Breaking Down Barriers

Most nonprofits have a highly personalized understanding of the work they do. This is as it should be.

After all, as a fundraising professional, you should be the expert. You should understand your cause and the complex nature of getting those things accomplished. Your expertise should make you good at what you do.

Here’s my question for you: are you guilty of creating fundraising that invites individual donors to join your cause because of the importance of your work rather than creating fundraising that meets donors where they are in their lives?

In short, are you putting up barriers between donors and their giving?

Characteristics of this exclusive fundraising style are things like:

• Spending more time explaining the process your organization uses (your programs or a particular approach) instead of the change in the world that the process can make possible.

• Focusing more on your organization and less on the cause or beneficiaries.

• Sharing statistics that illustrate the size of the need or the scope of your work.

• Educating the donor about everything your organization does, instead of focusing on what donors tend to be most interested in.

• Using jargon to sound professional.

This type of fundraising almost forces the donor to learn as much as possible about the organization before actually making a gift that will help the beneficiary(ies).

There are two problems this exclusive fundraising causes:

1. It raises less money. Every one of the above bullet points, in our experience at Rescigno’s, causes individual donors to give less. Individual donors tend to be more interested in what’s happening with the work you do and how their gifts impact those beneficiaries, rather than the organization itself.

2. This “exclusive” approach to fundraising creates a filter where people likely to donate are the ones willing to put in the time, the ones willing to learn about your organization’s approach.

These are barriers that make fundraising more difficult and raise less revenue.

Do the hard work of making your fundraising inclusive and simple. Explain what the impact of a gift will be. Create content that any person who cares about helping those your organization serves, at any level of understanding or reading level, will find relevant.

And remember, there are a lot of people out there who truly care about those you help and would gladly give a gift to help. There are far fewer people who are willing to wade through an education about your organization before they give a gift.

Finally, in my book, The Process-Driven Annual Fund, I wrote about working with a well-known religious organization who raised lots of money, but was leaving a good amount more on the table each time they communicated with their constituents. They wrote their appeal letters, newsletters, etc at what I estimate to be a 12th grade reading level. I practically begged the executive director to write more to the common man. I even re-wrote his letter for him once at the 7th grade reading level. He wouldn’t agree to use my version. He said that his donors would be “appalled” at how the letter was written. He said that his donors were highly educated and accustomed to a higher level of communication when asked to donate or updated on the organization’s current news.

Too bad. I’ve done this same experiment with several other organizations over the years and in every case, when allowed to write to the “common man,” they raised more than when they tried to show how “well” they could write.

How about you and your team? Need a case of “commonality” when reaching out to your constituents? Call Ron at 708-974—2600, 105 or email him at ron@rescignos.com today.