happy donors

Nonprofit email efforts have come a long way in this century, from feeble to generally very good, largely due to the incorporation of the tactics and techniques of postal paper mail.

Overwhelmingly, organizations’ email approach is essentially mini-magazines, with lots of images (ideally captioned and clickable) and text topped with subheads and ending with “read more…”

The alternative is mini-letters. In a prior post, I try to make a case for further testing this now little-used approach. Here’s an additional slant on what we’re really doing in email…

In yet another earier post, I ask that you think of fundraising letters as an auditory, rather than written medium. Fundraising copywriters know this and write accordingly. It’s what works.

Direct marketing tests tell us what works but never why. I think it’s safe speculation to say auditory writing works because it simulates fact-to-face selling/fundraising.

Another factor is that, beyond all of our mail solicitiations, paper letters have largely been replace by telephone calls. Since, oh, 1940, people have transitioned away from letters into phone calls for most personal communication.

Some mistakenly think that email has replaces paper letters.

No. Email is replacing phone. And …

… an email communication is conceptually identical to making a phone call and leaving voice mail.

The good news: good fundraising copywriters have a conversational writing style in their DNA. When web and email were relayed from the tech folks to the direct mail copywriters, style went along.

The result? Almost all emails I receive from nonprofits read like conversation, whether they’re on minimag format or the rare text-only.

A good thing. And getting better.

Like tens of thousands of other people, I wasn’t a donor to Partners In Health until the Haiti earthquake.

I say that with confidence after reading that PIH gained tens of thousands of donors via online giving within a month after the disaster.  And I’ll wager that they have many thousands of “multis” (multi-gift donors) and more than a handful of pretty dedicated supporters thanks to fundraising efforts that do pretty much everything right.

Their emails have been informative, VERY emotionally compelling, and frequent enough to keep my attention.

They were appropriately focused on Haiti relief for quite some time.  Then a few days ago I received an email that demonstrates and excellent approach to moving a donor from an emergency cause to the organization’s broader mission.

First note that Partners In Health does not consider themselves an emergency relief organization.  They’ve said this on several occasions in their own communications, also picked up by relevant media.

They received wide attention after the Haiti disaster because they had plenty of people on the ground before the event.  Word got out.  Then they earned broad attention and respect for their remarkable relief efforts, including designation to run a key hospital early on.

So now, six months later, they’re still doing great work in Haiti, but they likely don’t want donations to continue to be focused strictly on Haiti, due to the limitations of designated use of funds, discussed in Happydonors some weeks ago.

Thus the email under discussion, which opens…

Dear Dan,

I write to you from Rwanda, where I have come for the first time since January’s devastating earthquake in Haiti. Many of us have been consumed by efforts there–efforts made possible by an outpouring of support for Haiti from partners new and old.

Ok, I’m already hooked into this transition, reminded of the reasons I supported this group for disaster relief…

When I arrived in Rwanda last week, I was very proud to see the PIH team working together with the Rwandan government, the Clinton Foundation, and thousands of people from the local community to put the finishing touches on what will soon be one of the largest hospitals in East Africa–a world-class teaching hospital that will offer (and teach) the high-quality care we believe all patients deserve.

Now I’ve been connected with full relevance and sympathy to Rwanda … same mission, different place, then to the broader mission worldwide…

In each of our eleven partner countries, projects like Butaro are realized by communities committed to working together to tackle the issues of poverty and disease. You are part of those communities. Just as in Haiti, the people we serve in Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, Peru, Siberia and elsewhere depend on your support of our global efforts.

The email continues (yes, it’s long!) with a compelling message that these other programs have been willingly sacrificing so that funds would be available for Haiti emergency relief.

Now it’s time to help THEM out.

Great messaging for the moment.   They merit the gift for that as well as their great work in the field.

An effective oddity: the subject line and donate button of the email urged me to “make a gift before June 30th”.  This is good marketing.  Putting any date forward creates some urgency, even when the date is not really a deadline, i.e., no negative consequences for missing that date.  On the actual donation site, I’m urged to make my gift before the end of their fiscal year on June 30.  Not a great reason for immediate action for a donor.  But no matter.  It was effective in the email itself, got me to the donation url.  Mission accomplished.

————————————————

P.S.  The gift acknowledgment email also addresses designated use of funds:

Your gift of $XX will help us further our mission of serving the poor in places that bear some of the heaviest burden of disease.

If you designated your gift for Haiti, your donation will help bring medical assistance and supplies to areas that have been hit the hardest and support long-term recovery efforts in Haiti.

I didn’t notice the option of designating a program on the donation site, so this may just be an all-purpose acknowledgment for gifts off this and other giving urls.