological afterburners. And we go for the emotional jugular vein; otherwise, we’re just one more lifeboat bobbing aimlessly in the roiling competitive seas.

Too many newcomers to our ranks believe the medium is the message. They literally fall in love with e-mail, assuming that because it’s cheap to use (which it is) and one-to-one (which it is), it automatically aces out any other means of reaching and influencing potential donors (which it may or may not, especially since “reaching” is 90 percent easier than “influencing”).

This is a deep-into-twenty-first-century book, attacking the deep-into-twenty-first century not-for-profit climate. So yours is a 501(c)(3) and theirs isn’t? Big deal. Do your best donors and potential donors regard that fact as attention-getting and relevant?

Some years ago, I authored a book titled How to Write Powerful Fund-Raising Letters. The publisher of the book you have in your hands graciously offered me the option of updating that book, rather than replacing it with this one. Nope. We’ve moved too far from those kinder, gentler times.

So the challenge for all of us is not only to recognize that we’re competing (for many, an unwelcome intrusion) but also to see the many options available to us, some classic and some new.

So now you know the purpose of this book.

Product Details
149 pages
ISBN: 1-933199-07-5