Political ads are everywhere

Political ads are everywhere

Welcome to this week's LinkedIn-only excerpt of the Donor Participation Project newsletter! The Donor Participation Project is a community of 6,000+ fundraisers where you can network, learn, and advance your career.

OMG, election ads are everywhere! (If you're in the US.)

Texts, calls, ads... it's relentless!

It got me thinking: do we fundraisers have anything to learn from this communication onslaught?

Let me explain...

The idea behind all this exposure is to build trust and familiarity. But here's the thing: Sheer exposure is just ONE way to build trust.

And it has a threshold of effectiveness. If you're going to use this tactic, you have to go all in. We're talking MUCH larger budgets than most nonprofits have.

Doing "just a little" exposure? It rarely works.

So what's a fundraiser to do?

I spent the last 10 years studying trust-building strategies. These are the two best families of tactics I've come up with (because they're scalable, sustainable, and work in small doses):

  1. Provide value to donors

  • Share information
  • Offer insights
  • Give them something useful
  • Help them feel valued and seen

2. Build community

  • Get people together
  • Make it purposeful
  • Ensure it's participatory
  • Make it recurring
  • Identify volunteer leaders

The beauty of these approaches? They don't require Super PAC levels of funding.

Now, a quick word about ads (from my personal experience going for the 20% that will give 80% of the results):

  • An ad will convert if it has an offer the audience finds valuable.
  • Everything else is secondary.

Pro tip: Advertise content that's ALREADY converting well organically.

Got an event people are sharing like crazy? That's where your ad dollars should go.

It's almost impossible to spend your way to success (unless you have a HUGE budget). And here's the kicker: If you have a good offer-audience fit, everything else matters less. Yes, even that AI-optimized black-box magic that someone is trying to tell you is best practice.

So, as we swim through this sea of political messaging, let's ask ourselves:

Are we providing value? Are we building community? Are we focusing on what our audience actually wants?

Keep asking these questions!

Louis


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Have a great week,

Louis

Louis Diez

Founder, Donor Participation Project & Annual Fund Toolkit

1mo

Looked it up, actually it’s Billions!!

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Reply
Faith Kinyanjui

I help organizations secure grant funding and amplify their impact | Grant Specialist | Persuasive Storyteller

1mo

The idea that ads should amplify what’s already working organically is spot-on. It’s a reminder that authentic engagement and proven content are the foundations of effective advertising

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