Marc A. Pitman's Blog, page 20

Capital Campaigns for the 21st Century

Capital campaigns are a mainstay in nonprofit fundraising. There's something special about a time-limited, specific goal like a capital campaign. It gets us motivated to give generously and accomplishes results we can see and touch.

But things are changing. For starters, in our smartphone saturated world we have many more options to connect with donors. In addition to calling and mailing, donors can be tweeted, LinkedIn, SnapChat'd, WhatsApp'd, Facebooked, and any other number of social media communications.

And in an age of Google, fundraising tactics and information is more available now than ever. Consultants can still be helpful, but nonprofits are no longer 100% reliant on them for information. Nonprofit leaders can now search for training, tips, and even connect with others as they try to conduct capital campaigns.

Unfortunately, most capital campaign training is still stuck in the 20th century.

So what's working today? We're bringing fundraising expert Amy Eisenstein and capital campaign maven Andrea Kihlstedt in to tell us just that!

Join us on November 6, for a free training on "3 Keys to a Successful Capital Campaign in Today’s Hyper-Busy World." Get the free link to register at: https://thenonprofitacademy.com/trainings/keys-to-successful-capital-campaigns/

Learn how to build real partnerships, effectively harness volunteers, and whether or not to work with a consultant.

Can't join us? Register anyway and you'll have access to the recording!

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A true disruption in fundraising

We often hear people claim they're going to "disrupt" an industry, even fundraising. "This will change everything," they promise. And the implied threat is that you'd better adapt or get left behind.

Most of the time these "disruptors" flop. They are usually a website or an app that is supposed to take away your . But every so often, you see a true disruption.

That's why I'm so glad Tom Ahern pointed us in the direction of @BeateSorum's post on a true disruption in fundraising: losing the donor relationship.

It's all about relationship

Up until now, we know the donors who give to us. And the act of giving requires enough information so we can personally thank them. Sure, stock transfers and donor advised funds have complicated that a bit. But for most nonprofits, the volume is low enough that they can trace the stock transfer or donor advised fund gift back to the giver.

Not so with Facebook fundraisers. As Beate points out, Facebook doesn't let you know who gave. (I've confirmed this with other nonprofits.) It's like they've closed the road to through traffic.

So you might get hundreds or thousands of donations from this a person's birthday campaign. But you "only" get a check from Facebook. No other way to follow up.

So what is a nonprofit to do? Beate says you can fight hard to do business as usual. That doesn't end well. (Remember Blockbuster? I don't either.) Or you can adapt.

And we're in the stage of figuring out how to adapt.

Adapting Ideas

As we figure this out, here are a few thoughts on how to grow relationships when you're not allowed to know the donors.

Thank the fundraising organizers: In talking with various clients, they report that Facebook lets them see who is organizing fundraisers on their behalf. So respectfully reach out, thanking them. And asking if there's anything they'd like you to do to support their effort. Maybe you could share a download on your site for a tip sheet or ebook. And creating a landing page on your site for each fundraiser would allow you to tag the person as having been involved in that specific fundraiser. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than nothing.

Ask each organizers if your organization could share a "thank you" note in the event: The thank you could be an image or just text. And you could try adding a link to a thank you gift (like an ebook or tip sheet or even digital wallpaper or ecards).


Get systematic about interacting with the posts on fundraising campaigns: Nonprofits can still like and comment in the events. So experiment with liking and commenting to see if that helps the organizer's efforts be even more successful. But be respectful. This is the organizer's "house" party, not yours. So be sure to be ready to stop if the organizer or their friends think you're intruding.

It's almost like adding "organizer relations" to the list of relationships for your development office, isn't it?

The giving on Facebook is definitely isn't the end of the world. Book authors do not get information from bookstores or Amazon on who exactly buys our books. And yet we can still grow relationships with readers. So hopefully what looks like a "road closed" sign is more of a detour. But right now it sure is disruptive. And it will take a lot of testing for us to get this right in the nonprofit sector.

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You can (and should) read Beate's post, with links to others like Blockbuster and Kodak that didn't adapt well at:

https://beateinenglish.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/losing-donor-relationship-disruptive-moment/

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[Guest Post] 3 Surprising Things I Learned From Making Recurring Donations to 115 Nonprofits

Monthly giving is important for nonprofits. But are we doing it well? To test, Brady Josephson ran an experiment involving giving to 115 nonprofits. And I'm honored that he agreed to write about his findings. Brady is the Vice President of Innovation and Optimization at NextAfter - a fundraising research lab. No stranger to nonprofits and technology, he's widely cited in multiple media outlets. He can be reached on Twitter @bradyjosephson

3 months. 115 nonprofits. 345 donations. 4500 touch points.

Those were some of the key ‘stats’ that went into a recent study we did on recurring giving in partnership with Salesforce.org. Or put another away… it was a crap ton of work. And when people hear about the study, one of the first questions I get asked is “why?”

Well, one main reason: to better understand the giving experience from the donor’s viewpoint.

That is one of the hardest things, if not the hardest thing, for you as a fundraiser to do: imagine yourself in the donor’s shoes. When you try, or when I try, you inadvertently layer in your own knowledge and experiences, this is something called the curse of knowledge, and it can lead you down a dark path of ‘me first’, insider, and uninspiring fundraising.

So the hope is that a study like The Nonprofit Recurring Giving Benchmark can provide some objective, unbiased information on what a donor’s experience is so we can learn from it and improve upon it. (Plus we get some neat ideas to test with our research partners like how a ‘pop-up’ at the point of donation helped increase recurring giving 64.2%).

The second question I’ll often get asked is “what stood out to you?” While there was a lot of interesting things, here are...

3 Surprising Things I Learned About Recurring Giving From 115 Nonprofits


Very few organizations are communicating the ‘why’ behind recurring giving

A lot of emphasis, when it comes to digital, is on things like gift arrays or what image you should use or what color the donate button should be but the reality is, if a donor is not motivated or inspired to give and they don’t understand how they’re donation, today, will make a difference, those other things don’t really matter.

So it was surprising when we found that only 9 organizations, less than 8% of nonprofits in the study, tried to communicate value or provide a reason why the donor should make a recurring gift in the process. Most used a simple approach with a check box between ‘one-time’ or ‘monthly’ but if you hadn’t arrived at that decision point with your mind already made up that you wanted to make a monthly gift, there was nothing to help convince you. Or, perhaps worse, there was nothing to reaffirm your choice to give every month.

And just by adding some copy or text to help persuade or confirm the potential donor’s decision can make a big difference. In this experiment, one of my favorites, the extra focus on answering the ‘why’ helped increase donations 150.2%!

Recurring donors received 44% MORE direct mail than the one-time or upgraded donor

In the study, we had three ‘mystery donors’ to see how the communications and follow-up differed from a one-time donor to a recurring donor to a one-time donor who then upgraded to a recurring donor in the 2nd month. I was hopeful that we’d see some pretty significant differences between the three donors and while there were some encouraging signs — the recurring donor received more cultivation and less solicitation over the 3 months — there were also some worrying signs — in the 3rd month, the recurring donor saw increasing solicitations and decreasing cultivation.

But the most surprising thing, to me, was that the recurring donor actually received 44% more direct mail in the 3 months. When we dug into it a bit more recurring donors did receive more cultivation pieces in the mail but they also received more solicitations via direct mail. I’m not sure what the thinking or strategy is in sending more mailed solicitations to a donor who just chose to give every month indefinitely.

My hope is that it’s an odd quirk involving a lack of systems or data but my fear is that this is part of a strategy to squeeze more revenue out of a high-value, high-committed donor. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t optimize fundraising, we should, but the optimization of fundraising includes the donor and their experience and I don’t think this increased solicitation via direct mail after an online recurring donation is the message we, fundraisers, want to be sending to donors.

Many organizations seem to be okay with lost, cancelled, and expired credit cards

One of the main reasons recurring donors stop giving is because of their credit card lapsing, expiring, getting canceled, or lost so we wanted to see what nonprofits were doing to prevent this and how they would react once it did happen so we reported one card as lost and canceled the other one.

First the good. 68% of organizations were able to automatically update the card via their payment solution. I was a pitcher in college and I learned, quickly, that the best way to prevent runs from getting scored was to not let guys get on base. Now I wasn’t very good at doing that which is why my pitching career was quite short but if I had a way to automatically prevent 68% of batters reaching base, I’d be in the Hall of Fame.

Now the bad. Only a third of organizations accepted EFT/ACH payments (where you can pay directly from your bank). Now this is bad because donors may want to pay that way and avoid more credit card fees and a bank account lasts longer than credit cards. This is why the Target Analytics donorCentrics Sustainer Summit group found that donor retention was 4% higher for EFT/ACH donors compared to credit card donors. 4% may not sound like a lot but I can assure you it adds up over time.

And, worse, for the organizations that didn’t have a way to automatically update the credit card when lost, 75% of them didn’t reach out to us to recover it. And when we canceled our card, just under half of the organizations (47%) didn’t contact us.

I hoped organizations would do more to prevent donors leaving for payment reasons but it was pretty shocking to see how little effort and/or systems were in place to reach out to people when that did happen.


So…

Those are just three of the most surprising things to me but I’m sure you’ll find more in the full report. The key is to make sure you’re looking at the recurring giving experience from the donor’s perspective and then find areas you can improve, optimize, and test to grow your recurring giving program. Good luck!

Get all the statistics and insights from The Nonprofit Recurring Giving Benchmark Study and see how your organization compares to those in the study at recurringgiving.com.

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Digital Fundraising + Social Media: Your Guide to Raising More

If you’ve been paying attention to recent trends in philanthropic giving, you’ve probably noticed that digital fundraising and online giving have become more and more popular among donors.

But how can you make this trend work for you? Digital fundraising never stops innovating and changing, so how can you know what the best options are?

While it’s true that the options available for online giving are constantly changing, you can make sure your organization is ready for anything by following just a few best practices.

Those best practices are:

Integrate your online systems.
Create an informative and engaging online presence.
Make it as easy as possible to donate online.
Experiment with new digital strategies.

By following these four simple steps, you can increase the efficacy of your online presence, maximize the amount of donations you receive online, and ensure that your organization is ready for whatever new innovation comes next. Let’s get started.

1. Integrate your online systems.

When was the last time that you even thought about the software that your nonprofit was using? If you’re not the nonprofit’s IT professional, odds are that it was too long ago!

There are hundreds of different types of software that a nonprofit could use for any given purpose, and plenty of options for each one of those varieties, but the overall quality that any organization needs to keep in mind is integrability.

What does this mean, in the case of your nonprofit? It means that all of your programs need to integrate, or be able to communicate with each other: i.e. transfer data and information between the programs in an understandable way.

The most important software to a nonprofit can vary based on what the nonprofit does, but here is a list of the most common vital programs:

Donation form software
Website host (content provider)
Constituent relationship manager (CRM)
Prospect and donor research program
Matching gifts database

The most important thing about these programs is that they need to be able to record donor, volunteer, or interested party contact information. Then, they need to be able to transfer this contact information into your other programs.

This is vital to any nonprofit because of the intrinsic reliance that our organizations have on their supporter communities. You need to know that your supporter data is clean, organized, and up-to-date. This also means no duplicate entries.

If you’ve found that the programs your organization currently relies on are unable to be integrated into any other systems, maybe it’s time for a change. Check out Double the Donation’s Nonprofit CRM Software guide for some recommendations.

This organizational process is the first step on your nonprofit’s journey to succeeding in the digital fundraising realm.

2. Create an informative and engaging online presence.

The next step in engaging your supporter base online is by ensuring that they can find you on the internet, and that your presence there reflects the values and mission of your organization.

Odds are that your nonprofit already has a website and a Facebook page. But are they kept updated with more than just your contact information? Does someone take the time to respond to any messages you may receive?

If you don’t, your path is easy. The best ways to engage your supporters online are through these platforms:

Your organization’s own website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn

These platforms all have their own advantages and disadvantages, so carefully consider what you need your online presence to do for you when deciding which to focus on.

You don’t need to spend the same amount of time, money, or energy on each platform: do some experimenting to find out where your supporters are already spending their time, and then meet them there.

Once you’ve decided where your time and effort will be most effectively spent, determine how you want to present your organization online. Will you be very serious, and only post informational articles and fundraiser and event updates, or will you post memes and tell jokes?

Depending on your target audience, you might consider a mix of both approaches. Your online presence isn’t meant to only make your fundraising asks: you should educate people about both your nonprofit and the cause it serves, as well as what your team is up to every day.

Another benefit of having a social media presence is that it allows your organization to present a human face to the world, instead of just your logo. Post pictures of your team and volunteers at work, or fundraisers at your latest fun run.

The overarching goal of using social media is to tell your nonprofit’s story.

Once you’ve established your online persona, start to interact with your constituents. Reply to their posts, like their pictures, and tag them in your own pictures of them from other events.

Interacting with others online puts your name out in the ether, so that people who don’t know your organization are exposed to you and your content. This is a great way to leverage your supporters’ social networks to become your own community networks.

In addition to your online-presence-building content, don’t be afraid to advertise both your online and offline fundraising efforts. Offer ways for supporters to donate online, and invite followers to attend events, seminars, or other fundraising activities.

3. Make it as easy as possible to donate online.

One of the most important goals of maintaining your online presence is making it pay off for your organization during fundraisers! That’s why you need to be aware of fundraising or campaign page best practices.

To implement this strategy, you need to consider two factors: first, the attention span of people on the internet, and second, the percentage of people who access the internet from their phones.

If someone goes to your website with the intention of learning more about your organization and potentially making a donation, and then they cannot find either the information or the donation page, they are going to leave your website and forget about it.

If someone goes to your website on their phone and they cannot get anything to work on their smaller mobile browser, they are going to leave your page and forget about it.

You don’t want either of these things to happen to you! To avoid these, let’s consider some best practices for designing a website:

Make everything mobile-responsive
Optimize your online donation page
Make it easy to find your donation page from anywhere

Making a website mobile-responsive means that the elements on your website will shift depending on the size of the viewing browser, to ensure a good experience for the viewer.

This is a great way to make sure that your website remains functional yet readable on all browsers.

The second step is to ensure that your mobile donation page is easy to use on a computer, tablet, or phone.

The page should be fully branded to your organization, or integrated totally into your website so that the donor is confident that their money is going to the right place.

Next, you should only include the necessary fields on the donation form. Donating should be as easy as possible for the donor, so they shouldn’t be forced to jump through any unnecessary hoops before completing their donation.

Finally, make the donation page easy to find! Include a button in a prominent place linking back to the donation page on every page of the website. Put the link in in the bio of your Twitter and Instagram!

4. Experiment with new digital strategies.

Now that you’ve established a strong online presence, make it work for you during your next fundraising campaigns. Traditional methods of fundraising will never completely vanish, but you can optimize your marketing strategy by reaching out online as well as in real life.

For example, consider running a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign among your social media followers. They can leverage their own social networks for success, and your organization can encourage them online.

If you’ve never tried a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, check out this ultimate guide from OneCause for a great starting point.

Another way to take advantage of new digital fundraising techniques is to implement new technology at your next event:

Use a text-giving software to allow people to give from their phones easily
Adopt mobile bidding software to revolutionize your next charity auction
Use a fun hashtag to encourage attendees to post pictures and raise awareness

Don’t forget ways that digital fundraising techniques can maximize the impact of even traditional donations: market your matching gifts tools via email or social media, so that donors can take advantage of corporate philanthropy.

Many people don’t know about their employers’ matching gifts policies, so you can rapidly spread awareness about the programs through your online network.

Don’t forget to measure metrics like follower number, likes and comments, click through rates, and other important data points to learn more about where your community needs you to be.

What content do they want to see from you? Where could you leverage your presence for increased impact of awareness and fundraising campaigns?

The world of online and digital fundraising is constantly evolving, so you’ll never run out of new strategies to try.

There are so many ways to interact with your community now: peer-to-peer fundraising, in-person events, mobile giving, and more. By having a strong base, you can adapt to anything that this ever-changing sphere can throw at you!

Growing a digital fundraising strategy from scratch can seem like an overwhelming task, but with our 4 simple best practices, you can put your best foot forward online and take advantage of this great new resource.

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Are you telling the RIGHT story in your fundraising?

Steven Screen is at it again. Steven is an amazing direct mail and fundraising expert.

And he has a way of making me feel uncomfortable. He says the best story for raising money is the "incomplete story."

You see, when I write fundraising letters, my first reaction is to tell the prospect what a good job my nonprofit is doing. We really have things under control. Giving to us is a good thing. I don't want to make prospects feel uncomfortable. Or to put them on the spot.

Unfortunately, what most prospects hear is "We've got this" so they find something else to give too.

Don't believe me? How effective was your last fundraising appeal?

The #1 Story for Raising the Most Money

According to Steven, the #1 story that raises the most money is the incomplete story.

Incomplete stories tell people on the periphery of your nonprofit that there is a need. A need that requires donors. And incomplete stories give them as donors a powerful role to play.

Fortunately, Steven went into the studio with Nonprofit Storytelling Conference's Chris Davenport. The recording is only about 11 minutes long. But these could be the most important 11 minutes you watch this week.

If you can't see it by clicking on the image above, you should be able to by going to: https://nonprofitstorytellingconference.com/number-1-story-that-raises-money/

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Make the most of the summer

Last week, I sent my Fundraising Kick subscribers a couple ideas on how to make the most of the different pace of the summer.

Although Kicks are written for nonprofit CEO's, I thought this might be helpful to a larger group of people as well.

Happy New (fiscal) Year, Kickers!

For many nonprofits, July 1 is the new fiscal year. And with Canada Day being yesterday and the 4th of July being Wednesday, here in North America this is a week many take as a vacation.

If you’re in the office, like I am, here are a couple ways to use the time well.

Make your 5 -10 major gift calls anyway

People are working today. And since the average age of a major gift donor is 64, many may be home whether this were a holiday week or not. So get on the phone – or start typing letters – and set up those meetings.

Take the quiet week to plan

Leaders often get addicted to action and stress. And they often bring that stress onto themselves because they don’t plan. Sure, planning “feels” like you’re slacking. Because it’s not “putting out a fire.” But planning now is exactly what helps you not have fires to put out in the future.

If you choose option 1, do it. If you choose option 2, there are lots of review systems you may already have set up. A few to consider when reviewing the last 12 months are:

Did you retain donors from the previous 12 months? (That’s a good thing to check even if your calendar year didn’t end on June 30.)

Did your average gift go up or down? (Total money raised divided by total number of donors)

How many first time donors did you have in the last 12 months? How many did you have at this time a year ago?

Whether this is a full week in the office for you or a partial, enjoy it!

You’ve been Kicked!

Marc

Which will you choose? Or will you set aside time for both?

If you're interested in getting weekly coaching emails like these, go to http://FundraisingKick.com/ and subscribe. It's only $10 a month but the results could be phenomenal.

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Happy (Fiscal) New Year

Years ago, I recorded this "Thank you for fundraisers."

I wanted to get it out early this year to give you the extra "umphf" to push through these last few days of the fiscal year. (If your fiscal year ends in June!)

Thanks for your hard work. Our world is better because of the persistence of fundraising people connecting donors with mission.

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3 Things to Stop Doing in Your Thank You's to Donors

I just returned from a training where I got to hear Mary Cahalane teach on writing good thank you letters.

Studies estimate that 53% of donors who stop giving to a nonprofit stop due to the nonprofit's lack of communication.

53%!

When donors don't hear from us, they think we no longer need their gifts. So they stop giving.
Some donors get annoyed to not be thanked. So they stop giving.

Still others doubt the gift really mattered. So they stop giving.

All because they didn't get a meaningful thank you from us. The good news? We can do something about our communication!

3 Things to Stop Doing in Your Nonprofit's Thank You's

Mary said taught us that our thank you's should "keep the high going" - that wonderful feeling the donors gets when giving.

Here are three things that are buzzkillers. Stop them and you'll immediately improve your thank you's and help your donors keep feeling great about their gift.

Making thank you's about the transaction: If your thank you starts with "Thank you for your gift of $__ to the ______ fund," you've already missed the point. The point is not the donation. The point of an effective thank you is the donor. So make sure the donor is emphasized over the donation. Good thank you tip: put the business office stuff down at the bottom.

Making thank you's about the nonprofit: Mary showed us one thank you that only referred to her twice. Both "you's" were in the top of the letter. The rest of the letter was about the nonprofit! She said, "I was shunted to the side!" Good thank you tip: talk about the donor more than about your nonprofit.

Bland, formal business language: Mary told us that in nonprofit thank you's to donors "we cannot be too emotional." That was not to say that we shouldn't be emotional. We should absolutely be emotional! In fact, no matter how emotional we get, it's virtually impossible to be too emotional. Good thank you tip: use emotion in letting the donor know how special she is, even if you feel you're going over board.


Fundraising is Mission

Most people in nonprofits want to serve. They want to make a difference in the world.

Most people in nonprofits want to give.

And fundraising feels 100% opposite. Fundraising feels like taking from people. As a result, it's really easy to put off fundraising even as the bills pile up.

Using these three thank you writing tips will not only help you keep donors giving to you. They will help you see fundraising as being in line with your service. You'll see fundraising doesn't have to be at odds with the rest of your work.

In fact, with this style for thank you's, you might find that you look forward to fundraising!

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Will you take the Red Pen Challenge?

Fundraising is a counter-intuitive profession. But it is a profession. Experts research fundraising tactics and test strategies to find out what works.

Often, the results seem illogical. Like is the case in writing fundraising letters that actually raise money.

The We/I Test

In our fundraising letters, we typically think our job is to convince donors that we - the nonprofit is a safe investment. So we talk about us, our accomplishments, all the great we are doing.

Is this your approach? There's an easy trick to find out.

Print out a copy of your latest fundraising letter. And grab a red pen and a black pen.With the red pen, circle all references to your nonprofit, yourself, and the pronouns “we,” “ours,” and “our.” These words will put your fundraising in the red.With the black pen, circle all the words about the donor, typically “you,” “yours,” and “your.”Count up the red circles and count up the black circles.

How did your fundraising letter do?

When I start coaching nonprofits, their typical one page fundraising letter has around 37 red circles to only about 7 black circles. That is not good.

Worse, 5 of the 7 black circles are three-quarters of the way down the page, in the asking line! "Would you help us with our mission by giving your gift of ____ to our fund today?" (Even that line has more we's than you's!)

We're so full of "we's," I've even heard this called "the French test" - does your letters sound like we, we, we?

The goal is to write your letters to the donor and talking about the donor as much as possible.

Taking it further

Fundraising letter expert Steven Screen challenges nonprofits to not even refer to themselves in their fundraising letters. Donors are smart. They know you sent the letter. They don't need to be reminded about your name in every paragraph!

Last week at a United Way regional conference, Neil Parekh, Director of Network Communications for United Way Worldwide, said we could even go as far as to replace our nonprofit's name with "you." Instead of "United Way did x," it should be "You did x."

For example, if the fundraising letter normally said "Our United Way gave 32 filled back packs...," the letter should be "You gave 32 filled back packs...because of you, 32 students..."

Pretty powerful, isn't it?

Will you take the Red Pen Fundraising Letter Challenge?

As you plan your year end appeals (June 30 year end) or plan your fall fundraising letters, will you take the red pen challenge? In the comments here, let us know how many red circles vs. black circles you get!

If you want, you can even post images of your letters to the Ask Without Fear® Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/AskWithoutFear/

Connecting the donor with the impact without talking about your nonprofit feels risky. But this one change alone is causing nonprofit professionals to double and triple the fundraising done through their letters.

Will you take the red pen challenge?

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Are you making a specific fundraising offer or reverting to "join us"?

I recently wrote about the importance of your fundraising offer. This post has gotten more response from readers than most. And it's captured the attention of my private coaching clients so much many of them are actively working on being more intentional about crafting offers.

Are you educating or engaging?

The biggest struggle seems to be a common one in nonprofits. Most of us believe we need to educate donors. We think that the reason people are not giving is because they just don't know enough about us yet. So we try to give them more information, hoping we'll fill up their information bucket enough that it will spill over into years of ongoing donations.

It doesn't happen that way.

Educating is fine...if you're not trying to raise money. Education is passive. Fundraising requires people to take action. So we need to engage people.

The offer is all about donor engagement.

Designing the best offer

So to learn more about designing offers, I turned to Steven Screen. Steven Screen is one of the top experts in the country on direct mail fundraising. He's the kind of expert who doesn't let his expertise get in the way of his ability to teach clearly. And he doesn't let his expertise get in the way of his being a nice person. I've seen this personally at the annual Nonprofit Storytelling Conference. Attendees love Steven's firm, kind, no-nonsense, clear cut advice.

When I asked if he had a recording or video on crafting offers, he immediately suggested listening to an interview he recently did.

I listened this morning and took a whole page of notes. Some things I love about the interview include:

Part of what an organization does is always more interesting than all it does. So find the best offer about your organization. And learn to be comfortable knowing that there are 18 other things your nonprofit is doing that donors may never know about. At least from this ask.Fundraising success is based 40% on your audience, 40% on your offer, and 20% on your creative. Yet most nonprofits spend the majority of time on their creative.In the United States, there are something like 1 nonprofit for every 300 people. So we need to get this "offer" thing down or we'll risk not breaking through the noise.

Listen to the interview. He gives the four parts of a successful offer, and even a tip on how to make your fundraising events more successful through an email to non-attendees!

The interview is here:

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