The importance of good writing

I have been asked to blog about a new post at Pareto Fundraising, to try and get the word out that we are recruiting, and hopefully interest you. But I also want to make my blog useful to people who may not be interested in applying, so here is my cheeky "not just a blatant ad blog."

Inspired by Anne Holland's Which Test Won I thought it would be useful to show you a standard ad and compare it with a much more thought through ad - using fundraising copy techniques such as being personal, inviting, easier to read and more interesting.

Unlike Which Test Won, I can't give you a definitive answer on the more successful one since we are just running the second one. Your feedback still welcome though!

AD One
HEAD OF CLIENT SERVICE

We are an award winning data-led fundraising and communications agency dedicated to the not-for-profit
sector. Exciting growth and continuous success with our clients has resulted in us creating this new senior management role.

Is it the right job for you?

Reporting to the CEO, you will:

• Have the opportunity to manage the teams that are growing income and strengthening supporter relationships for many of the world’s best-run causes
• Help to ensure that we’re always giving our best and only accepting startlingly good results
• Spend valuable time with our charity clients, ensuring that we truly understand their needs and how best we can meet them
• Be rewarded well, materially and emotionally.

Are you just right for it?

You will need to be a senior fundraising professional with ten years relevant experience, a proven track record in directing and inspiring a diverse range of staff, the skill to negotiate and influence at all levels, and the ability to be the new fundraising face of our innovative and groundbreaking company.

Our staff are some of the most talented, committed and hardest-working people you’ll find anywhere. They all get a kick out of getting great results for great causes, because Pareto Fundraising’s mission is nothing less than to change the world.

To apply, email your cover letter addressing the selection criteria and your CV as well as an application coversheet to hcs@paretofundraising.com.

Go to www.paretofundraising.com/join-our-team for the selection criteria, application coversheet and job description.

Applications close Friday 18th June 2010.

Ad2

HEAD OF CLIENT SERVICE

• Senior role in international Fundraising and Communications Agency
• High profile not-for-profit clients
• Sydney Central location
• Six figure salary

I need your help.

I need to find the right person for a new and critical role within Pareto Fundraising.

It’s a role that will ensure we do the very best for our clients and will drive great fundraising results for some of the most important charities in Australia and New Zealand for years to come.

If you are a senior fundraising professional keen on furthering your career in fundraising and direct marketing, challenging the status quo, and most importantly making a real difference to the world – then come and meet me. If this role isn’t for you – but you know who it’s for – have them meet me.

We are a team of dedicated professionals working together to help charities achieve outstanding results from their fundraising. I’m proud that our help has enabled these charities to raise record-breaking amounts for their beneficiaries. Now, following our growth and success, we need an expert fundraiser who is also a brilliant manager to help us lift our service level yet again.

This is a very senior role in Pareto Fundraising, reporting to me and managing the entire client service team. You will inspire great people to achieve their best ever work for wonderful causes and you will help charities across Australia and New Zealand.

It is a brilliant job. But it is challenging. To do such a big job you need to be mentally tough, analytical and have a great business brain, but also be outstanding with people. You’ll need an extensive track record in marketing and managing at a senior level (agency or charity) and, of course, you will also know fundraising intimately – especially direct marketing.

Your staff at Pareto Fundraising are some of the most talented, committed and hardest-working people you’ll find anywhere. They all get a kick out of getting great results for great causes, because Pareto Fundraising’s mission is nothing less than to change the world. Now they need your help to realise their full potential.

Yours

Jim Hungerford, CEO

PS. Applications close on Friday 18th June 2010. Please email me at hcs@paretofundraising.com with an application cover sheet, your  résumé and a letter addressing the selection criteria (go to www.paretofundraising.com/join-our-team for the selection criteria and cover sheet).

Comments welcome!

Sean

Allowing donors to donate the way they want to - priceless!

I have an annual budget I like to donate and I want it to all be on my AMEX card. It makes my tax return much easier. So I asked Everyday Hero if I could make my birthday donation by AMEX. Their initial reaction was ‘no', and they explained most of their charities didn't accept AMEX, it was more expensive than alternatives, and all AMEX card holders had other cards.

I then asked Marie Stopes if they would accept the donation direct on my AMEX. Same answer - which got me thinking. Refusing a relatively popular method of payment is not really putting the donor first.

Both parties saw the light after some quick dialogue. (To be fair, Everyday Hero was already in the process of sorting it out - but maybe I can take some credit for speeding it along!)

From the donor's point of view

I persuaded Everyday Hero and Marie Stopes by approaching the issue from a donor's point of view. Let's take a sample donor, ‘Sean'. Sean is forty years and one month old, a NIKE (no interest in kids, ever) earns about $100,000 per annum, is on the board of a charity and was recently appointed patron of another.

He aims to give 10% of his income away. He likes to keep all his donations on one card to make filing a tax return easier. As he flies a lot, that one card is AMEX (so he can bag free flights). With so many great charities to choose from, whether or not a charity accepts AMEX is often a crude technique which ‘narrows the field'.

Three reasons why charities don't want to accept AMEX

1. AMEX usually charges more than its rivals for the merchant fee, which can reduce the value of the donation by up to 3%.

2. AMEX card holders have back up cards they can use, such as Visa and MasterCard.

3. Someone at your organisation has to get around to facilitating AMEX transactions, and there are other priorities. Charities are often understaffed, and this seems a lot of effort for small return.

However.

Ten (seven more than three) reasons why charities should accept AMEX

1. AMEX donors give up to 50% more than non AMEX donors*. This negates the first reason why charities may not want to accept AMEX.

2. AMEX donors who give the same as non AMEX donors are identifying themselves as higher value prospects*. Accepting Visa instead of AMEX removes the ‘rich prospect' flag from your database.

3. Many AMEX charge cards have no credit limits, which reduces bounces.

4. AMEX regular givers give slightly higher monthly donations on regular gift programs but have a significantly higher retention rate*.

5. Richer people - i.e. best donor prospects - tend to have AMEX cards.

6. AMEX holders pay for their cards, so they want to use them. They self-justify with great insurance, a free return flight, frequent flyer points, free lounge access etc, but some of them are just poor people made good who can't accept they actually qualify for one.

7. Explaining why you accept AMEX is a useful example for customer focused training putting donors ahead of admin.

8. AMEX donors like to keep donations on one card as it is easier for tax returns.

9. AMEX donors may say that it is fine when you ask for Visa instead, but you are creating a barrier. They wouldn't have offered AMEX first if they wanted the donation on a different card.

10. You need to think about donors first!

*AMEX's own research backs this up here, but below is a table from Pareto's research, looking at appeal type gifts for one charity with a large enough sample set:

Diners should be accepted too, for the same reasons.

The point here is not that you should necessarily accept AMEX (and I assure you, they are not paying me to write this article!). The point is that a tiny decision, such as whether or not to accept AMEX, says a lot about how an organisation values a donor-centric model.

Staff from Marie Stopes told me they will be able to accept AMEX soon, which is great - it gives me time to save the unexpected higher sum of $5,000 I have to match.

Put donors first.

[Every month I write a column 'The Agitator' for Fundraising and Philanthropy magazine and this post is my most recent entry!]

Fundraising debate is a fundraiser itself

I am enjoying myself in 'Sunny Nelson' at the FINZ  fundraising conference in New Zealand.  Last night we had welcome drinks and I hosted a 'Pareto hot potato debate' on the subject of online social media.  The motion was “Investment of time or money in [online] social media is a distraction for fundraisers”. 

A bit of fun was had, along with a 'worm' giving instant feedback as people voted (and changed their votes) on the fly.  But we tried a unique voting system based entirely on 'bribes'.  The two sides had Dianne Armstrong (Arthritis NZ) and Errol Pike (Bible Soc) arguing against the motion and Steve Bramley (SGL Group) and Brendon Veale (Wellington Zoo) arguing for it.

To 'vote' people had to put money into buckets, and the bucket with the most money would win - and would get a bonus of extra cash.  The prize money would go to a nominated charity (Wellington Zoo or Arthritis).

The arguments were interesting, and fun - pretty mean about each other too (Kiwis have a very thick skin, it would appear) but boiled down to:

For motion:

•             Online giving  is still tiny compared to offline (3% v 97% according to Brendon, with no quote for his source but it is comparable to what Pareto Benchmarking finds).

•             Online social media-ites are the wrong audience

•             Online social media is not really building real relationships

 Against motion

•             It is huge and 'I want a slice'

•             It is the fastest growing method of fundraising

•             We have brought a dog who will get you with his tail if you don't vote for us (they really did bring a cute guide dog training puppy)

So, not a lot of substance in the arguments - but more important was the fact that it was fun - and a very interesting fundraiser.  You see, the votes were really, really close - there was just $9 difference which allowed me to get another $50 in donations by asking for extra, but not telling people which charity was leading.  In the end we raised about $580 - not bad from 80 fundraisers just throwing in a bit of cash.  And there is something liberating and motivating about good old fashioned fundraising, face to face!

(Oh dear, I am beginning to  sound like an events fundraiser again).

Sean

Don't We On Your Copy

When it comes to making direct mail work, you need to get all your tactics right - targeting, segmentation, creative concepts, lifts etc. But all of that adds up to nothing when writing poor copy.

Direct mail is still all about letters, and people write letters not organisations.

A really useful tip for when you are writing a letter is always, always write it in the first person.

Compare this excerpt:

"... is working to help people in Zimbabwe.   People like Grace.


Grace is a 30 year old mother of five.  Like many mothers in Zimbabwe she is single, having lost her husband to AIDS three years ago.  Her five surviving children..."

With this one:

"... is working to help people in Zimbabwe.   People like Grace.  Last year, I visited the project in Zimbabwe, and met with Grace in the Community Hall.  At the time I was pregnant myself and as I looked around I realised how lucky I was.


You see, Grace is a 30 year old mother of five.  Like many mothers in Zimbabwe she is single, having lost her husband to AIDS three years ago.  Her five surviving children..."

Much nicer copy, much more involving, believable and just better fundraising.  And in terms of tactics:

"We need to raise $500,000 by June 30.  Please donate by filling in..."

Loses out to:

"I have a target of $500,000 that I need to raise, by June 30.  Please join me and donate by filling in..."


It is important that everything is true of course, you shouldn't just make up stuff - if the signatory wasn't there that is a no-no.  With most of the charities I work with we always try to get the signatory to speak with the 'beneficiary' (the featured person in the story) and then interview the signatory.

You should also have lots of 'yous' in your copy too.  "Imagine how you would feel...", "thank you for your support...", "the impact you could have..." etc.

This isn't news of course - it is well established 'good copy' but the reason I am blogging it now is because of the number of appeals I am receiving where the staff or copywriter clearly haven't read about it before, or still don't believe it, or maybe their bosses don't like it.

There are tons of great websites and books helping on this kind of thing, but I recommend for great copy you should look at Mal Warwick's "How to Write Successful Fundraising Letters" - Rule 1 of his 'Cardinal Rules of Fundraising" (chapter 8) is:



"Rule 1: Use 'l', and 'you' (But Mostly you)
'You' should be the word you use most frequently in your fundraising letters. Your appeal is a letter from one individual to another individual, not a press release, a position paper, or a brochure.


"Studies on readability supply the fundamental reason the words 'You' and 'I' are important: they provide human interest..the most powerful way to engage the reader is by appealing directly to her: use the word 'you'"


My North American based colleague, Jonathon Grapsas offers some more quick tips for good copy here.

Give a little...

In Australia, our tax year ends on 30 June. Because donations are tax deductible, all the charities go out with appeals at this time of year.

Looking at benchmarking datat, we see that there are nearly three times as many donors over $1000 in June, compared to any other month. They also give nearly four times as much away in that month.

This begs two questions - why and so what should I do about it?

The 'why' is hard. At this time of year, wealthier people are much, much more likely to be asked. Some charities only ask certain donors at this time of the year.

Appeals go out, because more people give in June than any other month and more people give at this time of the month because more appeals go out, so we have a self-fulfilling loop.

The fact that it is the end of the tax year will also influence people. I know of some, wealthier donors, that give little bits but then at the end of the financial year, they assess their income and decide how much to give when they see their tax liabilities.

But so what? Making sure you present your case for these people makes sense, so I would not suggest not running a 'tax' campaign, but I do suggest not using tax as your proposition. Make sure you still get your proposition right - it is still about the work you do.

The benefit you are 'selling' to your donors is their donations impact on beneficiaries - it is not the tax deduction.

Also do note, that 75% of gifts are not made in June - don't concentrate just on that month.

Looking at motivations, James Briggs recently blogged about how, after forcing people to give (he gave them money to give away), he found that they gave to different charities than their usual ones. Check out his 'enforced giving' blog here.

Maybe that is because the usual catalyst - receiving an ask - was not there, and people had think differently who to give to. To see this theory in action - do this exercise right now:

* Give $100 away. Right now, you are online - get out your credit card and do it.

See how it makes you think differently?

Over to you to work out how to apply that learning to your next appeal.

Sean

Climate change skepticism

Climate change scares me. The thing that scares me most, after climate change, is the terrifying willingness of the media and the public to not believe that humans are causing this problem.

I have started reading a load of climate change skeptic material - ordered a load of books, and reading some blogs (and tracing back to peer-reviewed references, of course).

Starting off with a quick Google of climate change, and the following a couple of links...

In one corner we have people trying to warn us that civilization, as we know it, is doomed unless we make some changes. The plus side of those changes is saving this version of society and tons of flora and fauna. The downside is economical cost, which is likely to be less than that of the recent global financial crisis. Although that was (is) painful for many, it is not as bad as the alternative - and the planet will just carry on.

These people are incredibly passionate about informing the public and policy makers to save the world as we know it. They have websites which are part of the 'establishment' Universities and government departments etc, or contribute to sites like Climate Change Australia "...devoted to the discussion and analysis of issues surrounding climate change."

Whether you agree with them or not, it is easy to see why they are trying to warn us. (No, not to keep jobs - these are perfectly employable people without a climate change gravy train).

In the other corner we have the climate change skeptics. These either deny climate change is happening, or deny that it is our fault.

They are incredibly passionate and articulate as well, (though an interesting difference in the style and tone of their language, see if you notice).

But why are they so passionate about discrediting those worried about climate change? Here is Climategate.com's mission: "...help you in your battle against the Religion of Settled Science to dispute their views on Anthropogenic Global Warming, and in addition, to battle the one-world socialist agenda, which is the movement’s leaders’ real goal."

Eh?

Climate Change Fraud (CCF) ".. is dedicated to debunking, reviewing, and responding to the shrill cries of the media and the global warming zealots who have embraced anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as an eco-religion and not as a scientific endeavor for answers..."

Oh! I see. Now that is clear.

Finally, lets have a look at the 'shrill' cries from those champions of eco-religious, one world socialism global warming zealots, Greenpeace. Their (Aussie) reason for campaigning about climate change:

"The world faces a climate emergency. Australia and the Pacific are at the frontline.

We’re suffering worse bushfires, flash floods and a drought that never seems to end. These are all signs that we’re reaching a tipping point to a climate catastrophe.

It’s clear that ‘business as usual’ is not an option."

Scary, but not exactly shrill.

To recap: In one corner, a bunch of people who want to save the world. In the other, a bunch of people who want to stop us listening to a bunch of people who want to save the world.

Finally, if you haven't already, try reading the book What's the worst that could happen? by Greg Craven. His argument is less about who is right, but more about how to analyse and make a decision 'on balance'.

I'll let you know how I get on with my more thorough research of both sides of the argument. And I want to read more on geo-engineering; anyone point me in the right direction?

Does offsetting work?

I just took the 350 Challenge, which adds a nice green badge to this blog. Also Brighter Planet will buy some carbon offsets.

Is carbon offsetting any use, really?

Professor Barry Brook thinks so, since I got the link for the badge off his website.

Cheat Neutral don't think so. Their brilliant parody - you can cheat on your husband, just offset it - along with a trusted mentor of mine have challenged my thinking. What do you think?

(Oh, and if you haven't heard of Cheat Neutral - go for it!)