Here are the calls to action from several pieces of direct-mail fundraising. All are from legitimate, reputable nonprofits:
- Yes, I want to help [ORGANIZATION] bring medical humanitarian relief around the world. I am making a tax-deductible gift of:
- Yes, I care about the world's children! To help continue lifesaving programs supported by [ORGANIZATION], I have enclosed a tax-deductible, year-end gift of:
- Yes, I want to support excellence and quality at [SCHOOL] with a gift of:
- Yes! I care about kids in [LOCAL AREA] and want them to enjoy their school days. Enclosed is my gift of:
The common theme? There's no specificity.
These organizations are not asking donors to do anything specific. They're asking donors to shell out their hard-earned money on generally supporting their cause.
That might work for some donors: The donors who read that unspecific call-to-action, and then tell themselves a specific story about what it really means.
You're probably asking, "Who does that?" The answer is, "Not very many."
Suppose you got an email from your favorite book seller that just said, Buy a very special book!
Would you buy that book?
Why do we think donors will respond to that?
- Because years ago, that kind of thing actually worked?
- Because you need to raise unrestricted funds and you think that means you must not talk specifics?
- Because we know our organization is amazing and expect donors to get it the way we do?
There are very rare cases where a less-specific call-to-action outpulls a specific one. Most often, it's for health charities, where Cure the Disease can do better than details about the research process that leads to the cure.
But most of the time, we need to put specific action in front of donors. Let the donor do something!
from Future Fundraising Now https://ift.tt/2tB4eqV
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