Keep design simple

My designer friends may not like this, but the most effective design I have seen in charity communications is usually really simple. (There are times when stuff should be graphically designed of course, but for me simple is best).

As a side note, for my tips on developing appeals and design, check out this earlier post on the nine steps to doubling your appeal income.

By simple I mean authentic, real and often not even 'designed'. Take a letter for example. If you want it to 'feel' like a letter, then make any additional pieces feel like they should be there.

The piece below is a brilliant case in point. It was developed by one of our staff at Pareto Fundraising (not a designer), in around 20 minutes. Done in a really sophisticated tool called Microsoft Word.

The client, the Starlight Children's Foundation Australia, had an important message to tell it's donors. The letter didn't hold back, informing supporters that without a significant boost in income, as a result of tough times, Starlight could not grant as many wishes to sick children as it wanted to.

There was a lot of press about this at the same, so the decision was made to highlight this within the appeal, supporting the gravity of the problem as explained in the letter.



The result?

The appeal doubled net income from the previous year and was Starlight's most successful appeal ever.

The pack pulled no punches. It told it as it needed be told.

Oh, and the design was really simple.

Jonathon

One of my favorite donor care letters

This is one of my favorite donor care letters. (This is only the first four paragraph's in a four page letter. You can click on the image to make it larger).



To uncover the power of this piece, see the letter again below, this time with some copy highlighted.



The beauty of this becomes a little clearer. In the first few paragraph's 15 references to Sean, the donor, and the signatory, in this case Lisa, the Fundraising Director.

The letter:

- Is genuine in it's thanks for Sean's support

- It's incredibly personal. As well as the colloquial language, you'll notice the red copy here, which indicates the variable copy, based on Sean's personal information, including how long he has been supporting for

- It tells a story. Lisa tells Sean about an amazing young woman called Anna

- It demonstrates a link between Sean's gift and the difference Sean is making. (The letter goes on to give more tangible examples of how Sean is helping to change lives)

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the organization's name. Deliberately, as it isn't about the organization, it's about Sean and people like Anna. (Although FYI, it's the Children's Cancer Institute of Australia).

Really simple, but very impactful.

Jonathon

Zero based communications planning

Zero based planning and zero based budgeting are hardly new concepts.

Quite simply, it's where you start a new period looking at what you're planning to market to your constituents or how much you're going to spend, from a zero/neutral point. In other words, not looking back and saying, well I sent 8 letters last year so that's what I should do this year.

The reason I love the idea of zero based planning is because it rebuts the comment I hear so regularly "We send that appeal in March, because..... that's when it's always been sent".

The appeal should be sent, when it makes sense to be sent. When it's the right piece to be sent. When you have a need to appeal. When you have a story to tell.

Not because last years plan tells you it needs to drop on March 15th.

Now is the time to practice this approach.

Look at your communications plan and work out how much money you need and what you need to do to get it. From there you can work out how many appeals, donor care letters, monthly conversion requests, phone calls, e-comms, postcards, and other touch point deemed relevant that you need.

Of course you need to balance this with what donors will respond to. And herein lays the beauty of the direct response fundraisers who looks at data to help shape the scope of their program.

Jonathon

Disaster preparedness and conversion

Last week, in the wake of the Haiti tragedy, I talked about how I felt that non emergency charities should continue doing what they were already doing.

I've been chatting to lots of colleagues about charities response to Haiti this week and the message has been the same, speed is key. In other words, getting to donors, prospects, the general public quickly is critical to maximizing support.

The same applies in the wash up from disasters, of which Haiti is no exception.

We just finished some testing for one of our Canadian clients at Pareto Fundraising. We tested different approaches to disaster donors, trying to determine the optimum way to get a 2nd gift, ideally a monthly gift.

The upshot was, the sooner we get back to people the more likely they are to commit to a subsequent gift. Hardly surprising, but the difference was significant. We were twice as likely to get someone to commence a monthly gift whose first gift was within the last 12 months, versus someone whose gift was within the previous 24 months. In fact if we got back within 12 months we could breakeven well inside a year.

The point is however we should be testing number of weeks after first gift to convert, not years. Fortunately for this client, we have developed a control pack that can be sent to disaster donors, including Haiti supporters, weeks after their first commitment. And that's when you start to see this program maximize its impact.

Being prepared, ready to go to supporters within weeks is absolutely crucial to conversion efforts. And disasters happen, so there is no excuse for not having conversion plans.

I was going to write some more on post disaster follow up, but my colleague Sean Triner has written a great piece called Cashing in on disaster donors that is worth a few minutes of your time to read.

Jonathon