Sponsored by: A Service

Of:

Perfect Phrases for Fundraising

Beverly A. Browning

December 12, 2012

Sponsored by: A Service

Of:

Advising nonprofits in:

• Strategy

• Planning

• Organizational Development

www.synthesispartnership.com

(617) 969-1881

info@synthesispartnership.com

INTEGRATED PLANNING

Sponsored by: A Service

Of:

Affordable collaborative data

management in the cloud.

Sponsored by: A Service

Of:

Today’s Speaker

Dr. Beverly A. Browning Vice President - Grants Professional Services

eCivis, Inc.

Assisting with chat questions: Jamie Maloney, Nonprofit Webinars

Hosting:

Sam Frank, Synthesis Partnership

Facilitated by:

Dr. Bev Browning

Vice President

Grants Professional Services

eCivis, Inc.

480-768-7400

bbrowning@ecivis.com

www.ecivis.com

Perfect Phrases for

Fundraising

About Your Presenter • VP of Grants Professional

Services – eCivis, Inc.

• Director – Grant Writing

Training Foundation

• Author of 40-grant related

publications.

• Secured over $350 million in

grant and contract awards.

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AGENDA – 45 Minutes Delivery/15

Minutes Q & A

• Overview of webinar content

• Fundraising letter campaigns

• Internet and social media campaigns

• Telephone and face-to-face

campaigns

• Wrap-up

• Q & A

Overview In today’s webinar, Dr. Bev

Browning will share her ready-to-

use phrases for appealing to

donors and getting the funding

you need!

FUNDRAISING LETTER

CAMPAIGNS

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Problem:

Outdated Approach

• Recipients of your standard

fundraising letters are bored and

tired of reading unordered

random appeal paragraphs.

• Approximately 95% of electronic

and hard mail appeals are reader

turn-offs.

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Solution: New Outline for Email

Fundraising Letter Appeals

• Magnetizing or validating subject line

• Opening personalization line

• Continuation of the personalization

line

• Giving link line

• Closing the fundraising appeal line

• Signing off line

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Validating Subject Line

• Option 1: You can simply type an

attention drawing phrase followed

by your name, title, and name of the

organization. Here’s a successful

example of one of my subject lines:

Important Information from Dr. Bev

Browning, Director – Grant Writing

Training Foundation.

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Rationale

Option 1:

1. Legitimizes you as the sender of

the email

2. Announces your name, title and

organization.

3. Reduces your email going to the

junk email folder.

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Magnetizing Subject Line

• Option 2: You can capture the

recipient’s attention with an urgent

need subject line: “26 FAMILIES

WITH YOUNG CHILDREN…

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Rationale

Option 2:

1. Immediately begins the funding

appeal conversation.

2. Uses ALL CAPS in the first few

words to shout to the reader

about a very important target

population group in dire need.

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Opening

Personalization Line

• Remember, this is your lead-in

line where you connect the

organization’s need to the email

reader’s value-driven (familiar)

area of contribution history (also

known as past funding priorities).

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Example 1: Mark, our families need

your support…

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Opening Personalization Line

If you did your homework on Mark, you would

have found out that he is married and has six

young children. In other words, Mark is a

family man and supports organizations that

serve families.

Example 2: Jeff, historical works of

world renowned artists are sitting

in an unsecured storage area of

the museum’s basement!

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Opening Personalization Line

In Jeff’s case, you read the online newspaper

archives and discovered that he attended

several museum openings in the past year

and won an auction for a highly coveted

historical work of art.

Fundraising 101

Your organization’s funding needs

must be matched to potential

contributors that have value-

driven interests in your areas of

need!

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Continuation of the

Personalization Line

Write four to six bulleted sentences on

the need or problem that the

contribution will meet or solve.

Incorporate statistics and keep

your area of need within a

timeframe of the past 12 months.

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Let’s Pick Up on Mark’s

Email Letter

• In the past three months, our emergency

shelter for homeless families has been

faced with some tough decisions.

• While we’ve been blessed with room for 26

king-size bed durable cots, each cold and

rainy night an average of 26 additional

Portland homeless families with very young

children (ages newborn to three years old)

have been turned away due to a lack of

cots and space.

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More Bullets for

Mark’s Letter

• With a predictable cold and damp

winter season ahead, it’s critical that

we raise the funds to expand our

space and purchase more family-size

cots.

• The building attached to our west wall

is empty and meets all code

requirements for emergency shelter.

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Final Bullets for Mark’s Letter

• The landlord has agreed to lease it for

$1.00 a year if we bear the cost of

removing the separating wall ($5,000).

• A local cot supplier will reduce the

costs of the family-size costs (sleeps 2

adults and up to 3 children) to $250

each.

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Fundraising 101

• Your need is not a potential

contributor’s need until you

provide sufficient gloom, doom,

drama and trauma (the truth in

brief) about your need!

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Giving Line Link

This is where you embed the link to

your organization’s website and

tell the reader why you’re

directing them to your site.

“Mark, you can help us meet this

critical need by making a

contribution today at

http://www.holidaycots.org.”

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Closing the Fundraising

Appeal Line

As a family man, I know you can relate to how it

must feel to be homeless with a young family

living on the streets and depending on the

generosity of others to see you through this

humiliating, life-altering, seems like a never-

ending time in your life.

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You’ll notice that I ended this in a series of three

hard-to-forget descriptors that I want to remain

in Mark’s mind—driving him to contribute now!

Signing Off Line

• Finish your email with one of

these closings: “Hopefully or

Awaiting Your Gift or Granting

Needs.”

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Keep your signature line professional. If your

organization has social media pages on LinkedIn,

Facebook or Twitter (popular social media sites for

fundraising), provide embedded icons with direct links

for the email reader.

Solution: New Outline for Postal

Mail Fundraising Letter Appeals

• Date line

• Addressee line

• Salutation line

• Opening paragraph

• Second – fourth paragraphs

• The closing

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Opening Paragraph Pointers

• Start with a compelling lead line.

• Ask rhetorical information-filled

questions that circle back to facts

about your funding needs.

• End this paragraph with three

information bullets related to cost

per service or program or

individual (client, patient, and so

forth).

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Second Paragraph Pointers

• Introduce your organization.

• Link your organization to the

potential contributor (in other

words, why are they a perfect

match for your funding needs?).

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Third Paragraph Pointers

• Recall the problem that the

funding will solve.

• Don’t repeat first paragraph

sentences.

• Remind the reader of the critical

nature of the problem.

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Fourth Paragraph Pointers

• Make the appeal.

• Option 1: Give the specific

amount of funding needed from

this potential contributor.

• Option 2: Leave the amount of

the contribution up to the letter’s

recipient.

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The Closing

• Write a compelling closing line,

followed by your signature, title, and

work contact information along with an

impacting postscript (handwritten). For

example: “Anticipating your continuing

investment in…”

• Add a postscript. For example: “P.S.

Hilda, the Frontline journalists and crew

are eagerly looking forward to their 13th

season on PBS!”

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Fundraising 101

1. Thoroughly research each letter

campaign recipient!

2. Follow the outlines provided for

email and postal mail appeals!

3. Personalize every paragraph by

using the recipient’s first name!

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INTERNET AND

SOCIAL MEDIA

CAMPAIGNS

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Website Campaign Elements

• Who does the donation help?

• How will the donation make a

difference?

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Website Campaigns

• Easy to remember web addresses.

• Critical: tab(s) for contributions with

automated shopping cart.

• Tell your audience how their

contribution will make a difference.

• Give donation level examples (and

what can be implemented for every

level of giving) starting at $50 and

up.

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YouTube Campaign Elements

• Point of view

• Dramatic question

• Emotional content

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Point of View

• What is important to share with

your YouTube viewers?

• Who is the target for our

message?

• Will you tell your story from the

organization’s point of view or the

client’s point of view?

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Point of View Example

Arts and Culture Fundraising

• Organization View: Ballet Moscow’s

production costs have exceeded our ticket

revenues and contributions 3:1 for the past

two years.

• Client View: An audience member at one of

our ballet performances recently came back

stage at Ballet Moscow and made this

devastating comment: “What happened to

the people who used to come and enjoy the

ballet? The seats were once full; now there

are more empty seats than full ones.”

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Dramatic Question

• Pose this question to create

compassion among your

YouTube audience. This is not an

actual question that you expect

anyone to answer; it’s a rhetorical

question that forces the viewer to

think about the situation.

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Dramatic Question Example

Arts and Culture Fundraising

• How will Ballet Moscow survive

without event marketing dollars?

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Emotional Content

• Language that includes

incidences of loss, redemption,

crisis, or change is key to keeping

your audience engaged and

interested. Emotional content is

a common denominator that

everyone can relate to, and it’s

what makes your fundraising

appeals so universally

magnetizing.

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Emotional Content Example

Arts and Culture Fundraising

• Thousands of community members

have never heard of Ballet Moscow.

Because we do not have the funds for

marketing outreach, our sales are

limited to past patrons and people who

stumble upon our website or box office

by accident. You can change our

future by donating today at

balletmoscow.net.

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Facebook Campaign

Elements

• Compelling impact-based

fundraising campaign.

• Regular brief updates about the

campaign.

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Facebook Campaigns

• Focus on creating read me media

content within their affiliated

causes (www.causes.com)

application.

• Valuable nonprofit tool!

• Allows promotion of causes.

• Easy to set up.

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Facebook Campaign Launch

• Create cause.

• Gain supporters by merging your

email contact lists.

• Incorporate marketing by using the

write note application and then post

the notes on your cause page.

• Consider pictures, quotes, videos and

links to other sites as well.

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Go to Applications (on the left-hand pane of your profile),

then select Notes. You will see Notes which your friends

have written, and to write a new note of your own you can

click on the Write a New Note button near the top right-

hand corner of the screen.

Twitter Campaign Elements

• Organization profile statement for

potential followers to view.

• Fundraising needs.

• Buzz and excitement.

• Fundraising progress.

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Sample Profile Statements

• NMEA for Charter Schools was

created to allow the diversity in

education, talents and resources to be

cultivated. (113 characters with

spaces)

• We, as the Nourish Team, are a

partnership of people who care for our

neighbors and the people around us.

(105 characters with spaces)

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Sample Fundraising Tweets

• We need your help 2 develop diversity

education software. Please help us

change charter school education

modules! (115 characters with spaces)

• Help us nourish 100 new children in

Kentucky mining towns. $50 grows a

field of vegetables. When harvested,

200 children are fed. (131 characters

with spaces)

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Tweet Buzz and Excitement!

• Weekly Buzz: Our diversity software

module received two awards from the

American Education Diversity Council!

(109 characters with spaces)

• Yahoo! An out-of-state landowner

donated 200 tillable acres to our

cause! (74 characters with spaces)

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Tweet Fundraising Progress

• $50,000 in 50 days! We couldn’t have

done this without your contributions

and retweets to potential donors! (108

characters with spaces)

• 1,500 new trees were planted in a

burned-out forest. Only 4,500 more

trees to go before the next decade.

(105 characters with spaces)

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TELEPHONE AND

FACE-TO-FACE

CAMPAIGNS

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Elements of

Telephone Campaigns

• Catch the listener’s attention with

A-to-Z words that resonate.

• Follow basic verbal content

delivery rules.

• Create a flexible and natural

script.

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Elements of Board of

Directors Campaigns

• Dialogue to encourage your

board members to give at a 100%

level.

• Fundraising scripts for board

members to use when soliciting

contributions in the community.

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Elements of One-on-One

Fundraising Meeting Campaigns

• Telling your organization’s needs.

• Selling stakeholder investment to

potential donors.

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Elements of Service Club and

Civic Organization Campaigns

• Fundraising appeal presentation

outline and script.

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