That was some speech in Denver last night.
Ok, so few of us will ever reach the heights of masters of their art like Bill Clinton, but lessons aplenty for how to communicate.
You can watch his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last night here.
Don’t bother reading it, you have to hear it.
And that’s the first thing to remember. A great letter should sound like someone is speaking directly to you. If it doesn’t read like you’d say it, tear it up and start again.
And look at the words. A beautiful combination of stirring rhetoric with down-to-earth, folksy, chatty language. He talks to you, not down to you.
So get rid of all that organisation-speak, that jargon and the carefully worded descriptions of your programmes. Talk about your work as...
[Taking a break from the mystery shopping - will return to it next week.]
Search Engine Optimisation may seem like some obscure techno-witchcraft, but it deals with a serious question - can people find you when they go searching for you. More and more people rely on google (and occasionally, other serach engines) to find things for them online. But what do they find?
Well this is what a search for ‘Irish third world charities’ throws up on google:
In the crucial ‘above-the-fold’ area, only two overseas / development charities appear. And they’re not the big ones. Gorta and Fair Trade make 1 and 2, with the rest of the sector absent.
Now, I know most progressive NGOs dislike the term ‘third world’. But that’s not important. Most of their...
Here’s the email thank you I got from Concern. Leaving aside the hiccup with the ‘Dear Salutation’ opening, there’s plenty to admire.
For a start it looks great - well designed, colourful and warm.
There’s a good selection of links for further information on Concern and where your money goes. Prompts for their gift catalogue and treks. And invitations to connect on social networking sites.
Technorati Tags: thank you, mystery shopping, fundraising, charity, concern...
Just over two weeks into our mystery shopping and it’s time to do a bit of a overview of findings to date. And the first thing to say is that there has been a marked improvement in how charities are handling online donations over the last two years.
In 2006, 66% of charities sent a thank you email in response to a web donation.
This year, 83% sent an email thank you.
There are also some significant improvements by individual charities in how they accept, process and acknowledge donations. I’ll be dealing with them in detail in the coming weeks, but Irish Cancer Society, Amnesty International, Simon Communities and Children’s Medical and Research Foundation can all take credit for clear steps forward - generally nothing extraordinary, just doing things better which...
It’s the bit you always overlook. You’ve written the great thank you email, thrown in an emotionally resonant anecdote or two (haven’t you?) and signed off with a big, empathetic hug of a thank you. And then you realise you need to stick something in the subject line. So what do you do? Write ‘Donation Confirmation’, because that’s what it is, isn’t it?
Time to stop and start again. Forget the content of the email for a sec and put all your energy, effort and empathy into that subject line. Because that’s what people read first. In fact that may be all people read - at the very least it will determine whether they read any further. You wouldn’t treat a billboard headline as an afterthought, would you? Well, don’t treat a subject...
The two rules of a Thank You are that it should be PROMPT and PERSONAL. We’ll get on to the personal touch later, but we have some clear winners in the prompt department.
Congratulations to Bothar, Cystic Fibrosis Association, Marie Keating Foundation and Trócaire all off whom succeeded in getting me a thank you letter in two working days.
Is your organisation that good?
Technorati Tags: mystery shopping, charity, thank you, charity...
Tragically, nonprofits are not very good at customer service and that is an understatement. All fundraisers should perhaps reflect that customer service is like personal hygiene – without it, your relationships won’t even get started.
As almost every mystery shopping test confirms, fundraisers are almost invariably rotten at customer service. In the past most donors haven’t expected anything better, but as customer expectations rise generally, that will change for nonprofits for sure.
Woody Allen … foresaw swarms of invading aliens who would not be eons ahead of us at all. Instead they would be 15 minutes ahead in everything … By being consistently just 15 minutes ahead … these infuriating aliens could always be sure to have just enough advantage over us to...
I got a very nice email from Liz Roche, the St Vincent de Paul’s National Fundraising Co-ordinator. They’re currently re-developing their website and will soon be able to capture donor information properly. I may have been a little harsh in my comments about SVP in previous posts (sorry about that) but it’s good to hear that they are taking steps to address the gaps in their online giving. Here’s Liz’s email in full:
Dear Damian,
Your post of August 5th has been brought to my attention and I am writing to personally thank you for your very generous donation to SVP via the website.
I’m sure you will be glad to hear that we are in the middle of a major website development and revamping project, which will include being able to capture donor details and thank...
Two years ago, I donated a small amount of money to 15 Irish charities - all in the medium to large category - as part of the preparations for a presentation at a fundraising conference. The results were disappointing - 5 never sent me an email to say thanks, some didn’t even record any details.
So, two years on, I thought I’d repeat the exercise to see if things have improved.
We’ve selected 20 charities (the same 15 as 2006, plus 5 new ones) and made (or tried to make) an online donation. We’ll be tracking how each of the charities relate to us over the next couple of weeks.
We’re going to be entirely open and upfront about what happens - not to point figures or take pleasure from failings, but to offer advice and suggestions on how to improve things to...
A couple of quick updates on the Great Mystery Shopping Escapade:
1) The charity that I couldn’t donate to online last week was the Irish Hospice Foundation. I’ve spoken to Tim O’Dea, their Fundraising Director, and he’s explained that they were recently subjected to a hacker attack which disabled most of their website, including the donation function. They’re currently working on getting everything back in place, but a useful reminder to keep an eye on your internet security.
2) So far, only 2 of the 14 charities haven’t sent me a thank you. For the record, they’re Amnesty International and St Vincent de Paul. Whatever about Amnesty International, I’m not expecting a thank you from the SVP, as they never bothered to record my email or...
Welcome to the great Mystery Shopping Adventure 2008! We’ve just tried to donate to 15 of Ireland’s largest and most well known charities - but one wouldn’t accept online donations. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing our experiences of being a donor in today’s Ireland.
But let’s start with the basics - saying thank you. You know, the way your parents taught you to when you were a child.
Of the 14 charities we donated to this afternoon, 11 have sent me a thank you email. Which means nearly a quarter of them didn’t bother (in fact one didn’t even bother to record either my email address or my postal address - more on that later).
Stay tuned for more…Technorati Tags: mystery shopping, charity, nonprofit, fundraising,...
Here’s some worthwhile, illuminating and interesting pieces to check out:
Seth Godin talks about marketing nonprofit causes. He’s worthwhile reading on anything, essential on nonprofits.
The Agitator on the latest research on improving the effectiveness of donation landing pages.
The ever-excellent Ben Goldacre, meanwhile, has unearthed a document by the (UK) charity commissioners which tries to argue that blogs - yes, all of them - have no educational value! Ben, as usual, demolishes this with aplomb.
Piaras and Richard Delevan both have good pieces on the appalling failures of the Yes to Lisbon campaign. Plenty of lessons for nonprofits: tell stories (about real people) and do it with passion and conviction.
‘No stamp required, but using one will save us money’ -...
Three reasons to support the Irish Hospice Foundation - our latest campaign for the Irish Hospice Foundation.
1. So seriously ill children receive the best palliative care available, at home with their families.
2. To encourage all Irish hospitals to take on the Hospice approach to end of life care.
3. To help us extend hospice services to people with illnesses other than cancer.
Technorati Tags: Irish Hospice Foundation, palliative care, fundraising, charity, direct marketing...
Conor Byrne has a great new blog on fundraising. Finally, the beginnings of an Irish fundraising blogging community!
Technorati Tags: conor byrne, fundraising, blogs, ireland, charity...
Our new campaign for the Alzheimer Society’s Tea Day has just gone live. There are over 50,000 people in Ireland with Alzheimer’s and the number is set to double within 20 years. If you’d like to help the people across the country caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s why not organise a Tea Day event on 1 May. You can register here.
Technorati Tags: fundraising, tea day, alzheimer’s society...
Via Mal Warwick.
Forum on Fundraising are running a series of webinars - live interactive 90 minute sessions - with some of the top practitioners in fundraising, including Mal Warwick, Bernard Ross and Kay Sprinkel Grace. Cost is $199 which is bit pricey, but it could be worth a punt as the only other place your likely to see these speakers are at the National Convention or the IFC, both of which cost a LOT more.
Technorati Tags: training, fundraising...
Some interesting stuff we’ve been involved with or stumbled across:
MarriagEquality. The newly launched campaign for same sex marriage. Go and add your name to the campaign.
The Irish Left Review. A new online political magazine. From their manifesto:
…We have great hope for the Left, in its ability to prosper to the point that it can join with its allies throughout Europe to present itself to the Irish people as a viable governing force in its own right,
These hopes and beliefs have led us to create the Irish Left Review, an open space to which we invite progressives from all the traditions on this island – socialist, Green, republican, trade unionist, liberals and egalitarians – to contribute the new ideas and strategies that will unite us against the domination of the...
If you want to see email fundraising at its most effective, it’s worth taking a look at how the Democratic Party candidates are using it. Your first step should be to sign up to both Barack and Hilary’s websites. You’ll need a US zip code, but I’m sure you can think of one.
Here’s a great example of good email fundraising from Obama:
What does it do right?
1. Timing - it arrived the day after Super Tuesday
2. Subject line - this is possibly the most important collection of words you will right in an email. Here we have the intriguing ‘Startling News’
3. Clear articulation of need - the Clinton’s have pumped in $5 million of their own money into the campaign so we need your help to keep up.
But there’s still a long way to go before...
We’re going all new media here for the next while, thanks to a day’s inspiration from the Institute of Fundraising’s New Media Conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday (we go so you don’t have to). So to kick off, here’s 5 tips we picked up for better new media fundraising.
1. The best way to use SMS is ‘capture and convert’.
Forget premium services - half the money is going to the network and service providers - and use capture and callback instead. Encourage people to send a text - a message of support, a text petition, whatever - and then call them back and ask them if they’ll consider a gift, or better still a direct debit.
2. Monitor social networks to see what people are saying about you
You may not have a strategy to use youtube, facebook,...
Final 2007 Appeal on Behalf of Ecological Internet
UPDATE: Ecological Internet has raised $61,000 from 185 donors. To fully fund our efforts for the next six months, we still need to raise $14,000 -- http://www.climateark.org/donate/
It is not easy speaking truthfully regarding global eco-crises, proposing necessary and sufficient solutions, and organizing action for their implementation. This is my last 2007 appeal to you to gift Ecological Internet to help us defend the Earth.
Since 1990 I have been pioneering the use of the Internet to facilitate environmental conservation, most recently under the name Ecological Internet. While we have had many firsts on the Internet, this has never been as important as the many, many victories protecting rainforests and raising awareness...
… and two campaigns for Barretstown. Click here if you’d like to make a donation.
The children and teenagers who come to Barretstown are the focus of everything we do. Hospitals treat the illness, we focus on the young person and their family. That’s where the Serious Fun comes in. And I’m sure you’ll agree that Serious Fun needs Serious Funding.
Everyone had big smiles on their faces. We didn’t talk about being sick, we just got on with it and had fun! Barretstown made a big difference to my illness. When I was feeling down it put me right back up. It was really good. It boosted my confidence. And it helped my family stop worrying about me because everything was looked after.
Technorati Tags: barretstown, fundraising, direct marketing...
Two campaigns for Dublin Samaritans. If you’d like to support Dublin Samaritans, please click here.
More than 500 people in Ireland took their lives last year. We don’t know how many of them may have called Samaritans but we do know that for many people just listening helps.
… Many are afraid of being judged, of being told to “pull themselves together”. That’s why they feel safer speaking to someone they don’t know. That’s why they speak to Samaritans.
Technorati Tags: fundraising, samaritans, direct mail, charity...
(If you’d like to donate to Women’s Aid, click here)
In the next few minutes a woman will call our helpline… we don’t know what her story will be, but she will need our help.
Last year we responded to almost 12,000 calls from women who had been beaten, screamed at, kicked, threatened, burned, sexually humiliated, even raped by their own partners.
Technorati Tags: fundraising, womens aid, charity...
Our Christmas campaign for Dublin Simon.
(If you’d like to support Dublin Simon Community, click here.)
Homelessness is hard enough, but for Mark, stuck in a bettered wheelchair and unable to get around as well as everyone else, life’s suddenly become a lot harder. He can’t get upstairs, so most of the shelter beds in Dublin are off-limits to him, and now he’s even more vulnerable than he was before.
Technorati Tags: Dublin Simon, charity, fundraising, direct mail...
Today is the deadline for postaim and marks the end of the busiest couple of months for us at Ask Direct. With a couple of exceptions, all of the Christmas campaigns are now written, designed, printed, packed and posted. Time to catch a breath, and update the blog!
I’ll be posting up some of our campaigns here over the next few days. First, our Christmas appeal for the Irish Hospice Foundation, which recounts the experiences of Deirdre and Colin whose parents both spent their last days under hospice care…
Everyone was wonderful, and if my mother needed anything, like more pain relief, it just happened. She never had to wait or suffer unnecessarily. It gave everyone a feeling of calm and peace, and though it sounds odd, of well being too.
You couldn’t have a better end,...