BlueFrog Creative

How to make your own luck

At the end of last year, I took a trip up to Leeds for the CASE conference. Adrian Salmon and his colleagues at Leeds University led a really great presentation about maximising donor engagement. Adrian summed up with six take-away points, which apply across the board in fundraising, so I asked if I could share them with you.

 Here goes:

 1.    Yes, we were lucky, but it’s about making your own luck

Adrian described how a donor had progressed from making a one-off gift to becoming a major donor. Not all donor relationships work in such a satisfying way, but as it says above – you make your own luck. In this case, the team at Leeds were working in a really interesting way. They were segmenting their file and analysing their results very effectively, but they were also looking to build personal relationships with individuals with the potential to give more.

2.    Don’t ignore your outliers, & talk to your colleagues!

The individual concerned didn't actually fit the profile of existing major donors, but that didn't stop the team at Leeds engaging with him personally. That's what I really like about their approach. They used their data to identify good major donor leads, but were also prepared to look outside – to outliers – and find out what was motivating them to give.

3.   Listen hard!

Listen hard to your donors – what better advice can you get. Only today I was discussing with a colleague what this really means. You might think this is covered by an annual questionnaire to your donors. But I think there's an important distinction to draw between what your donors are saying and what they are telling you.

A good researcher will dig below the surface and draw out these conclusions for you. Alternatively, you need to look at what your donors' behaviour is telling you – do they give to appeals? Do they take part if you ask them for a campaigning or another non-financial action?

4.   Give even ‘modest’ donors the chance to feel involved

Have you sat down recently and thought about all the ways donors could get involved with your cause - without giving money? It's a great way of building loyalty and ultimately keeping older supporters involved who may not have cash to spare, but would consider legacy-giving. There are obvious opportunities in inviting donors to events, but here are a couple of nice examples:

Save the Children UK ran a lovely campaign a couple of years ago asking supporters to knit wooly hats for babies around the world.

Charity, Clearvision, ask donors if they will make a tactile book for blind and partially sighted children.

5. Think about legacies all the way through, not just at the end!

From 101 Fundraising

Whatever you think about donor pyramids (and there's plenty of debate, summed up here on 101 fundraising), they can lead to linear kind of thinking – that a donor will move through certain stages towards a legacy. Of course, actual behaviour is far less easy to map and Adrian makes the point that you should always be thinking about creating pools of prospects.

6. Even if it only comes off rarely, keep giving yourself as many opportunities as possible to make your own luck!

And if it's not too late, that sounds like a very good new year's resolution.

Thanks to Adrian and his colleagues at Leeds for those six points.

 

Learning About Donor Appreciation At IoF London

Another post from Bluefrog copywriter, Margaux Smith.

 

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Institute of Fundraising’s London conference for two days. A big thank you to Mark and Aline for sending me – I do love the job perks! I always learn so much at conferences but more importantly, am always re-fueled to think more deeply about how we raise money for our causes.

And this was no exception. I spent two days being inspired by some truly great fundraisers. But there’s one standout thing that’s been running through my mind in the days since.

Alan Clayton was the plenary speaker on day two and, shockingly, was the only speaker who made my cry. That’s really saying something since I’m very easily moved. Not enough emotion at IoF? Perhaps.

But Alan’s talk sure carried the emotional punch. Good thing since it was about the importance of emotion in fundraising. Because I was too busy feeling his words to take any notes or live tweet, I’ll have to draw from memory.

What I really took away came from an image that looked an awful lot like this:

These are people. The people who will always give to your organization (even when you mess up, they are often forgiving), the people who might give to your organization, and finally the people who will never give – you’ll notice this is the largest portion.

Alan’s point was that many charities focus almost exclusively on the Always and the Never. They spend a lot of time, money, and resources listening to complaints and feedback from their most loyal supporters (which I’m not convinced is a bad thing) and then on trying to recruit those who will never give – these people have no connection to your cause.

His argument is that we should be focusing almost all of our fundraising on the Maybe group. These are the people who have given once or twice – they clearly know about your charity and aren’t against the idea of giving, but you haven’t connected with them on a meaningful level…yet. This is where your potential lies. These are the people who are waiting to be convinced.

It makes me think about our donor files. When we do warm mailings, we’re satisfied with 8 to 20% response rates – that’s expected. But what I see is 80 to 92% of people who have given to us before that are now bored with our message, feel undervalued, are unconvinced, or are generally apathetic*.

So what can we do to bring these people in?

We can start by appreciating each and every effort they make to connect with us. Thank them for that £5 gift and show them what it accomplished. The importance of this can’t be emphasized enough. Because if you can make them feel wonderful about that first gift (and second, and third), no matter how small, a bigger gift and a more loyal supporter is likely to come. It’s not rocket science, it’s simply about treating your donors in the way you’d wish to be treated. 

We need to stop seeing barriers and start seeing opportunities.

 

* I realize this is a bit harsh. Some people only give once a year, others are having financial difficulties or other issues that prevent them from giving but I hope you can see my point.

If you haven't seen this clip before, prepare to be appalled...

  

But if you are one of the 2 million + people who has already heard this man's delight at the financial melt-down, you might be surprised by what I'm going to say next.

There is one important point to extract from his otherwise appalling views.

We may not be as bullish as traders, but as fundraisers we have to believe it is still possible to bring in the money that the good causes we represent need – more than ever.

As I've mentioned before in this space, I think some of the best fundraising is done in emergencies. And since the news from the outside world is predominantly doom and gloom right now, I thought I'd share two inspiring examples of successful fundraising in desperate times. 

Great Ormond Street Hospital 

You may have heard the current financial outlook described as the worst since the Second World War, so here's some amazing fundraising from precisely that time. 

I wish I knew more about this story but here's what I've been able to piece together. In (I think) 1940, Great Ormond Street Hospital was bombed. As you can hear if you click here, large parts of the building were left in ruins, equipment was destroyed and patients had to be evacuated.

What would you do if you had to try and raise the money needed to rebuild the hospital?

Well, this is the part of the story I love. Whoever those fundraisers were, they looked around at the rubble and found a solution.

To raise money, Great Ormond Street Hospital sold matchboxes of the debris. Each matchbox bought by a member of the public brought in funds for rebuilding work. I wish I had a picture of one.

As you can see here, a book was also opened and circulated, with messages of support coming from the Royal Family, politicians and celebrities of the day.

Ai Wei Wei

Example number two is contemporary and comes from China. As you may be aware, artist Ai Wei Wei has incurred the displeasure of the Chinese government. Having been detained for 81 days, he was presented by the state with a tax bill of 15m yuan – a sum he can't possibly pay.

So what's happened since then? Well, Ai Wei Wei describes it as 'a beautiful thing' and I agree. Well-wishers have put themselves at risk by coming forward to help Ai Wei Wei pay the bill.

As you can see from these great photos from the Guardian, donations have come in unusual ways.

 

People have screwed up money into a ball or made it into a paper aeroplane to get it over the wall into the grounds of Ai Wei Wei's studio.

 

Other courageous individuals pass on their donation covertly.

Ai Wei Wei may not be a fundraiser, but donors are thanked in a memorable way. Volunteers send out some of his ceramic seeds.

 

To sum up

Here are two examples of great fundraising in worse situations than we face. So chin up! Keep doing good fundraising.

How can you show your donors that you love them?

Good fundraisers love their donors. And showing your supporters that you think they are tremendous, extraordinary human beings is:

a. courteous

b. a step towards building loyalty...

c. ...and generating more funds (also known as good stewardship) 

An answer to how you might do this arrived in my letterbox a few days ago in the form of the Not On The High Street Christmas Gift Guide. It's an unlikely source of inspiration, but believe me, it's worth a look. Because it shows the kind of gifts that your donors are likely to be giving to each other as a mark of love and appreciation.

And surely there’s some learning we can take from that.

Here’s the front cover, with the baubles giving you as clue as to what follows…

 Christmas just isn’t complete without a set of personalised baubles to hang on your tree (£58 for a set of four if you’re interested).

Click here for the catalogue and you'll find as I did, page after page of personalised gifts.

 Personalised glasses cases…

 

Personalised garden crates…or whisky bottles...

Even personalised wooden apples*...

I could go on. But let’s get back to what we could do. Because we can use exactly the same techniques to thank donors and build their involvement with our cause.

I'll admit to so far having shared some of the more absurd examples, but here are some pieces that easily convert over to fundraising.

A personalised book – imagine in this case that it shows the donor all the great things they have helped achieve.

 

Likewise, it wouldn’t take much to re-write the poster below to thank a donor for long-standing support.

In fact, look through the catalogue and you'll find tons of great ways you could use personalisation, using nothing more than data you already have – your donor's name.

And if you work for an animal charity, it's time to make sure you've captured the names of your supporters' pets. Because it appears animals also like to have their name on things – a hen called Hector models here. 

If you're new to this blog and are wondering why I'm recommending personalisation, you may like to read this post about donor needs by Mark. The pieces I'm suggesting could certainly be engaging, offer growth and help combat helplessness. I'll share an example later this week. 

 

*If anyone can find a more absurd personalised gift, I will happily send them an unpersonalised prize. Entries to me by 30/11/11. Judged by the Bluefrog Creative team. Do your worst.

The First Big Lesson In Fundraising Copy

Here's a great post from Bluefrog copywriter, Margaux Smith.

 

As the newest copywriter at Bluefrog, it still feels ridiculously novel to refer to myself or be referred to as a writer, but I adore the feeling. Writing is somewhat of a new dream for me – it only first occurred to me as a possibility about a year ago. But I know some day I’ll be able to combine it perfectly with my most fundamental goal – to protect animals from cruelty. This is the beauty of fundraising copy.

Writing has definitely not been an easy ride so far though. I’ve only just moved here to London this past July from Canada, where I was a fundraising grad student studying at Humber College in Toronto. The last bit of my degree involved taking a fundraising internship, and after figuring out exactly what I wanted, I contacted Aline over Twitter and asked for a job (people love that bit of the story, because it actually worked).

In my first few months as an intern and then as the Bluefrog receptionist, I was able to prove that I knew the basics of raising money for charity, and more importantly, that I could write conversationally. I didn’t actually even realize the latter was a skill until recently. It was just something that came from being ‘trained’ for thirteen years on ICQ, AIM, MSN Messanger, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, and countless message boards. I’m a bit too old to be considered a ‘digital native’, but digital-since-fourteen turns out to be pretty close.

Learning how to communicate in this way marks a major departure from the dry, academic writing we learn in school. But it also leads to a massive disconnect in how we perceive our skill. I’d done horribly at academic writing in my formal education, and therefore believed that I couldn’t write. And now I’m a professional writer. Go figure.

 

"Well, let me tell you a little secret: You started out a great writer. But as you went through school, and were conditioned to think of writing as writing rather than as simply communicating, you got progressively more self-conscious about it—and progressively worse at it.

"The best writers are the ones who are able to completely ignore everything they’ve been taught about writing, and instead get on with the job of just telling."

D Bnonn Tennant

 I wish someone had told me that in high school (or even university).

 

When I actually made the official move up to the creative floor just over a month ago, I experienced a few weeks of intense struggle. And I mean the kind of struggle where you’re calling your mother nearly in tears every night. Looking back, it really only did last about three weeks, but it felt like a lifetime. I had completely lost whatever ability I’d had to write. Every idea I would hand in would come back with the same disheartening (but honest) comments:

 

‘Try starting again’, ‘These sentences feel clumsy’, ‘You’re trying to say too much’, or ‘This doesn’t make sense’.

 

Aline was perfectly nice about it but she was right – it was all pretty crap. I felt completely overwhelmed by the pressure. I knew that the previous two copywriters hired before me had both been let go after only a few months because they hadn’t been able to grasp the fundraising style, and it seemed that it might be completely beyond me as well. Aline would edit my letters (a nice way of saying re-write) and I could see the obvious vast improvement, but I just couldn’t seem to make letters like that come out of me. I couldn’t help but consider the fact that maybe I just wasn’t good enough to be a real writer.

Every day I prepared myself for the pain of being fired. Aline was being so patient and nice but I knew that could only last so long. Before long, she’d get fed up with having to tell me the same things over and over. It was a stressful time, but I realize now that the stress was entirely self-induced.

 

Thankfully, in mid-October, I got a break for a week and went to the International Fundraising Congress in Holland. I knew this was exactly what I needed. I love working at Bluefrog and am learning skills that will be completely invaluable to my ability to raise money in the future, but I was also finding myself drifting away from the day-to-day fundraising involvement that I’d had for a solid year at Humber. I was getting so focused on writing style that I was losing sight of the big picture and my enthusiasm for charity. I knew that IFC would force me to take that step back and get my head back around why I’m doing what I’m doing.

And it did. IFC gave me everything I needed it to. It reintroduced me to the big picture and reaffirmed my love for the profession (and the people). But something else seems to have happened and I didn’t realize it until well after I’d gotten back to London.

 

I finally ‘got it’. All of a sudden, I could write a fundraising letter.

And it was actually so simple. It turns out I was just getting in my own way. I had felt like I had to write something that had never been said before to bring a fresh new voice to the company. I was terrified of not being original. In fact, I had refused to even look at the material my coworkers had written because I was scared I’d copy their style.

Something must have clicked subconsciously during the conference because I came back and things just started falling into place. I sat down to write a thank you letter with my brief, the appeal pack, and the charity’s last thank you letter and I read them all. I drew from them until I had something new that was my own. I worried less about my voice and more about the charity’s voice. I made it simple and easy to follow, but still emotional and donor focused. And I finally handed something in and heard ‘Perfect!’

I’ve sure got a whole lot more to learn, of course, but at least I feel like I’ve gotten over the first hurdle. But some day, I will write something that has never been said before. For now, I’ll work on perfecting the tried and tested methods. I think you have to really understand the fundamentals before you can properly flip them on their heads.

 

Funnily enough, this past weekend I was re-reading something I’d written seven months ago and I found this:

 

“Being creative doesn’t mean you have to invent something no one has ever thought of before.”

I’d heard it - had even shared and taught it, but I guess I didn’t really learn it until now.

Are you this blog's IR (Ideal Reader)?

First, an explanation of the question.

Look to the right and you'll see a far from exhaustive list of books I think are helpful to creatives working in our field. It hasn't been updated for a while but, soon, I'll be making an addition.

It's Stephen King's On Writing.

For over a year, Stephen King played with the idea of producing a book about writing. What stopped him was the thought that, somehow, a popular writer like him had no place talking about the craft of writing.

Now, if that were true, it would only be a million times more so for someone like me who writes Direct Mail. Except, of course, there are some very useful things we can learn from a man who has written over fifty best-sellers. Because the skills you need to do one kind of writing often transfer well to another.

So here's a Stephen King idea that, with a tweak, works well for fundraising – the ideal reader.

He says:

'Someone – I can't remember who, for the life of me – once wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one person. As it happens, I believe this. I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader; at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking, "I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?" For me that first reader is my wife, Tabitha.'

Charity fundraising copy is certainly best written to one person. In this post, Mark suggests it's your grandmother. But really it's the individual you visualise once you've taken on board everything you know about your target audience. And it might suit you to write a person you know who fits the bill. 

You've probably heard that advice before, but how does it actually help?

Well, for a start it should stop you writing a sentence like this:

Which is an awful start to a letter any way, but you'd start by at least changing it to:

Stephen King explains another role that the ideal reader has:

'IR will help you get outside yourself a little, to actually read your work in progress as an audience would while you're still working. This is perhaps the best way of all to make sure you stick to the story...'

Or in our case, not a story but an objective to raise money.

Thinking about how your IR/donor will react to your writing is a great way of editing your work.

Stephen King again:

'Try to imagine if he or she will be bored by a certain scene – if you know the tastes of your IR even half as well as I know the tastes of mine, that shouldn't be too hard. Is IR going to feel there's too much pointless talk in this place or that? That you've under-explained a certain situation...or over-explained it.'

Stephen King is lucky. His ideal reader is real, and can also become his first reader. The person who gives you feedback on what you've written. Choose them carefully – they could be another writer, another fundraiser, a donor, but not just anyone. You need someone who is likely to tell you something useful.

"If you're writing primarily for one person besides yourself," says Stephen King. "I'd advise you to pay very close attention to that person's opinion...And if what you hear makes sense, then make the changes. You can't let the whole world into your story, but you can let in the ones that matter the most. And you should."

And that's a good way to sum it up. If you're writing fundraising copy, you're writing for your donor. Pay close attention to what they say. Let them into your world.

There's actually loads more useful stuff in Stephen King's book, so I'm planning a second helping sometime soon. If you can't wait, you can get a copy here.

 

PS In answer to the question above, this blog started out being for the person I used to be – working charity-side without an agency. But along the way, it changed mainly as a result of exchanging ideas with a few people via twitter. So, dear reader, this is what I think I know about you:

• Fundraising is far more than a job
• You ask questions
• You seek answers in places other people aren't looking 

 

A 'nudge' for you

If you were listening to Broadcasting House (Sunday morning, BBC R4), you’ll have been part of an experiment.

You’ll have heard a chorus or two of ‘There’s no one quite like Grandma’ by the St Winifred’s Choir and you’ll have been asked to obey whatever urge popped into your mind.

If you know the song, you’ll be aware that the most likely urge on hearing it would be to cut off your own ears.

This was not the intention of the experiment. It was testing whether listeners would be ‘nudged’ into calling their grandchildren, when they heard the chorus ‘Grandma, we love you’.

To be fair, this was an experiment dreamed up by the producers of the programme, rather than one of the authors of Nudge theory. When they spoke to Richard H Thaler, co-author of Nudge. Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness, he wasn’t at all impressed with their methodology.

But he gave an interesting insight into what ‘nudging’ is really about.

Nudge theory has gained a great deal of currency amongst governments world-wide which are looking for ways to change the behaviours of their populations (that’s you and me, by the way). The relevance to fundraisers is fairly obvious, as we too are looking for effective ways to encourage donors to do what we want them to do.

So what did Richard H Thaler say that you might find useful?

First, a clarification. 'Nudging' has nothing to do with subliminal messaging like playing ‘There’s no one quite like Grandma’. It’s not even about subtlety or tricking someone into an action. One of Thaler’s favourite ‘nudges’ is the signs on our streets telling us to look left before crossing.

Nudge is about getting the right outcome.

To create effective 'nudges', Thaler looks at choice architecture – within what you are offered, how can you steer someone to the right outcome?

He mentioned an interesting test they are currently doing on what kind of letter you should write to a person who owes the treasury money. The most successful approach they have developed has a 10% higher yield on payment than the others they’ve tested.

(I'd make a bet that a fundraiser could have written that letter for them). 

Thaylor didn’t want to give away too much but he told us:

• It’s not about being threatening. It’s most about being nice.
• The winning letter uses social pressure – telling the non-tax payer that most people do pay their taxes.
• They make it as easy as possible to make payment. 

It's not rocket science really is it?

When asked to boil down 'nudging' to its essence, Thaler said:

If you want someone to do something, make it easy.

I don’t think this advice will come as anything other than a reminder (or a nudge) to fundraisers. We’ve been trying to make it easy to give for years. The great thing that online and mobile technology gives us is making giving as simple as pressing a button.

This is the first text giving advert we did – ten years ago already!

Mark created the £1 pack more like 20 years ago to make giving easy.

 

How can Charles Dickens help you use statistics?

Charles Dickens was a fundraiser – did you know? He may have poked fun at our profession in Our Mutual Friend, but he was rather skilled when it came to generating support for his chosen cause, The Hospital of Sick Children (which became Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital).

Founded by Dr Charles West, the first hospital for children in the UK depended on voluntary donations. Funds were raised by subscriptions, donations and fundraising events, the most important of which was an annual dinner.

When Charles Dickens did a reading and a rousing speech at a Christmas fundraising event, he raised enough money to buy a new property for the hospital – more than tripling its capacity.

Not bad. It’s a shame we don’t know what he said. We do know what he wrote in support of the new hospital though.

In April 1852, Charles Dickens published an article called ‘Drooping Buds’, which appeared in his magazine ‘Household Works’. Excitingly, you can see the original scanned in here.

Its subject is child mortality, but that’s an example of jargon which Dickens took care to avoid.

Instead he works hard to make the facts meaningful to the reader. As you’ll see, he starts by using statistics to drive home the high loss of life. For every one hundred children born, only sixty five remain after eight years.

“Of this great city of London – which, until a few weeks ago, contained no hospital wherein to treat and study the diseases of children – more than a third of the population perishes in infancy and childhood. Twenty-four in a hundred die, during the first two years of life, and during the next eight years, eleven die out of the remaining seventy six.”

Well, that’s fairly convincing. But Dickens doesn’t leave it there.

“Think of it again. Of all the coffins that are made in London, one in every three is made for a small child: a child that has not yet two figures to its age.”

He starts talking about little coffins – a horrifying image. And still he pushes it further, imagining the words of a lost child.

“…I,” said another shadow, “Am the lame mis-shapen boy who read so much by this fireside, and suffered so much pain so patiently, and might have been as active and straight as you, if anyone had understood my malady…”

So what does Charles Dickens teach us about statistics?

• Numbers can be a powerful way of providing evidence of need or success.
• But what do the numbers represent? Charles Dickens asks his readers to ‘think again’ and realize that each death is a small coffin.
• Finally, as the third quotation shows, it's one child’s story that reaches the reader emotionally.

 

Simply brilliant: the selected writings of George Smith

“We’ve got a newly impoverished society, we’ve got a younger generation who are going to have to build their lives via totally new economic mores, we’ve got an apparently endless recession and we can begin to talk about the end of growth through consumer spending. And in the middle of this apparently apocalyptic state of affairs, we have millions of rich people getting richer…Is this a case for specifically targeted fundraising, or isn’t it? Hit the pause button and think.”

And while you’re on pause, here’s something else to ponder. When do you think those words were written? Seems a fair representation of the problems we face today, doesn’t it? Except, of course, it isn’t.

That analysis was written by George Smith nearly 20 years ago and appears in a new book, published by the White Lion Press.

Up Smith Creek brings together articles written by George for various publications, including Professional Fundraising and Direct Response. So here’s an idea. Give yourself something rather wonderful to look forward to. Click here, put in your bank details and – hey presto – George’s book will be on its way to you.

In the meantime, let me whet your appetite.

When it comes to George’s articles, editors Marie and Ken Burnett recommend ‘One a day, taken at bedtime’. I’ve been a little disobedient and have upped the dosage. So I’m just under half way through and already there's plenty of gems to share.

There’s no one quite like George.

The articles I’ve read so far are all beautifully written – just what you’d expect from George Smith. Witty. Elegant. Truthful.

George always seems to find the perfect word (even if one or two sent me scuttling to the dictionary). Do you know anyone else who would refer to ‘the fundraising caravanserai’ making its way up to Birmingham for the annual IOF conference? If you do, be sure to let me know as I’d like to offer him or her a job. But if you want to start with writing that makes the hairs on your neck stand on end, turn to page 11.

“I just saw the Serbian mortars exploding in that Bosnian graveyard. I saw children cowering behind gravestones who only wanted to put flowers on the coffins of their little murdered friends. I saw an old lady carried off, the mayhem, the panic, the terror, the tears. And I cannot forget that there are men in those hills, Western men (Christian men?) who look through binoculars, peer through gun sights and press buttons. Do they laugh? Are they pleased with themselves?”

Good fundraising is writing is done with feeling – just like that.

He’s funny too.

If you prefer to start with a laugh, I recommend p86 and the article ‘Read any good t-shirts lately?’ Some of the more mischievous comments made me laugh out loud. On the bus.

The truth doesn’t date.

Here are some of George's thoughts on fundraising, which seem as valid today as ever. Or dare I say it, more so?

On advertising taking over from fundraising.

“The mores of advertising were bound to invade the mores of fundraising. But there are signs that the host culture is being swamped. By which I do not mean that all fundraising is nice and all advertising is nasty. What I do mean is that most advertising is pretty silly and that all fundraising is pretty damned important. We should do well to dwell on the difference.”

Jeff Brook’s spotlight on stupid ads shows just how far we’ve gone down this particular road.

On what’s wrong in fundraising…

“We live in a jaded society, increasingly suspicious of the value of good, increasingly resentful that there are no apparent simple solutions to any evil. Apathy is beginning to seep through us all, apathy born of skepticism.”

This also struck a cord:

“I sense the dead hand of dutiful professionalism squashing the fine old instinct of passion.”

On what’s needed…

“We need more candour, a greater indication that we can still think imaginatively and liberation from our predictable vocabularies.”

Read more

I met George Smith – just once, many years ago. At the time, I'm ashamed to say I hadn't read much of what he'd written. These days, I'm slightly less stupid. Here's in part why.

Tiny Essentials of writing for fundraising by George Smith (Given to new Bluefrog copywriters on their first day – if it hasn't been sent to them to read before turning up.)

Asking Properly by George Smith (The book most likely to be borrowed and not returned to the Bluefrog library)

Up Smith Creek by George Smith

(Click the link for your own copy).

Silly season

Although there's little sign of it so far this year, August is usually known as 'Silly season' by journalists. When there's no proper news, we get stories like this one about an old man mistaking a dog waste disposal bin for a letter box and this one about a cow on the loose in Germany.

That aside, there's been very little silly news this August, so I'm about to make up for that, with an article I spotted in the last ever issue of Design Week.

 

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see above, it looks at a selection of charity posters, as well as the much-discussed elsewhere rebrand of RNID, now Action on Hearing Loss.

We'll start with the sensible part of the article, which talks about the challenges of designing for charities including the idea that there should be a low perceived cost. There's also a small amount of advice about how to get good quality images at low cost (through Flickr, Think Stock, i-stock etc). 

The National Brain Appeal has a new series of posters which very sensibly uses low cost stock images. Each one features an individual and, rather than choose a shot with eye contact, they've deliberately chosen profile pictures.

'Each subject [is] in profile and turned to the left to echo The National Brain Appeal's logo.'

The creative director goes on:

"We'd like to get to the point where The National Brain Appeal owns that – so you see a profile and you immediately think of the charity."

I'm going to file these comments with the reply I was given by a branding agency when I asked why they'd picked a (particularly unpleasant) colour – 'Well we chose it because no one else is using it'.

There's a reason for that.

If like me you get a little hot under the collar when people ignore what works and do something different (not different and better), you might also enjoy this post from Mark.

In the meantime, here's a few thoughts for designing for charities.

• People engage with shots of a single subject, with eye contact.
• It's not always the hardest need shot that works. Images that convey emotion and allow the viewer to connect with the subject are the best.
• There are all sorts of ways work can look low-cost. We call our approach 'inside-track' and you can see some examples here.
• If you want someone to do something, don't hide away your call to action. Make it big. Make it central to your idea.
• Reversed out copy reduces readership, so does displaying copy at an angle.
• Don't design for yourself, design for your audience.

Why should someone support you?

If you're reading this, chances are you're a fundraiser for one cause, or several. I'm sure you spend much of your time persuading people to support you. But, I wonder, do you ever show them why they should?

This has been on my mind since I saw the end of a television programme about car company, Rolls Royce. I should say straight away that I know very little about cars, so I won't be on this subject for long, but it was a selling technique that caught my eye.

Historically, the almost silent, smooth-running engine was one, major aspect of the car in which the company took pride. So much so, it became a key selling point and Rolls Royce salesmen found a great way to demonstrate this to potential customers.

They would take a coin, balance it on its side on top of the engine, and it wouldn't fall over when the engine started ticking over.

(Jay Leno refers to this in an article here)

No need for a long sales pitch after that.

This aspect of the car also inspired this beautiful advert by David Ogilvy, which BF Senior Copywriter, Felix, wrote about in a previous post on this blog (click to read).

If you click on it and read it, this advert is a list of selling points.

As an aside, I particularly like no. 3.

The Rolls-Royce is designed as an owner-driver car. It is eighteen inches shorter than the largest domestic car.

I'm sure you'll see right away why I picked that one out. It's going straight to the buyer and looking at how the car can meet their needs. We always aim to do the same for donors.

Anyway, I've been looking round to see if any charities have identified a USP like Rolls Royce did, then used it to show a donor the difference they make. 

Many charities find this hard because they do many things in a particular field. I was wondering if anyone had found such a unique way to define themselves.

Click to watch the film on this page and you'll see that MacMillan Cancer Support  describe themselves as a cushion. Or rather Suzie, who has benefited from the support of a nurse describes them as one. I don't know how well it works but you'll see it's on the charity's donate page. It was the most interesting example I could find of a charity defining themselves so tightly and finding a tangible USP.

Taking the Rolls Royce example a little more loosely, there are lots of nice ways that a charity can show a donor what it is doing on a project basis. Here's one I worked on recently.

We were asking supporters of Network for Animals to help stamp out the dog meat trade, a subject that generally performs well with donors. We want to find a new angle, a way to bring the cruelty of this practice to life for the donor.

Instead of putting a coin on an engine, we put this in their hand.

 It's a length of nylon cord, used to tie up dogs on the way to slaughter. During the transportation, their mouths are tightly bound and their legs tied together. Many die a horrible death in the back of a lorry. 

Before I depress you any further, let's move onto the good news that this worked well as a fundraising piece. Here's the whole pack.

 

(Click to enlarge) 

So that's it for this time's show and tell, which has been all about 'showing' not just 'telling'.

 

Is this the most personalised mailing ever?

Well, for one man it certainly was. I'll explain why in a moment.

 (Click to enlarge - this is the US version of the pack) 

This is one part of a fundraising campaign we have been running for Imperial College, London. And there's a little story behind it.

Last year, Adrian Salmon of Leeds University demonstrated to me the power of the alumni-university relationship. He kindly invited me to speak at the CASE conference. How could I refuse? I went to Leeds University. I said I'd love to but...

...I don't really know anything about alumni fundraising.

Thankfully this wasn't enough to put Adrian off. I presented on the techniques we have used to engage donors and build strong relationships with them, for charities as diverse as the Art Fund, WSPA and The Stroke Association, to take three examples. And a little while later, Ros and Zoe at Imperial came to us suggesting we employ a similar approach for them, centred around donor needs, to raise money for scholarships.

What a wonderful opportunity. And as I mentioned, the pack above is a part of the resulting work, which also included on and offline communications. 

So what's so personal about it?

Well, we soon found out that Ros and Zoe had done an incredibly sophisticated mailing themselves the previous year. To build on this, we found a way of using their great data to appeal to students of different generations.

Ros and Zoe set us the challenge of increasing participation and we put in place a target of more than doubling the response rate from the previous year. One way we tried to do this was being relevent (this previous post from Mark expands on this point).

So if you studied at Imperial in the sixties, you had a greetings card with an image from that time to remind you of your time at university. This one in fact.

From the fifties through to more recent graduates, each segment received a different photo to take them back to the university education they cherished – with the aim of motivating them to fund scholarships for the next intake of students.

That's already pretty personal, especially with copy to match.

But when the version of the pack pictured above went out, a man rang up to say he was in the photo! He asked where we'd got it from and could he have more copies! So that really is super, super personalised. If only we could have done that for everyone.

Anyway, the good news is that, by the time you read this, we should have beaten target in just three weeks and the reminder has only just mailed.

With higher education funding in a state of flux, there's a new imperative for universities to raise funds. Many are moving away from annual appeals to fuller fundraising programmes. Imperial's drive to increase the number of active donors seem like a good route to take.

Here's a few more links you might find interesting.

• One of Adrian Salmon's campaigns is featured on SOFII here.
• Article I picked up via twitter, which shows how Oxford University are approaching the problem.
• Mark's post about how universities and arts organisation dominate the highest level of giving.

 

How do these adverts make you feel?

Have you got your donor hat on? Great, let's begin.

Here's a selection of adverts – old and new, online and offline – for you to look at. Then we'll see how you react to them...

(Help the Aged, press advert)

(ChildLine £3 pack)

 (DEC press advert)

(Smile train press advert)

  

 Sightsavers press ad

(Dogs Trust press advert)

(Cancer Research UK press advert)

(Friends of the Earth press advert)

 

(DEC press advert)

 

Unicef banner advert

   

 (Oxfam press advert)

You can take your donor hat off now. Did you notice what happened? 

They're in a (rough) order. I started with adverts that present you with a problem that you, as a donor, can solve. The sums of money being asked for vary, but all make the donor feel powerful.

Then the adverts start to change and present larger-scale problems with less tangible solutions. These can – worst case scenario – make a donor feel powerless. Their gift seems like a drop in the ocean.

At Bluefrog, we try to make sure that doesn't happen. For every piece of fundraising, we address four principle need states, one of which is 'combat helplessness'

So would we ask you to change the world? Or fix the system? Probably not, because it's more than most people can deal with – even if they are getting a helping hand from other like-minded individuals.

Mark sums it up in this post by saying 'Show donors what they can do, not what they can't'.

Of course, some causes lend themselves to straightforward propositions. With others, you have to work a little harder (or more imaginatively) to find a way of making the donor feel their contribution is a vital one. That's why I like the Goma DEC advert, where in the midst of a large-scale disaster, there's an attempt to breakdown the costs and combat a donor's feeling of helplessness.

The theme of helplessness came up in Adam Curtis's three-part documentary ‘All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace’. Did you see it? I suspect the series would have had a wider following amongst fundraisers if its title had more clearly revealed its theme – the death of altruism.

In it, Curtis looked at the rise of philosophies which either directly reject altruism or lead to it. One was Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Another was the belief system, associated with people like Richard Dawkins, which resulted from George R Price's mathematical theories. 

Price pioneered the idea that we are governed by our genes and even altruism can be understood via mathematics. He became convinced that an individual 'altruistic' act only exists to further the survival of the mass of human beings – in particular, those humans most like us. This is the genetic understanding of altruism. It is just a kind of self interest. And it leads to the belief that we are little more than genetically driven machines, who can do little to change the course of events.

If you watched the programme, you'll realise that particular philosophy pretty much drove George Price mad. It's certainly depressing. That's why I like adverts that make donors feel powerful.

All the pieces shown above are recruiting new donors, but combating helplessness needs to run through a donor communication programme. By proving donations are used to make a difference - in newsletters and feedback pieces – you can build a relationship of trust.

Advice from 'proper' writers

Recently, I've been listening to some interviews with well-known authors. And it struck me that the advice they shared applied very nicely to the writing we do as fundraisers.

 So here's the useful stuff from the first three.

1. What makes a good writer by Armistead Maupin*

Do you have the habits of a good writer? Here's how Armistead Maupin describes them:

"I am always gathering. In my last novel, I let my character say, 'I'm rather like a magpie. I save the shiny bits and discard the rest and I've done that all my life'."

TAKEAWAY TIP: 'Shiny bits' can be found anywhere - in a book, a newspaper, a film, a blog and direct from the mouth of a real life person. Spend your time gathering interesting facts or thoughts, then your mind will be well-stocked with things that can be transformed into ideas. 

*Armistead Maupin is the author of Tales of the City

 

2. Getting started with Andrea Levy*

Andrea Levy talks very interestingly about how she got started as a writer. She was thinking about doing an evening class and decided to have a go at writing beforehand. So this is what she did next...

"I read [what I'd written] aloud to my husband and I was so scared."

TAKEAWAY TIP: One of the best ways to see if your copy 'works' is to read it aloud – to yourself, if there's no one else around. If you find yourself gasping for breath, your sentences are too long. If you trip up on certain sentences or paragraphs, rewrite them to make them easier to read. If you find that you're bored, it's time for a serious rethink.

I may be making an assumption too far, but I included the end – where Andrea said she was scared – because I thought that was also a useful steer. If you really engage in what you're writing, it is a bit scary. Don't let what you write make you feel too comfortable.

Andrea goes on to point out that there are many ways to learn the craft of writing. 

"[at an evening class]...I learned such a lot about writing, not in a teacher/blackboard sort of way, but by listening to other people's writing and listening to what the teacher said about it." 

TAKEAWAY TIP: Practice your own writing, but also read good examples of other people's. I'm guessing there is also plenty of charity mail you get through your door. There's also SOFII and Osocio a click away. Keep hold of the best stuff to inspire you.

Andrea goes on to talk about how she learned a vital skill – telling a story.

"I learned about story-telling...and I realised I could just not worry about the grammar and actually go for the feeling, for the story and how you gain someone's interest."

TAKEAWAY TIP: It's incredible useful to have a firm grasp of grammar, good spelling and a decent vocabulary, but the best writers break the rules. Using 'But' or 'And' isn't the cardinal sin many would have you believe. Neither is a sentence that is just one word long. Or without a verb.

Don't write. Communicate.

And there's more good advice in what Andrea says above. In good fundraising copy, we need to find what 'really appeals' to a donor. Know your audience and pick out what will interest them. Go for 'the feeling'.

*Andrea Levy, winner of the Orange Prize 2004 for Small Island

 

3. From first draft to final with Ian McEwan*

So you write and re-write something and what happens next? 

"I get the stage when I won't look at it again. You need the surprise. You need the distance of time to look back and see it through another set of eyes."

TAKEAWAY TIP I think this is very good advice indeed. Spend too much time with a piece of copy and, eventually, you can't see the wood for trees. Put that work to one side – and bingo! A day or two later it's fresh again and you can spot the language repetitions, clunky transitions and other problem areas.

So on to the sign-off process - perhaps the trickiest part of all. These authors don't have a committee of stakeholders reviewing their novels. That's probably why they're so good! My experience, unfortunately, is the more people involved in a sign-off process, the more bland and unresponsive the copy becomes. So how can we change that? Reduce the number of people involved ideally, but also make sure they're the right people. Here's what Ian McEwan does...

"I have a coterie of friends in Oxford and I give them the finished draft...They are permitted to be as brutal as they like...I think you do need sceptical friends to give you the benefit of a truthful opinion.

"A friend of mine said, 'I think this novel is absolutely awful. I think you should put it in a drawer and forget about it.' I didn't speak to him for 18 months. I hadn't learnt the rules of the game...You've got to allow them to say that. Now I could take it."

TAKEAWAY TIP: A 'sceptical friend' – I like that idea, particularly because I'd be expecting them to ask me questions about what I've written, not having a go at doing it themselves. I also like this quote because a fundraising copywriter (in an agency, a charity or freelance role) also needs to be able to 'take it'.  

*Ian McEwan, winner of the Booker Prize 1998 for Amsterdam (I prefer Atonement though)

 

 

These insights were shared on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. If you have access to I-player, you can download the programmes here.

Could you give Messi fundraising a go?

If you're interested in football (soccer), you'll probably at least entertain the notion that Barcelona is the finest team in the world. 

Gifted individuals and incredible teamwork both contribute to Barca's success – and so does their seven second rule.

Have you heard of it? It seems that if a Barca player loses the ball, manager Pep Guardiola expects them to win it back within seven seconds. Seven seconds, then they should be back in control of the game with the ball at their feet. It's a winning formula clearly, but what's it got to do with fundraising?

Well, do you have the same expectation – that if you lose a donor, they'll be 'won back' as quickly as possible?

This is where it becomes more difficult, as Amanda Santer from ActionAid explained in her post from late last year (click to read). 

Determining that a donor has lapsed almost inevitably takes time. We're not talking about seven seconds either. A cash donor in a DM programme will often be put into the 'lapsed' category after two long years without giving. A regular giver may have ended their gift several months a charity knows/takes any action.

This can lead to a feeling that it's too late to go back. I've certainly seen (and received) slightly apologetic letters asking for support to re-start many months after it ended.

I'm with Amanda when she suggests we need to do better. We need to 'win back' a donor – not just offer them the same experience again. At ActionAid, a donor win back strategy was built around a more personal conversation with a 'lapsed donor' – seeking to address the particular reason they had for ending their support, which also provided useful pointers on areas of donor care to work on.

Amanda explains all this in her post and when I talked to her about it, she made this important point. Reactivating lapsed donors is often seen as an admin function, when in fact it needs a fundraising/donor care strategy behind it.

So charities, like Barcelona, need a win-back strategy. And if we can't manage seven seconds, perhaps we should be speedier still – and take take action to prevent donors lapsing in the first place. Mark has already blogged about online feedback mechanisms like WSPA's Animal Protector, so I'll just point you in the direction of his post on this important donor retention tool.

Here are a few quick and easy things you can do to prevent lapsing:

• Call to say thank you. That's all. Just thank you.
• Send a simple piece of feedback in the post which shows the donor something they have achieved.
• Use your next newsletter to ask donors when they want to hear from you.

I'll finish with this - which shows the benefits of keeping the ball, and winning it back as soon as you lose it.

i. 

* Thanks to my fellow Villa fan and BF colleague, John Sturniolo, for the heads up on the seven second rule.