The Better Fundraising Company

For Overcoming the Resistance, We Thank You There are a LOT of reasons not to ask for money. At a conference earlier this year, we asked people to share what their biggest challenge in fundraising was. The following list is just a small sample of the resistance that many fundraisers must overcome in order to ask for support... 💪 "I've worked from age 10 to pay my way in life so it's hard to ask for money" 🆕 "Being very new and not knowing where to start and expecting people to say no" 👔 "My boss and his ideas" 😟 "Fear about making a direct ask" ❤️ "Knowing how much to share due to the traumatic nature of our work" 🤫 "We have a private community that doesn't want their photos taken or their story touted due to cultural tradition" 😶 "Being too timid or just being intimidated by asking" 🌱 "Being new and don't want to do something wrong" 🔄 "Managing all the tasks grants, major gifts, events etc. all by myself" ✍️ "Amount of permission / reviewers of fundraising pieces" 🤐 "I am a quiet person" 😢 "Having the courage to talk about emotional stakes of children dying" 🤝 "Lack of any personal connection with our audience" 🤔 "My organization has a general unspoken theory of don't ask" There's a lot that holds people and organizations back from asking for support. So if you and your organization sent out fundraising this year-end, you overcame the resistance. 💪 You overcame the fears, the bosses, and the hurdles. You showed vulnerability and courage. You served your beneficiaries or cause, and you served your donors. 🌟 Thank you. 🙏

I know it’s New Year’s Day, but I have two blog posts I want to share with you. Because as you look at this coming year, there are two ideas I’d love for you to have in your toolkit. First, read this blog post about “crossing the chasm.”  See all those donors on the right side of the bell curve? Wouldn’t it be nice to be receiving gifts from them? https://lnkd.in/gWskXgER Then, read this post about “the stories nonprofits tell themselves.” https://lnkd.in/g9SvBFzu Put simply – there’s a massive group of donors who’d like to give to your organization but they will be motivated by different messaging than the messaging that motivated your original donors – and that your organization might have some beliefs about fundraising that are holding you back from raising more money. If you can change those beliefs, the sky is the limit. I hope you’ll have a little time over the next couple days to read these two posts. Enjoy your holiday, and I look forward to “bending the arc” with you this year! -Steven

I can’t believe we're posting so close to New Year’s Eve. Because if you’re like me – even though the holidays have been lovely – you’re tired from a year’s worth of fundraising. So I have something easy for you today. It’s the eBook we released earlier this year with the most popular graphics from our Free Graphic Fridays series. Yes, that’s right, this gift is mostly pictures. Very few words! Something super easy to page through as we transition together from one year to the next. Download your free copy today. https://lnkd.in/g7z5bVgi And please know that we’re thankful for you. The work you’re doing is making the world a better place. You’re helping your organization. You’re helping your donors. And you’re helping your beneficiaries or the cause you’re working on. That’s reason to celebrate! So thank you for being a Fundraiser and we’ll see you next year! -Steven

The Granddaddy of Them All... I’m not talking about the Rose Bowl, I’m talking about the eBook that started it all for Better Fundraising: Storytelling for ACTION. We’ve updated our trail-breaking eBook based on what we’ve learned over the past 10 years. We’ve been helping nonprofits raise money, watching the results like a hungry hawk, and this eBook shares what we’ve learned. When you start your fundraising career, there’s a lot that nobody tells you. And there are a lot of myths out there. This is the eBook you wish you had when you started in Fundraising. If you want to know how to tell stories that cause your donors to take action – and not just feel good – then this eBook is a must-read. So download your free copy today! And watch out for one final gift tomorrow! -Steven https://lnkd.in/gXhzn3xu

This freebie is for people who want to track their fundraising performance at the level of detail that helps their organization grow the fastest. Because remember, every piece of fundraising you send out is an experiment. Show me an organization that isn’t tracking and regularly reviewing the results of their experiments, and I’ll show you an organization that could be raising a LOT more money. This download is what the fundraising industry calls a “proforma.” It’s a specially-built Excel that tracks fundraising performance – because tracking performance at this level of detail is the key to raising more money every year. Here’s how: -Track the performance of each fundraising piece to know whether it worked or not -Analyze which pieces worked well and which didn’t -Use that information to decide which fundraising to repeat next year -Use the information to accurately predict how much you’re going to raise next year Those four steps result in an always-improving fundraising program that raises a highly predictable amount of money. In the case of the example nonprofit in the proforma, you’ll see that they raised 18% more through the mail than they did the year before. (That’s because we repeated the mailings that worked from the year before, and replaced the mailings that didn’t work well.) My suggestion: open the spreadsheet, do a “save as” and start your own version using this as a model. List your mailings and emails, then fill in their performance data. Fill in the columns with the green headers, and the spreadsheet will do the rest. You’ll be on your way to knowing exactly how everything did so you can get better faster! Do let me know if you have any questions about this. I’m a “creative guy,” but I fell in love with these because they clearly show which creative approach works better than others. So I love helping organizations implement them to raise more money! Download your free spreadsheet today! And watch your email through New Year’s for more helpful goodness! -Steven https://lnkd.in/gmGD7FBK

If you like those “year-end lists” of top posts, and you like Fundraising, this is for you. For my 51st birthday I make a list of 51 fundraising lessons. They were so popular we’ve turned them into an eBook. And they were originally just tweets, so you know they’ll be short and easy to read. :-) They’re perfect if you need “something from work that you have to read” to get you out of that conversation with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon! And they might inspire you to dig into your fundraising after the holiday break. So download your free copy today! https://lnkd.in/g9F5e8Cy And watch your email through New Year’s for more helpful goodness! -Steven

Starting today, each day through Tuesday, we’re going to give you a link to a free fundraising gift. 🎁 What’s a “fundraising gift,” you ask? It’s a gift that will help you raise a little more money next year, and keep your donors for a little longer than normal! 💰 Today’s gift is our most popular eBook, Asks that Make Your Donors Take Action, and you can download it – for free – at this link. Spend just 5 minutes reading a short chapter, and you’ll be able to raise more money in your very next appeal or e-appeal. ✉️ Download your free eBook right now. Then you’ll have something to read if you don’t want to talk to your Uncle after family dinner! -Steven https://lnkd.in/gqJw4Q8S

Here's another quick tip for you as the year-end approaches... 🎯 📞 Call a major donor who hasn't given a gift yet. Here's what to do (this will be easy for some nonprofits, hard for others): 📋 • Make sure you know exactly who your major donors are. • Run a report to see which of them haven't given in the second half of this year. • Call each Major who hasn't given recently, or who you think could give another gift this year. 💡 Here's What to Say Our approach is that this call is a reminder – a service to the donor – not a direct Ask. Take as much of the following script as is helpful to you and the context of each donor: "I'm calling because I know how much you love helping [beneficiaries/cause], and I noticed that we hadn't received a gift from you yet, here at the end of the year. You and your generosity have been extraordinary. So I wanted to call to see if there's anything you need from me, or [your organization name], to help you make a gift or decide to make one." Then stop talking. Be comfortable with tension (if there is any). Let the donor speak next and take the conversation from there. ✨ Pro major gift fundraisers will also be prepared with three things: • How much you'd like the donor to give • What her gift will do / the outcomes her gift will create • Reasons her gift is needed before the end of the year 📱 If your call goes to voicemail, leave the message on voicemail. 📧 And if you can't make the call, send an email. But only if you can't call. ⚡ It won't work for every major donor – because nothing works for everyone. But for some majors who have been busy, or traveling, or were on the way to sending you a gift but put down your letter and forgot – you'll be providing them a great service. You'll be helping them give a gift that they would love to make! 🎁 And you'll be raising more money!

🎄 As we head into the Christmas season, we have 12 ideas for the 12 Days of Christmas – helpful tips for you as you enter the busiest fundraising season of all! 🎁 With apologies for the cheesy hook 🧀, listen to Steven Screen and his podcast co-host, Jeff Brooks, as they give you some ideas that are especially applicable right now. ✨ Listen now! 🎧 https://lnkd.in/gWFtCBwm

🌟 5 Tips For Your Most Successful Digital Year-End Campaign 📱 Are you ready? 🚀 According to Network for Good, most nonprofits raise about 1/3 of their revenue in December. And 11% of their annual total during the last three days of the year. 📊 Year-end is the easiest time to raise more money online! Think about it this way: 💡 🎁 Your donors are more likely to give during the last weeks of the year than any other time of the entire year. ✨ And because year-end is such an important time for digital fundraising, we want to give you 5 tips that will ensure a successful year-end for your fundraising. 1: Use the same message in every channel 📣 Some of your donors are online, some aren't. Pick your strongest message, then repeat it through direct mail, email, your website, and social media. It's more powerful for your donors to see the same message in different media channels than it is for them to see two different messages. Repetition is your friend! 🔄 2: Ask early and often ⏰ You've been talking to your donors all year about what your organization does, you've told them how they can help. So this time of year, don't Thank them. Or Report to them. It might feel counterintuitive, but our testing showed that Thanking and Reporting this time of year will cause you to raise less money than you could. Follow the advice below and just Ask well! 3: Emphasize the deadline ⌛ A deadline communicates urgency. December 31 is a natural deadline — for the tax year and for your organization. Tell donors your deadline and repeat it multiple times in your messages. 📅 4: Set a goal 🎯 How much do you want or need to raise? What would it take for you to meet your budget? Feed everyone you want to feed by year-end? Shelter abandoned pets through the end of the year? Overcome a financial shortfall? Tell your donors the goal. We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31. 💰 5: Communicate consequences 💭 What will happen if you don't meet the goal? Connect the donor right to the heart of your work. 💞 We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will have to cut back on the number of pets in our shelter in the coming year. Or We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will not be able to advocate for the arts as effectively next year. Whatever your organization does, if having less money means you would be able to do less next year, say so! Most important tip? Start now! 🏃♀️