Easier Said Than Done : The Magic Words of Fundraising

These two words one good, one bad have the power to boost or destroy your messages.

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P.S. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You.

You see, all the elements of a good fundraising letter — the opening that grabs you, the setup for the ask, the ask itself, how many times to ask, the P.S. — barely matter compared to the importance of making it all about the donor. Get that right, and just about everything else you need will fall into place.

Our researchers also found that the donor's name had exactly the same power as the word "you." Often more.

"You" is the oxygen of the fundraising atmosphere. It makes all life possible. Use it as much as you can.

The bad word
The bad word has even more power for evil than "you" does for good. You might be expecting some exotic imprecation or elaborate profanity. Sadly, the bad word is the most commonly spoken word in English: I.

The funny thing about "I" is that its dark power isn't unleashed when you use it in your fundraising communication; in that context, it's a perfectly useful word — though overusing it makes you sound like a boring nerd, but that's another issue.

"I" does its damage when you use it to talk about your fundraising efforts. As in:

â— "I like it."

â— "I don't like it."

â— "I would never respond to that."

If virtually any sentence about your fundraising contains the word "I," the evil magic will spread like Chianti on a white shirt. That's because "I" causes you to leave reality behind and enter a topsy-turvy world where up is down, big is small, foggy is clear — and you can hardly put three persuasive words together.

(And don't think you can get around it by saying "we" or "my spouse" or "everyone I know" when you really mean "I." The evil magic knows what you're up to and will go to work anyway.)

The reason "I" throws you off track is simple: You are not your donor. You are radically different from your donor in several important ways:

â— You are almost certainly younger.

â— You know too much about the cause, and about marketing and fundraising.

â— You have agendas beyond the work at hand. You can hardly help yourself from "multitasking" in your fundraising.

â— You are paying too much attention. You're being paid to read this stuff! Your donor isn't.

All these things can add up to a screwy perception of what matters in your work that is not in any way like your donor's perception. That's what makes you go wrong.

Here are some of the most common forms of damage "I" inflicts on fundraising messages:

Happy talk. You like to outline your successes. You're motivated by your own competence; donors are motivated to solve problems, not reward your excellence. Any description of the situation that makes you feel good is going to be dull and unpersuasive to your donors.

Trendy design. If you think it's cool, it's probably not appropriate. Donors, let's face it, are not the most up-to-date group. Their tastes are mostly decades behind yours. What looks good to them generally will bore and even annoy you. Besides that, hip design often has the unfortunate side effect of being hard to read. (Oh, don't get me started.)

Complexity. You know how complicated things really are. You know it too well. Fundraising works best when the message is clear and simple. Done right, it's going to seem simplistic, repetitive and elementary to you. That's a sign that it's about right.

Education. We all wish our donors had a deeper understanding of our issues. That's why so many fundraisers go wrong with their zeal to teach donors, to lift them to our higher plain of knowledge. It doesn't work. It doesn't raise funds. It also doesn't educate. Stick to raising funds. Let schools do the teaching.

It can be humbling — almost painfully so — to properly deploy these magic words in your fundraising. It makes your message all about donors, not the cause and organization you're passionate about. It means putting out material that doesn't make your heart soar.

The trick to finding joy in this situation is to get your thrills not from the fundraising message itself, but from the results it creates. After all, that's your job. FS

Jeff Brooks is creative director at Merkle and keeper of the Donor Power Blog. Reach him at jbrooks@merkleinc.com